The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology

Of course, despite all this activity at the atomic level, the rock is not performing any useful work aside from perhaps acting as a paperweight or a decoration. The reason for this is that the structure of atoms in the rock is for the most part effectively random. If, on the other hand, we organize the particles in a more purposeful manner, we could have a cool, zero-energy-consuming computer with a memory of about a thousand trillion trillion bits and a processing capacity of 10^42 operations per second, which is about ten trillion times more powerful than all human brains on Earth, even if we use most conservative (highest) estimate of 10^19 cps.

To appreciate the feasibility of computing with no energy and no heat, consider the computational that takes place in an ordinary rock. Although it may appear that nothing much is going on inside a rock, the approximately 10^25 (ten trillion trillion) atoms is a kilogram of matter are actually extremely active. Despite the apparent solidity of the object, the atoms are all in motion, sharing electrons back and forth, changing particle spins, and generating rapidly moving electromagnetic fields. All of this activity represents computation, even if not very meaningful organized.