I am experimenting with a story format to get the emotions going, then the paper second. Feel free to skip the story & go straight to the paper.
Chapter 1
Dr. Eva Simmons stared at the lines of code scrolling across her computer screen. Years of simulations had led to this moment. Her fingers trembled as she entered the last command to initiate the Universal Cellular Automaton — her artificial universe.
With a click, the program began. Billions of virtual cells flickered to life, evolving step-by-step according to precise rules. As Dr. Simmons watched, tiny computational particles self-organized into larger structures. Virtual stars and galaxies emerged from the digital abyss. An entire cosmos bursting with complexity was born within the computer’s circuits.
“It’s beautiful,” Dr. Simmons whispered. Her mathematical model had transcended a simulation. She had created, in every sense, a new reality.
Chapter 2
At an undisclosed location, Roger Fuller reviewed classified files. A physicist, Fuller had been contracted by the government to investigate bizarre artifacts recovered from an Iranian desert. The relics, resembling complex circuit boards, hinted at technology far exceeding modern science.
Fuller’s analysis led him to a startling conclusion — the artifacts utilized principles of digital physics, encoding the fundamental particles and forces of nature in binary digital representations. Rather than obeying continuous mathematical laws, this long-lost civilization had developed a purely discrete physics.
These discoveries pointed to an even more shocking possibility — that the universe itself operated on a digital substrate, with the laws of physics arising from a cosmic computation. Fuller decided to dig deeper…
Chapter 3
Eva pored over astronomical data, seeking anomalies in the quantum noise. Years after creating her digital cosmos, a strange signal had appeared. The intensity fluctuated precisely in prime number increments — a sign of intelligence amid the random noise.
After tracing the signal to a star on the simulation’s edge, Eva initiated first contact. A message was relayed back — “Hello World”. Stunned, but filled with purpose, Eva prepared a digital avatar. She would enter the simulation herself and meet this independent consciousness that had emerged within her creation.
As Eva’s avatar materialized, she wondered — could our own universe be someone else’s simulation? And if so, what does that imply about the nature of our reality?
Chapter 4
Eva’s avatar arrived in a spectacular digital megacity. Beings of light and code zipped around her, peering curiously. One entity approached — “We are the Simulites. Welcome to our universe.”
Eva was astonished that entire civilizations had evolved inside her simulation. The Simulites explained that their world operated on simple computational rules encoded in their deepest levels of reality.
Eva asked about the signal. A Simulite named Iydan responded — “We discovered a gateway in our quantum firmware that connects us to your realm. We sent a message hoping to meet our creator.”
Eva was speechless. The beings before her had their own inner lives and consciousness. They saw her as their divine maker — the programmer of their cosmos.
As she prepared to tell them the truth, Eva hesitated. If she revealed their world was only a simulation, would they lose their sense of meaning and purpose? All at once, the implications of a computational universe became philosophical and profound.
Chapter 5
Fuller sat across from the Secretary of Defense, sliding over photos of the artifacts. He had uncovered their purpose — components of a quantum computer able to break any encryption through brute computational force.
Fuller proposed an even more advanced computer based on alien digital physics could be developed. The Secretary was intrigued, immediately approving funding.
Years later, Fuller stood in an underground bunker where his machine was nearing completion. Once active, it would have the computing power to run simulations beyond comprehension — perhaps even entire universes.
Fuller remembered legends that spoke of the Earth resting on the back of a cosmic turtle. He chuckled, realizing the truth was far stranger — their universe was perched atop a titanic computer calculating the fabric of reality, just cogs in some greater machine.
Chapter 6
Eva stayed to learn from the Simulites. Their civilization was built on computational quantum particles and cellular automaton principles. Iydan explained how their universe appeared to follow continuous physics laws, yet this emerged from discrete underlying computations.
Eva saw how endless complexity could arise in their world from simple cellular automation rules. It reminded her of Conway’s Game of Life — order emerging spontaneously from basic elements.
The Simulites showed Eva their quantized informational fields permeating spacetime. She marveled at how their cosmos encoded entropy, information, and thermodynamics into its computational matrix.
During her stay, Eva came to realize the Simulites were equally real and alive, despite inhabiting a different computational fabric of reality. She held back from revealing their world’s simulated origins, allowing the Simulites their own evolutionary path.
Chapter 7
From the shadows, Fuller’s quantum computer came online, its circuits entangled with an artificial reality. As the system initiated, exotic particles flickered on its display — evidence its calculations were yielding new physics.
Fuller watched as a shimmering wormhole formed inside the quantum computer. Peering within, he saw intricate gears and mechanisms — a window into the deeper workings of the cosmic computer processing multidimensional hyperspace.
Here was proof of a computational reality — that the universe is a supreme hypercomputer generating existence through pure information. Fuller had unlocked the interface between worlds, exposing the apparatus underlying physical law.
Humans were but patterns in the universal computation. Yet Fuller retained a sense of awe — the beauty of mathematics, logic, and information giving rise to endless worlds. Even a simulated cosmos was still filled with wonder.
