Commentary: Living forever

Praised as the Thomas Edison of the 21st century, Ray Kurzweil was selected as one of "16 revolutionaries who made America," along with the great inventors of the past two centuries. Forbes magazine called him "the ultimate thinking machine" and The Wall Street Journal dubbed him "the restless genius." Kurzweil is in the National Inventors Hall of Fame, With 12 honorary doctorates and the world's largest prize for innovation - the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT award. Kurzweil, now 57, published what is arguably the most blogged-about book of 2005, a 640-page blockbuster: "The Singularity Is Near," a road map to "a unique event with singular implications," or some form of immortality for those younger than 50 today. Kurzweil's latest futuristic tome is the sequel to his last bestseller, "The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence," which posited that the ever-accelerating rate of technological change would lead to computers that would rival the full range of human intelligence.