When I wake up in the morning and I hear Ender crying or whining I'm a bit annoyed that I'm now completely responsible for him until my wife wakes up. I credit being groggy with sleep for this emotion because it is out of character for me. Once I walk into his room a miraculous transformation occurs. He immediately stops fussing and smiles the most incredible smile at me. Suddenly I feel privileged to be responsible for him. I'm now awake, happy, and ready to start my day.

Ender is just a few days over 4 months old. As he stared up at me while sucking down yet another bottle this morning I thought 'this is probably as close to being a god as I'll ever come'. At the same time I felt utterly insignificant. I had helped to create a new life--something that has been aptly referred to as the 'Miracle of Life'-- yet I am well aware that this "miracle" has occurred at least 7-10 billion times in the history of the world. That makes it hardly a rare occurrence but it doesn't make it any less a miracle somehow.

In the book 'The Age of Intelligent Machines' Ray Kurzweil argues that humans build upon their technological developments and this causes the technological developments to increase in frequency. He argues that within my lifetime computers will exist that exceed the storage capacity of the human brain and which will also exceed the computational power of the human brain. That doesn't mean that a smart machine is anywhere on the horizon in my opinion (though Ray Kurzweil disagrees). Ender was born as an essentially unfinished fetus with a brain that was a blank slate. For three months he finished developing while outside the womb and NOW he is starting to become a human. I see the scientific process at work in his brain before he even knows what science is. Observe, create a theory, experiment, review, integrate results into next experiment, form new theory, repeat. He is creating a framework from which to hang his personality on. He is learning how to learn. Think about that for a few seconds. It is a chicken/egg conundrum yet he doesn't let that bother him in the least. Simple tasks such as watching my wife drink from a glass are revelations to him. From that single observation he is learning about fluid dynamics, gravity, muscle control, biology, leverage and who-knows-what-else. It is really amazing to see how a human brain learns how to learn. When a computer finally learns how to learn, beware -- Terminator 4(5?) can't be far off in the future.