Microsoft Word Kurzweil, Ray The Singularity Is Near doc

Why Intelligence Is More Powerful than Physics.
There is another reason to apply an anthropic principle. It may 
seem remarkably unlikely that our planet is in the lead in terms of technological development, but as I pointed out 
above, by a weak anthropic principle, if we had not evolved, we would not be here discussing this issue. 
As intelligence saturates the matter and energy available to it, it turns dumb matter into smart matter. Although 
smart matter still nominally follows the laws of physics, it is so extraordinarily intelligent that it can harness the most 
subtle aspects of the laws to manipulate matter and energy to its will. So it would at least appear that intelligence is 
more powerful than physics. What I should say is that intelligence is more powerful than cosmology. That is, once 
matter evolves into smart matter (matter fully saturated with intelligent processes), it can manipulate other matter and 
energy to do its bidding (through suitably powerful engineering). This perspective is not generally considered in 

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discussions of future cosmology. It is assumed that intelligence is irrelevant to events and processes on a cosmological 
scale. 
Once a planet yields a technology-creating species and that species creates computation (as has happened here), it 
is only a matter of a few centuries before its intelligence saturates the matter and energy in its vicinity, and it begins to 
expand outward at at least the speed of light (with some suggestions of circumventing this limit). Such a civilization 
will then overcome gravity (through exquisite and vast technology) and other cosmological forces—or, to be fully 
accurate, it will maneuver and control these forces—and engineer the universe it wants. This is the goal of the 
Singularity. 
A Universe-Scale Computer.
How long will it take for our civilization to saturate the universe with our vastly 
expanded intelligence? Seth Lloyd estimates there are about 10
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