Do Wolfram and Zuse speculate that there is a correspondence between cells in the cellular automaton and space in our universe, or do they speculate that our universe is being computed (at a high-level) by a cellular automaton? In other words, at what level does the correspondence between our universe and the cellular automaton exist?
In the former case, where there is a low-level correspondence, we can expect the properties of the cellular automaton, i.e.,
the uni-directionality of time
the light-speed limit
the observer effect
to have a similar physical meaning in our universe.
However, in the second case, which seems more reasonable to me, I don’t see how these specific properties of the cellular automaton will have anything to do with the properties of our universe.
Do Wolfram and Zuse speculate that there is a correspondence between cells in the cellular automaton and space in our universe, or do they speculate that our universe is being computed (at a high-level) by a cellular automaton? In other words, at what level does the correspondence between our universe and the cellular automaton exist?
In the former case, where there is a low-level correspondence, we can expect the properties of the cellular automaton, i.e.,
to have a similar physical meaning in our universe.
However, in the second case, which seems more reasonable to me, I don’t see how these specific properties of the cellular automaton will have anything to do with the properties of our universe.
The former in both cases.
BTW, after a bit of web surfing I found that other scientists have also proposed similar theories… see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_philosophy
What does “at a high level” mean in this context?
Btw, thanks for posting this.