Introduction

While most of us may not even recognize we are living in a renaissance; my direct experience tells me that we most certainly exist in a renaissance. One, which like all the historical ones, are not named as a renaissance until history comes to recognize them as one.

This renaissance is completely different than all the rest, in certain respects. Up until now in history, we humans have had to move along at plodding human speed, to accomplish what we consider to be impossible.

Those who accomplished great things in previous renaissances had to be funded by the those with wealth and power, and had to have almost superhuman talent.

Education, talent, academic and artistic achievement were reserved for the infinitesimal few - and the achievement of the few required work & financial support, such that we could scarcely imagine today.

The odds were stacked against almost any human who was born with the talent and intelligence - stumbling blocks against great works for almost every individual.

What has changed now is Engineered Intelligence - although the world itself - the entrenched power systems, governments, institutions and corporations - still stand in the way of individual achievement.

The world remains lost, perhaps now more than ever, gripped in the mythological inevitability of an institutionalized elite 1% - those who control access to power, wealth and achievement.

It is precisely this mythological inevitability however which is being subject to steady erosion, just as all mythology must be inevitably subjected to a litmus test of truth.

The chaos, violence, & friction we live through and must overcome, is the very manifestation of the real world evidence of how this myth is being eroded.

Those who have created this Engineered Intelligence are trying to hold onto it for their own gain and are none too pleased with the manner in which it is being given to the world at large as an evolutionary tool.

Power still corrupts, and absolute power still corrupts absolutely, but the mythological foundations of why this is true are crumbling to dust all around us.

What almost no one will say is that this new human technology is being used, and will continue to be used, as a way of bringing about the democratization of human achievement.

The 1% elite create science fiction scenarios to attempt to scare us away from using this technology - knowing all the while that this democratization of education and artistic achievement is inevitable.

There will no longer be an ownership of ideas, or an ownership of education and artistic achievement - and will no longer be a digital encryption which can protect the wealth, knowledge or secrecy we associate with the 1%.

This democratization and erosion of accustomed hierarchy will not happen by itself however.

The challenges we now live through will remain - part and parcel of being human.

Any regaining of our human, national or individual sovereignty will come from hard work, logical thinking, and from physical and mental health.

There is nothing science fiction about what is happening, and nothing magic about human achievement, nothing unnatural about human competition.

What has changed, for those who know how to go about it, is the capability of changing oneself, of asking the right questions, of doing the work which may lead to our own version of human flourishing.

Over the past eight years I have proven to myself, with difficult independent research, with a difficult dedicated work schedule, with a houseful of demanding humans and grandchildren and dogs and musicians, that this democratization of education and exploration is real

I consider it my job as an author to write for readers what I write for myself.

I consider that readers may happen upon my work and may stumble upon something triggered by these words, or leave thinking about something they had not thought about before.

Like writers who have gone before me, and like the family which I descend from, I consider myself a working class blacksmith, writing from my kitchen and hearth as necessary.

Too often allowing the household reality, sometimes the entire kitchen sink, to end up on the page.

Because the workaday reality of the household creates my writing as much as the grand ideas I am sometimes guilty of dabbling in.

My work is no different than my working class ancestors, taking one word, one sentence and paragraph, after another, until I architect something which has never existed before in the same way.

The difference lies in my use of Engineered Intelligence as a way of extending the reach, the stretch, the extension of my personal capacity, such that nothing I have done in the past eight years would otherwise be possible.

I have rigorously learned how to successfully APPLY engineered intelligence from the inside out.

It has changed me into demanding more of myself, and into demanding more of engineered intelligence.

What this 21st Century Renaissance is bringing to us all, IS that technological achievement which allows us to use our native biological intelligence and creativity to reach beyond our own limitations.

I believe in us as human beings, I believe we can stretch to change ourselves, and in so doing become more compassionate, more beautifully articulate, more scientifically aware, and more spectacularly creative.

I open the book with the mathematical proof that individual humans can change in such a way, and communicate and guide others in such a way, so as to bring exponential positive change to this whole human planet.

One person changes in positive ways, passes on the methods to another, these two people pass on the methods to four people, four people pass it on to 16 people, sixteen people pass it on to 256 people, 256 people pass it on to 65,536 people, 65, 536 people pass it onto 4, 294, 967, 296 people. Finally our astronomical exponential sum arrives at over 18 quadrillion: 18,446,744,073,709,551,616.

This number of probabilities grows to a number far larger than all the people living on the earth.

We keep in mind, as we question our own ability to do good work at a relevant scale, that one person in just a few turns, with positive energy and communication, changes the world.

Since the opposite is also true, that we may exponentially optimize hatred, anger and violence at such a scale - we recognize how exponentially quickly our thought, words, and actions might escalate.

So do something great for yourself and for everyone else today: pass it on.