Related papers: A Computer Scientist's View of Life, the Universe,…
We argue that whether the universe is infinite or finite is less crucial than usually supposed. Paradoxes of repeating behaviour in the infinite, or eternal inflationary, universe can be alleviated by a realistic definition of differing…
The emergence of a complex, large-scale organisation of cosmic matter into the Cosmic Web is a beautiful exemplification of how complexity can be produced by simple initial conditions and simple physical laws. In the epoch of Big Data in…
I will propose the notion that the universe is digital, not as a claim about what the universe is made of but rather about the way it unfolds. Central to the argument will be the concepts of symmetry breaking and algorithmic probability,…
We believe that economic design and computational complexity---while already important to each other---should become even more important to each other with each passing year. But for that to happen, experts in on the one hand such areas as…
When can a model of a physical system be regarded as computable? We provide the definition of a computable physical model to answer this question. The connection between our definition and Kreisel's notion of a mechanistic theory is…
Since its inception at the beginning of the twentieth century, quantum mechanics has challenged our conceptions of how the universe ought to work; however, the equations of quantum mechanics can be too computationally difficult to solve…
This short paper proposes an alternative theory to Anthropic Principle. According to our interpretation, the Universe is not "fine-tuned" for life, but "roughly-tuned" for computation and its biofilness is only a phenomenon. This standpoint…
This text presents the research field of natural/unconventional computing as it appears in the book COMPUTING NATURE. The articles discussed consist a selection of works from the Symposium on Natural Computing at AISB-IACAP (British Society…
I am most honoured to have the privilege to present the Foreword to this fascinating and wonderfully varied collection of contributions, concerning the nature of computation and of its deep connection with the operation of those basic laws,…
Complex systems throughout Nature display structures and functions that are built and maintained, at least in part, by optimal energies flowing through them--not specific, ideal values, rather ranges in energy rate density below which…
The use of algorithmic information theory (Kolmogorov complexity theory) to explain the relation between mathematical probability theory and `real world' is discussed.
Quantum cosmology is the quantum theory of the entire universe. Although strange at first sight, it is appropriate because (1) our world appears to be fundamentally quantum, (2) the classical description of gravity breaks down at…
A universal Turing machine is a powerful concept - a single device can compute any function that is computable. A universal spin model, similarly, is a class of physical systems whose low energy behavior simulates that of any spin system.…
We define a universe as the contents of a spacetime box with comoving walls, large enough to contain essentially all phenomena that can be conceivably measured. The initial time is taken as the epoch when the lowest CMB modes undergo…
``The purpose of life is to obtain knowledge, use it to live with as much satisfaction as possible, and pass it on with improvements and modifications to the next generation.'' This may sound philosophical, and the interpretation of words…
The notion that there are many "universes" with different properties is one answer to the question of "why is the universe so hospitable to life?" This notion also naturally follows from current ideas in eternal inflation and string/M…
Partial descriptions of the Universe are presented in the form of linear equations considered in the free (full, super) Fock space. The universal properties of these equations are discussed. The closure problem caused by computational and…
We consider the issue of computability at the most fundamental level of physical reality: the Planck scale. To this aim, we consider the theoretical model of a quantum computer on a non commutative space background, which is a computational…
Although cosmology is usually considered an observational science, where there is little or no space for experimentation, other approaches can (and have been) also considered. In particular, we can change rather drastically the above, more…
By nature, transmissible human knowledge is enumerable: every sentence, movie, audio record can be encoded in a sufficiently long string of 0's and 1's. The works of G\"odel, Turing and others showed that there are inherent limits and…