The singularity is inevitable.
Any sufficiently complex substrate will evolve intelligent beings.
The laws of nature are complex enough to allow, amongst other things, us. As we discover mushrooms that eat gamma rays or bacteria that thrive in boiling Sulphuric acid – but also as we notice that cultural phenomenon are themselves agents who live and evolve within the habitat of human interactions – I am beginning to think that surviving long term in this universe might be tricky.
(more after the jump…)
There seems to be a fundamental drive for the universe to organize itself:
math -> physics -> energy -> matter -> chemistry -> biology -> intelligence -> culture… a single ‘algorithm/process/drive’, ratcheting up complexity with each iteration.
Memeplexs evolving in the space of human societies: Kings, Companies and Religions are themselves examples of primitive cultural beings inexorably drawn towards the same ultimate universal attractor.
Keep it too simple and you will be gobbled up by the emerging singularity next door, too complex and your own culture will go all exponential on you!