Mind, through the long course of biological evolution, has established itself as a moving force in our little corner of the universe. Here on this small planet, mind has infiltrated matter and has taken control. It appears to me that the tendency of mind to infiltrate and control matter is a law of nature.
— Freeman Dyson

We are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth.
— Vernor Vinge

Self-organization and extropy are themselves fundamental principles of the physical universe, to the extent that the laws of physics themselves may have developed through a process of self-organization.
— Lee Smolin

The explosive nature of exponential growth means it may only take a quarter of a millennium to go from sending messages on horseback to saturating the matter and energy in our solar system with sublimely intelligent processes. The ongoing expansion of our future superintelligence will then require moving out into the rest of the universe, where we may engineer new universes.
— Ray Kurzweil

Technology expands data by 66% per year, overwhelming the growth rates of any natural source.  Compared to other planets in the neighborhood, or to the dumb material drifting in space beyond, a thick blanket of learning and self-organized information surround this orb.
— Kevin Kelly

The universe might end in intelligent life (rather than as either a ball of fire or as scattered ice). Not life as we know it, but life that has acquired the capacity to shape the cosmos as a whole, just as life on Earth has acquired the ability to shape the land, the sea, and the atmosphere.
— James N. Gardner

The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. Recently, we’ve waded a little way out … and the water seems inviting.
— Carl Sagan

Dubious readers must see: reapplying entropy.

1) YOU DO NOT NEED TO LEAVE YOUR ROOM

“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

– Franz Kafka (at advicetowriters)

~ HOWEVER ~

2) WRITERS HAVE TO HAVE TWO COUNTRIES

“Everybody who writes is interested in living inside themselves in order to tell what is inside themselves. That is why writers have to have two countries, the one where they belong and the one in which they live really.”

– Gertrude Stein (at advicetowriters)

More on the Zampakuto Rebellion as it is unfolding.

A way of unwalking. A machine of unworking.
A word that is mute, a note that is deaf.
A house that un-houses. An act that itself undoes.
The mind which unminds.

Extropy is a term used to describe the vitality of a system. What we mean by a system being vital, lively, robust, or dynamic is that it resists entropy, the tendency for everything to fall apart and decompose, yes, even protons and neutrons crumble and break apart. For a system to resist this, you may think, what’s it gotta do besides brush off the dust every once in a while, but no, we’re talkin’ about a drive for improvement and growth incentives, we’re talkin‘ intelligent here, not just lego blocks building amusement parks complete with ferris wheel’s and octo-pods or whatever they’re called. Extropy is what emerges from gradually organized chaos which itself springs from ground rules for probability and possibility. It emerges and pops. It pops so hard the whole universe can hear it, like one big ear. And this is what it’s gonna be about – one big cosmic ear and whatever message we’ve got to throw into it.

So hard writing about China
five thousand years old
wielding power,
the width of their culture
not to mention mass
compared to
let’s say
America, at only
250 grams.
The concept is flabbergasting
yet awfully trite
i.e. unimpressive generally,
but if that’s your subject matter
then you gotta write about it,
and how better than in the form of a long detailed documentary.

Or you could weigh the culture using a modern scale.