Calculating Space (German: Rechnender Raum) is Konrad Zuse's 1969 book on automata theory. He proposed that all processes in the universe are computational.[2] This view is known today as the simulation hypothesis, digital philosophy, digital physics or pancomputationalism.[3] Zuse proposed that the universe is being computed by some sort of cellular automaton or other discrete computing machinery,[2] challenging the long-held view that some physical laws are continuous by nature. He focused on cellular automata as a possible substrate of the computation, and pointed out that the classical notions of entropy and its growth do not make sense in deterministically computed universes.

An elementary process in Zuse's Calculating Space: Two digital particles A and B form a new digital particle C.[1]

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ Zuse, Konrad (1967). "Rechnender Raum" (PDF). Elektronische Datenverarbeitung (in German). 8. Bad Hersfeld, Germany: 336–344. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-06-18. Retrieved 2022-08-02. (9 pages)
  2. ^ a b Mainzer, Klaus; Chua, Leon Ong (September 2011). The Universe as Automaton: From Simplicity and Symmetry to Complexity. Springer-Verlag. p. 6.
  3. ^ Müller, Vincent C. (January 2014). "Pancomputationalism: Theory or Metaphor?". In Hagengruber, Ruth; Riss, Uwe (eds.). Philosophy, Computing and Information Science. Pickering & Chattoo. pp. 213–221. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-10-21. Retrieved 2022-08-02.

Further reading

edit
edit