The paradox that immediately bothers everyone who learns about the second law is this: If systems tend to become more disordered, why, then, do we se… - J. Doyne Farmer

It seemed that fundamental physics was stuck. The particle physicists were smashing particles into each other with ever increasing force, trying to figure out how many quarks could dance on the head of a pin. The cosmologists were working with very few facts... on what seemed to me to be mainly religious grounds. And most of physics was still focused on pushing and pulling, on the material properties... rather than on its informational properties. ...those that relate to order and disorder.

Rational adventure in a physical setting is becoming increasingly rarer in the world. The evolution of technology and infrastructure has altered the kind of adventures that we can have, so that people with adventurous spirits either take on risk for its own sake, or they embark on rational adventures in the mental domain.

Once we can manipulate our genome, Lamarckian fashion, the rate of change will be staggering.