Shall we ever be prepared to die? Kurzweil upends the question

The Buddhists say that when we awake each day we should be prepared to die. Ray Kurzweil has other ideas.

During a recent interview in his company offices, Kurzweil sipped green tea and spoke of humanity's coming immortality as if it's as good as done. He sees human intelligence not only conquering its biological limits, including death, but completely mastering the natural world.

"In my view, we are not another animal, subject to nature's whim," he said.

Is this a fatal conceit?