Does Nature Compute?

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Recently, I received an email about a new book entitled Randomness Through Computation: Some Answers, More Questions. Although, I fail to see how computation would create randomness, the title of one article seemed particularly… intriguing—"What is Computation? (How) Does Nature Compute?" I haven't read the article, so I do not know what it is about, but I can speculate that is advocates the idea that the Universe, Nature somehow computes. Well, to me the idea that Nature computes is pure Pythagorean mysticism (also known as Pythagoreanism). In different words, it is my opinion that a chair, a wall or even a black hole computes absolutely anything. I dare to say that people who believe such things are suffering from schizophrenia! But why is this idea of computing is everywhere so appealing to many thinkers and researchers? It seems to me this happens because it is so fascinating to say that my cup of tea computes the trajectory of a spacecraft that is located millions of light years away. Whether this has anything to do with reality or not is another story. Physics is one thing and computation is another. Clearly, computation is realized by machines that operate in our physical environment. Nevertheless, these machines have been constructed by conscious beings that what to calculate something. Nothing more, nothing less!

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A comment on a comment

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Recently, "someone" posted a review of my book on hypercomputation on the Brains site. The reviewer argues that This area is full of problems, some of which are physico/mathematical and some of which are conceptual. Unfortunately, from a quick sample, Syropolous's book does not avoid common mistakes and confusions—some of which I've been trying to correct in my own work. First of all, I have to admit that back in 2004 I read a paper by this reviewer, but at that time I did not considered it interesting. However, after I read this review of my book, I read The Physical Church-Turing Thesis: Modest or Bold? , the reviewer's latest manuscript, in order to see what he meant by common mistakes and confusions and how he was trying to solve them. In this manuscript, the reviewer puts forth a number of criteria that every machine has to satisfy in order to be ``useful for physical computing.'' These criteria are: Readable Inputs and Outputs Process-Independ...
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Is the Universe a Quantum Computer?

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 The idea that the Universe (whatever we may mean by this) is a some sort of a computer is a recurring theme. Recently, Nature published an article by David L. Chandler that is entitled Could the Universe be a giant quantum computer? This article is actually a tribute to Edward Fredkin, who passed away last June. The main contribution of Fredkin to the philosophy of science is his "digital philosophy" that advocates the idea that the universe is a computer and everything in our universe is discrete. I would not like to argue against the validity of these ideas (I have done so in Hypercomputation: Computing Beyond the Church-Turing Barrier and in Demystifying Computation: A Hands-On Introduction ) . However, I would like to point out that if the Universe is not a computing device, in general, then it cannot be a quantum computer, in particular. Also, what I did not like with Chandler's article is that it takes it for granted that the Universe is a computer. He did not e...
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