Simon Powell - The Psilocybin Solution

If the above reasoning is correct, the Universe must in a real sense be an ongoing computation in which its information content is being continually churned and processed so as to yield new forms and/or patterns of information. At any one moment the Universe is in a specific state or form. This state is processed according to the “rules of the Universe,” and another universal state is formed. And so on, from the moment of the alleged big bang to right now. The entire Universe can thus be considered a progressive state transitional computation, a kind of metaformal system continually expressing its creative potential. And, more profoundly, we are inside the computation. Or so it seems.

Is such speculation tenable? Could we really be locked inside a vast Matrix-like computation as though we were all but hapless subroutine prisoners, moving in time to some grand algorithmic dance? According to our foray into the nature of information and computational procedures, the suggestion that the Universe is a kind of computation would appear to be a spectacular probability, albeit a trifle claustrophobic, and an outrageous absurdity at the same time. We are so used to thinking of computers as neat boxes atop desks that we forget that they are formal systems that can, in principle, be embodied in anything. But, if we do take this fact into account, and if we also bear in mind that computers can manipulate all sorts of information, even going as far as simulating things like the solar system, then we might well be attracted to the idea of a computational Universe. Or am I merely resorting to the use of a convenient metaphor borrowed from our technological culture? If so, the metaphor might be useful but, ultimately, since it is temporal, its use will be limited until another, more useful metaphor becomes available.

Whereas it is true to say that metaphors have often been taken from the latest technological advances in order to support some novel theoretical conjecture, I would reverse the argument. I hold that the principle of informational computation reflects the actual way (or at least one way) in which Nature itself operates. What we have achieved in the digital computer revolution is a mimicking of Nature. We have come to realize that the name of the Universe game is information (everything is information) and its processing according to nonarbitrary rules and commands. Indeed, one has only to consider the fact that DNA, the very mainstay of life, is itself a form of digital information to begin suspecting that Nature is computational in some fundamental way. Four nucleotide bases make up all DNA—guanine, cytosine, adenine, and thymine—and because any given unit of DNA must be one of these four possibilities, then this system is clearly digital (quaternary as opposed to binary).

In his book A Devil’s Chaplain , evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins drives home this point about DNA being digital as follows:

Watson/Crick genetics is digital through and through, digital to its very backbone, the double helix itself. A genome’s size can be measured in gigabases with exactly the same precision as a hard drive is sized up in gigabytes…. Genetics today is pure information technology. This, precisely, is why an antifreeze gene can be copied from an Arctic fish and [be] pasted into a tomato. {37} 37 2. Dawkins, A Devil’s Chaplain, 107.

As if this digital quality of DNA was not striking enough, neuronal firing activity is also likely to be based on similar digital principles because neurons do, or do not, fire. Patterns of neuronal firing differ according to which neurons are firing and which are not firing (as well as the rate of firing). Thus, nervous systems (which include the brain) seem to employ an essentially digital form of information processing. As much as we like to think of ourselves as pioneering inventors and technological geniuses, Nature evidently beat us to it in terms of digital technology and digital computation. The Information Age is far older than we imagined.

If the reader is still not convinced that the essential fabric of the Universe is informational or if you still much prefer the safe and reassuring feel of “hard, tangible matter,” let me introduce more support for the Universe-as-a-computation scenario. This comes from popular science writer Paul Davies. Davies is foremost a professor of theoretical physics, yet he is one of that rare breed of scientist who dares to ask the really intimidating questions about the fundamental nature of reality. He also attempts to answer such questions.

In his award-winning book The Mind of God, Davies labors hard to get to the heart of reality. While discussing the ability of computer simulations to mimic aspects of the real world, Davies inevitably asks us if the Universe is itself computational.

Compare the activity of the computer with a natural physical system—for example, a planet going around the sun. The state of the system at any instant can be specified by giving the position and velocity of the planet. These are the input data. The relevant numbers can be given in binary arithmetic, as a bit string of ones and zeros. At some later time the planet will have a new position and velocity, which can be described by another bit string: these are the output data. The planet has succeeded in converting one bit string into another, and is therefore in a sense a computer. {38} 38 3. Davies, The Mind of God, 118.

In the same vein, Davies goes on to discuss the various states within a system of gas molecules. An incredibly long binary sequence could be used to specify the velocity and position of all the gas molecules at one instant. After a set amount of time has passed, a new state will have been reached that can likewise be specified in terms of a bit string. Input information has thus been converted by Nature into output information, and this is clearly a computational process.

It is precisely because different aspects of the world can be coded into a binary form that computers are able to model different facets of reality. Of course, computers are not able to simulate the real world exactly, as that would require a calculation involving all the relevant information in the system to be modeled. Any inaccuracy in the initial configuration of input data tends to increase exponentially as the simulation progresses (if the simulated system is nonlinear). This is the so-called butterfly effect, in which the state transition of the system is highly sensitive to initial conditions. Alter the initial state of a computation in some minuscule way, and the alteration will inevitably have an increasing influence on the development of the computation, so much so that the end state might be radically different. This is why computer simulations of the weather are not accurate beyond a few days and why we should be merciful in our judgment of erroneous weathercasters. It is simply impossible to input all the information about the current state of the weather. Only the real weather system itself contains all the relevant information. Weather scientists simply simulate the weather as accurately as they can using as much input information as they can obtain. Computers merely model different aspects of the world; they cannot recreate them 100%, for that would necessitate inputting absolutely all the relevant information. For sure, computers and computations made by people are smart, only the real world is far grander and richer in information. And we conscious humans are part of its output.

If we go along with the notion of the Universe at large as being an ongoing computation, at least of sorts, we are unavoidably led to ask ourselves what precisely governs the state transition of the Universe from one moment to the next? In other words, what are the rules that control this vast information-processing system? After all, there must be some lawful control over the progress of the “Universal Computation,” for we witness order and cohesive patterns on all scales of reality, from simple cells to spiral galaxies. What then is the basis of the meta-grammar or meta-software that runs the reality process?