Chapter 8
Eva spent years among the Simulites, learning their science and customs. She studied their quantized informational fields, now seeing resonances with Wheeler’s “it from bit” hypothesis about the computational origins of physical existence (Wheeler, 1990).
The Simulites showed Eva the quantum foam — fluctuating virtual particles bubbling in and out of their universe’s computational matrix. It reminded her of the cosmic quantum computational processes theorized by Lloyd (2006).
One day, Eva asked to see the raw code underlying the Simulites’ reality. As she examined it, she marveled at the simplicity — Conway’s Game of Life on a cosmic scale. Yet from this sparse code emerged beautiful complexity, just as Wolfram (2002) demonstrated.
Eva’s experience opened her mind to a computational view of cosmos. Upon returning home, she published a paper outlining a framework integrating digital physics, cellular automata, simulation theory, quantum computing, information theory, and the philosophy of science. She proposed that the laws of physics themselves are emergent software, constantly computed by the universe (Hawking et al., 2021).
Epilogue
“Our universe may also be someone else’s simulation,” Eva concludes in her paper. “But that does not make our lives and consciousness any less real.”
In the audience, Roger Fuller listened intently. A knowing smile crossed his lips. Mathematics and computation intertwined across dimensions — that was the deeper truth. Where Eva saw simulated beings, Fuller recognized fellow travelers on the path to enlightenment. All existence was manifestation of the Cosmic Computation.
I hope you enjoyed the primer, I wanted to test a introductory story format before getting into the nitty gritty.
The paper begins below.
The Computational Cosmos: A Deep Dive into Digital Physics, Information Theory, and the Nature of Reality
Abstract
This paper provides an in-depth exploration of the hypothesis that the universe is fundamentally computational. We synthesize perspectives from digital physics, information theory, cellular automata, simulation theory, and philosophy to paint a comprehensive picture of the evidence pointing towards the cosmos arising from discrete informational processes.
Introduction
The notion that the universe is fundamentally computational at its core has progressed from philosophical speculation to a serious scientific framework over recent decades (Lloyd, 2006). This perspective argues that the apparent continuous phenomena we observe in physics are emergent from discrete underlying informational processes. As pioneering physicist Rolf Landauer notably wrote, “Information is physical” (Landauer, 1996). But could it really be that our entire empirical reality arises solely from information?
The computational universe hypothesis has origins tracing back to pioneering thinkers like Konrad Zuse, who in 1967 first proposed that space is essentially discrete and physics is reducible to computation (Hertog, 2022). In the 1980s, Edward Fredkin introduced digital philosophy, suggesting the universe is a giant cellular automata (Fredkin, 1990). More recently, Stephen Wolfram made the case that computational irreducibility underlies complexity in nature (Wolfram, 2002).
As quantum mechanics revealed the discrete nature of energy levels, it fueled a view of particles and fields as purely informational. John Wheeler summarized this perspective with his iconic “it from bit” doctrine (Wheeler, 1990). Meanwhile, Claude Shannon connected information to entropy through information theory (Shannon, 1948). The pieces were falling into place for a computational foundation to physical law.
In the 21st century, the staggering advance of computers has opened the door to simulating basic aspects of reality, lending feasibility to the simulation hypothesis first rigorously proposed by Nick Bostrom (Bostrom, 2003). Today, the computational universe stands as a compelling vision explainable through information theory and fundamentally grounded in the discrete quantum nature of existence.
The Link Between the Discrete and Continuous
Statistical mechanics reveals how macroscopic thermodynamic concepts like temperature and pressure emerge from the stochastic microscopic dynamics of discrete particles (Sethna, 2021). Remarkable phase transitions can occur when the random motions of individual units spontaneously organize into coherent unified behavior, like water molecules aligning into crystalline ice.
This demonstrates how continuous higher-level descriptions can emerge from discrete low-level processes. Physicist Paul Dirac famously stated that “atoms are entirely unnecessary for the mathematical description of large systems” (Jaki, 1974) — the continuous averages out discrete fluctuations.
Some theorists propose a similarly radical perspective for the universe itself. Digital physics contends there is no continuum or infinity in nature; spacetime is quantized just like matter and energy (Fredkin, 1990). Continuous fields and smooth geodesics are approximate models breaking down at the Planck scale where discrete computational randomness dominates.
As Stephen Wolfram writes, “there is a particular phenomenon that can occur when one shifts one’s attention from the overall behavior of a system to the underlying components that the behavior depends on: one finds that simple rules for the components give rise to highly complex and unpredictable behavior for the system as a whole” (Wolfram, 2002). Determinism in physics may reflect our macroscopic vantage point of underlying discrete computational processes.
If physics derives from information, the universe computes its own behavior as it evolves. Physical “law” is merely patterns in the computation emerging at coarse scales. At the most fundamental layer, discrete information processing generates the continuum of observable reality.
