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Thinking of the universe as a computer is controversial.

Seth Lloyd

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Seth Lloyd
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: August 2
Academic
Computer Scientist
Engineer
Non-Fiction Writer
Physicist
Professor
Thinking
Controversial
Computer
Universe

More quotes by Seth Lloyd

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Nothing in life is certain except death, taxes, and the second law of thermodynamics.
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Yes, I am a quantum mechanic! Those darn quantum computers break all the time.
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The primary consequence of the computational nature of the universe is that the universe naturally generates complex systems, such as life. Although the basic laws of physics are comparatively simple in form, they give rise, because they are computationally universal, to systems of enormous complexity.
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The history of the universe is, in effect, a huge and ongoing quantum computation. The universe is a quantum computer.
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Every physical system registers information, and just by evolving in time, by doing its thing, it changes that information, transforms that information, or, if you like, processes that information.
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I have not proved that the universe is, in fact, a digital computer and that it's capable of performing universal computation, but it's plausible that it is.
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I would suggest, merely as a metaphor here, but also as the basis for a scientific program to investigate the computational capacity of the universe, that this is also a reasonable explanation for why the universe is complex.
Seth Lloyd
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Computers are famous for being able to do complicated things starting from simple programs.
Seth Lloyd
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Meaning is like pornography, you know it when you see it.
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What's happened with society is that we have created these devices, computers, which already can register and process huge amounts of information, which is a significant fraction of the amount of information that human beings themselves, as a species, can process.
Seth Lloyd
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The amount of information that can be stored by the ultimate laptop, 10 to the 31st bits, is much higher than the 10 to the 10th bits stored on current laptops.
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Quantum mechanics is weird. I don't understand it. Just live with it. You don't have to understand the nature of things in order to build cool devices.
Seth Lloyd
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At some point, Moore's law will break down.
Seth Lloyd
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According to the standard model billions of years ago some little quantum fluctuation, perhaps a slightly lower density of matter, maybe right where we're sitting right now, caused our galaxy to start collapsing around here.
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If you wanted to build the most powerful computer you could, you can't do better than including everything in the universe that's potentially available.
Seth Lloyd
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Another feature that everybody notices about the universe is that it's complex.
Seth Lloyd
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Indeed, as the above calculation indicates, to take full advantage of the memory space available, the ultimate laptop must turn all its matter into energy.
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When you zap things with light to build quantum computers, you're hacking existing systems. You're hijacking the computation that's already happening in the universe, just like a hacker takes over someone else's computer.
Seth Lloyd