Sure, but the number of ways to arrange things is practically not of direct (that is, linearly proportional!) relevance or value to humans. For example, that yo

Sure, but the number of ways to arrange things is practically not of direct (that is, linearly proportional!) relevance or value to humans. For example, that you can arrange things in 2^1000000000000 different ways in a hard drive is not that interesting, and certainly the hard drive's "practical utility" is nowhere near proportional to such number: if it was, hard drives would be an utterly unimaginable miracle. Instead, their utility is (arguably) proportional to log(number of states), i.e. the number of bits it can store, which is 1Tbits. Because things we care about need energy to function, and atoms to operate, any seemingly reasonable/practical definition of value or utility cannot grow exponentially for too long, or it will quickly exhaust those resources. That said, we can indeed refine say our software to some extent. But it's important to keep in mind software has significant limitations as well, and complexity theory gives lower bounds on problems of practical relevance. We might get a few percent faster (in terms of number of operations) sorting algorithms (and merge sort), for instance, but no more, at least for random inputs. I think less clear are say quality of life or new experiences afforded by new media, new novels, new games, new ways of seeing things. I think there is indeed significant improvement to be had, but also we probably shouldn't get carried away this is some kind of infinity: all things are limited when it comes to a life. I do think simply lifting everyone to a good condition (mostly emotional and basic needs) has a very surprising and large coefficient of gain.