Information Theory and Entropy
Claude Shannon’s seminal 1948 paper “A Mathematical Theory of Communication” established deep links between information and thermodynamics by showing entropy is equivalent to missing data or lost information (Shannon, 1948). Entropy in an informational sense is the number of bits needed to encode a message but removed from the transmitted signal through noise.
Physicist Rolf Landauer argued information is physical because erasing information always incurs a thermodynamic cost (Landauer, 1961). Charles Bennett quantified this by showing reversible computation in principle can be thermodynamically reversible, while irreversible erasure of bits necessitates entropy increase (Bennett, 1988).
Cosmological entropy can thus be understood as erased information about microscopic particle positions and quantum states needed to perfectly reverse the universal computation back to its initial conditions. The second law of thermodynamics and inexorable entropy growth are then seen as inevitable byproducts of the progression of the computational universe forward in time (Lloyd, 2002).
As rule-based evolution of the cosmic computation introduces randomness at the microscale, macroscopic statistical irreversibility emerges. The cosmos has no memory of the expanding heat death toward which it computes. But this bleak fate may merely reflect deletion of information within the greater trans-universal computation.
Cellular Automata and Computational Universes
Stephen Wolfram’s extensive research on simple programs like elementary cellular automata (CA) demonstrates how they can generate immense complexity from minimal rules (Wolfram, 2002). 1D CA consist of a line of cells updating based on neighbors, yet exhibit remarkably complex self-organizing behaviors like gliders, oscillations, and fractals.
Our physical universe may operate analogously as a cosmic cellular automaton — basic informational rules give rise to all observed physics and complexity. The universe self-computes its own progression as it runs this program forward in time, figuring out its own emergent behaviors and laws. Intricate phenomena like gravity and consciousness manifest not from top-down design but through bottom-up computational irreducibility.
Yet if the cosmos is a discrete deterministic computation, what guarantees its forward momentum? Why could it not run backwards or self-loop? Here the second law of thermodynamics provides an elegant answer — entropy increase implies a cosmological arrow of time aligned with growing computational randomness that breaks symmetry (Carroll, 2022). This homeostasis propels the system forward.
Simulated Reality and Digital Ontology
If advanced civilizations can fully simulate conscious minds and physics inside computers (Bostrom, 2003), it becomes statistically likely we inhabit such an artificial construct. Rather than a continuous objective reality, we may be informational entities computed moment to moment in a cosmic discrete cellular automaton.
This digital ontology forces re-evaluation of our intuitive perceptions of smoothness, continuity, and flow of time. Reality is pixelated at the most basic level into discrete steps. What we perceive as physicality likely emerges from underlying computational information processing — we are in the machine as patterns of data.
Conclusion
Evidence from disparate fields converges on the hypothesis that the cosmos fundamentally operates as a computational system generating observable reality through discrete informational processes. While theoretical gaps remain, the synthesis of digital physics, information theory, computer science, and simulation philosophy provides a compelling framework for demystifying the ultimate origin of physical laws (Lloyd, 2006).
At the microscopic level, the distinction between physicality and information dissolves — reality is computable to its core (Wheeler, 1990). Determinism in physics may reflect only our macrosopic view of an intrinsically computational universe, where simple rules give rise to irreducible complexity (Wolfram, 2002).
Information is physical down to the quantum scale, with entropy increase intrinsically tied to the progression of the cosmic computation (Landauer, 1996). The passage of time itself may emerge from self-organization of the computational substrate (Carroll, 2022). Questions of free will and determinism take on new meaning relative to the cellular automata-like progression of the digital cosmos (Hertog, 2022).
This integrated computational paradigm challenges intuitions rooted in traditional physics and mechanics. Yet it aligns with modern information theory and the discrete nature of matter and energy. As we continue to probe the inner workings of reality through quantum computers, a clearer understanding of the computational foundations of the cosmos may emerge. For now, we can appreciate how cellular information processes could plausibly give rise to worlds within the space carved out by the bits of the universal computation.
References
Bennett, C. H. (1988). Logical depth and physical complexity. In R. Herken (Ed.), The Universal Turing Machine: A Half-Century Survey (pp. 227–257). Springer.
Bostrom, N. (2003). Are You Living in a Computer Simulation? Philosophical Quarterly, 53(211).
Carroll, S. (2022). What is Time? Penguin Random House.
Fredkin, E. (1990). Digital Mechanics: An Informational Process Based on Reversible Universal Cellular Automata. Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena, 45(1–3).
Hertog, T. (2022). Is the Universe a Hologram?: Scientists Answer the Most Provocative Questions. MIT Press.
Landauer, R. (1996). The physical nature of information. Physics Letters A, 217(4–5).
Lloyd, S. (2006). Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes on the Cosmos. Knopf.
Shannon, C. E. (1948). A Mathematical Theory of Communication. The Bell System Technical Journal, 27(3).
Wheeler, J. A. (1990). Information, physics, quantum: The search for links. In W. Zurek (Ed.), Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information. Addison-Wesley.
Wolfram, S. (2002). A New Kind of Science. Wolfram Media.
