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shminux comments on Counterfactual resiliency test for non-causal models - Less Wrong
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Past "physical limits" once considered immutable have often been broken. It was not long ago that 9600bps was considered the limit for phone line data rate. Replacing cattle with vat meat grown in factories powered by solar energy and methane digesters can likely alleviate many potential food shortages and environmental issues.
There is no guarantee that there will not be a true limiting factors of progress rate, but it is extremely bold (and misguided) to proclaim that you know in advance what they will be.
I agree that some "limits" have proved illusory. But do you have an example where a limit based on conservation of matter or energy was surpassed?
I assume solar technology will continue to improve, but it would take several orders of magnitude of improvement for food-from-solar cells to be cost-competitive with cattle grazing low-value land. What does an acre of solar cells cost?
I mentioned some far-fetched stuff before, not that we need that much energy yet. There is plenty of energy around, just waiting to be harvested: solar, geothermal, fusion...
We're not anywhere near that limit yet. The point is that we've approached various things that looked like limits, and they weren't. When we get near being limited by, say, the amount of matter/energy in the universe, then we'll find out whether it's really a limit.