- #1
ErikZorkin
- 104
- 6
Good day.
I do not know much about cosmology, rather computer science, but the following theoretical question bothers me a little. Some scientists, like Tegmark, Wolfram, Zuse or Fredkin, support the idea that the Universe might be just computation. Computable means that something can be effectively calculated in finite time via a finite algorithm. Let's pretend that our Universe were a giant computation. It is typical to assume in the framework of this idea that the space-time is discrete. Suppose we have a finite set of particles in our Universe. It seems possible in principle to simulate such a toy Universe (since there are already approximate simulations of our Universe as far as I remember).
So far so good. But what if the space is expanding? It seems that you'd need to "create" new space cells (or quanta) indefinitely which contradicts the idea that the Universe is computation. It so because you'd need infinite computational resources just to track all particles's positions, let alone their interaction. Could it be that space expansion is evidence against the idea that the Universe might be computation?
I do not pretend that the Universe as computation is an adequate model of the physical reality, so I'd like to avoid philosophical discussions.
I do not know much about cosmology, rather computer science, but the following theoretical question bothers me a little. Some scientists, like Tegmark, Wolfram, Zuse or Fredkin, support the idea that the Universe might be just computation. Computable means that something can be effectively calculated in finite time via a finite algorithm. Let's pretend that our Universe were a giant computation. It is typical to assume in the framework of this idea that the space-time is discrete. Suppose we have a finite set of particles in our Universe. It seems possible in principle to simulate such a toy Universe (since there are already approximate simulations of our Universe as far as I remember).
So far so good. But what if the space is expanding? It seems that you'd need to "create" new space cells (or quanta) indefinitely which contradicts the idea that the Universe is computation. It so because you'd need infinite computational resources just to track all particles's positions, let alone their interaction. Could it be that space expansion is evidence against the idea that the Universe might be computation?
I do not pretend that the Universe as computation is an adequate model of the physical reality, so I'd like to avoid philosophical discussions.