Just came across a fascinating paper by Lawrence Krauss and Glenn Starkman entitled "Universal Limits on Computation." Basically, it shows that there is a limit to computation in an expanding universe and that consciousness has limits as well. http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0404510
this is kewl thanks aphie... but i believe they made an error in their math they forgot to carry a minus sign (-)which changes whole thing into "NO" Universal Limits to Computation which is just way kewl as well... peace :-/