I am more optimistic than you are about science achieving the sort of progress I called for, in time to be relevant. For one thing, this is largely about basic concepts. One or two reconceptualizations, as big as what relativity did to time, and the topic of consciousness will look completely different. That conceptual progress is a matter of someone achieving the right insights and communicating them. (Evidently my little essay on quantum monadology isn't the turning point, or my LW karma wouldn't be sinking the way it is...) The interactions between progress in neuroscience, classical computing, quantum computing, and programming are complicated, but when it comes to solving the ontological problem of consciousness in time for the Singularity, I'd say the main factor is the rate of conceptual progress regarding consciousness, and that's internal to the field of consciousness studies.