Ray Kurzweil is a technological optimist who believes passionately in the power of technology to improve humanity.

The recipient of the National Medal of Technology, he is also one of America's most recognized inventors, with the music synthesizer, the CCD flatbed scanner and speech recognition software all to his credit. His 1999 book The Age of Spiritual Machines, in which he discussed the day when computers would surpass human intelligence, was a national best-seller.

He is also the co-author of Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever, a manifesto to good health so that those of us alive now can still be alive in a few decades, when computer intelligence and nanotechnology will cure us of the one ailment to which we all eventually succumb: death.

Now Kurzweil is back with an even broader vision of the future in his new book, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. A continuation of the themes of his previous books, Singularity describes the time when human intelligence will transcend the need for the biological bodies that contain it.

What exactly does Kurzweil mean by this "singularity," and when will it occur?

A singularity is an event beyond which everything has changed. In this case, Kurzweil's singularity is the point when vastly superior machine (or "nonbiological") intelligence merges with and dramatically enhances human intelligence. This will in turn enable the development of even greater technological progress.

He illustrates it this way: "What would 1,000 scientists, each 1,000 times more intelligent than human scientists today, and each operating 1,000 times faster than contemporary humans, accomplish? When scientists become a million times more intelligent and operate a million times faster, an hour would result in a century of progress."

The singularity, he says, will occur around 2045. At that time, "the nonbiological intelligence created in that year will be one billion times more powerful than all human intelligence today."

Humans will suddenly find themselves in the presence of intelligence much more powerful than their own. Instead of being our competitors, however, Kurzweil envisions collaboration between humans and nonbiological intelligence, to the point where the two intelligences become indistinguishable.

At that point, because of a combination of genetics, nanotechnology and robotics (or "GNR"), humans will have the power to defeat death.

Human and machine intelligence together will make such tremendous advancements in GNR that we will be able to continually regenerate our aging bodies, creating billions of nano-scale robots to monitor and reconstruct old and damaged cells.

In time, Kurzweil predicts, we will transcend the need for biological bodies altogether, because human and machine intelligence will learn to use the energy available in any sort of matter (even rocks) to contain our minds.

As our minds spread from biological bodies to all kinds of matter, the entire universe will become one great intelligence (or one great computer, depending on your point of view).

Kurzweil's faith in our eventual transcendence of biology rests on his belief in "the law of accelerating returns," which maintains that any quickening of the pace of technological development results in even more rapid progress in an ongoing cycle.

But this is where Kurzweil's book, and his overall vision of the future, is unbalanced. His faith in the law of accelerating returns prevents him from considering another important principle of technological progress: the law of unintended consequences.

To ponder just one example: If tiny machines placed in our bodies are capable of rebuilding cells and allowing us to live forever, couldn't this same technology be engineered differently and used as a weapon?

Kurzweil acknowledges this, but only briefly. He believes the benefits of technological advancement will always outweigh the dangers.

Yet the law of unintended consequences maintains that for every intended technological advancement, there is at least one unintended, and often negative, consequence.

These may lead to more advancements, but also to more unintended consequences. (Consider the invention of e-mail, and the subsequent appearance of spam.)

We ignore the inevitability of unintended consequences at our peril.

For all his seemingly wild prognosticating, Kurzweil is a visionary futurist with unquestionable credibility. His 1990 book The Age of Intelligent Machines correctly predicted the rise of the World Wide Web, and also that a computer would defeat a world chess champion.

But those predictions pale in comparison to the claims made in Singularity.

What person, even those of us who believe passionately in the ability of technology to better humanity, doesn't shudder at the idea of existing for eternity as a disembodied mind?

What would become of our humanity if it were disengaged from those bodily sensations that give us so much pleasure, pain and everything in between? Mimicking those sensations with virtual reality, which is Kurzweil's proposed substitute, is not a comforting alternative.

Kurzweil's view of the future, as with that of any visionary, requires as much faith as it does reason. His many followers, already convinced, will be thrilled with this new offering.

But here's a warning to the unconvinced or casual reader: The book contains numerous supplemental charts, graphs and equations. It will prove tough going if you aren't already committed to the author's vision.

Nevertheless, for readers who are curious to learn what a leading inventor and futurist predicts we will soon become, The Singularity is Near prophesies a dizzying future for our post-biological existence.

It may be one of the most talked-about scientific books of the year.

Steve Ruskin has a Ph.D. in science and technology studies. He lives in Colorado Springs.

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