Thinking of the universe as a computer is controversial. Seth Lloyd More Quotes by Seth Lloyd More Quotes From Seth Lloyd Computers are famous for being able to do complicated things starting from simple programs. Seth Lloyd starting-over able simple We couldn't build quantum computers unless the universe were quantum and computing. We can build such machines because the universe is storing and processing information in the quantum realm. When we build quantum computers, we're hijacking that underlying computation in order to make it do things we want: little and/or/not calculations. We're hacking into the universe. Seth Lloyd hijacking machines order The history of the universe is, in effect, a huge and ongoing quantum computation. The universe is a quantum computer. Seth Lloyd quantum ongoing computer 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 hacking hijacking light Nothing in life is certain except death, taxes, and the second law of thermodynamics. Seth Lloyd metabolism law life-is Programmed by quanta, physics gave rise first to chemistry and then to life; programmed by mutations and recombination, life gave rise to Shakespeare; programmed by experience and imagination, Shakespeare gave rise to Hamlet. Seth Lloyd mutation imagination firsts 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 mechanic quantum order Unlike mathematical theorems, scientific results can't be proved. They can only be tested again and again, until only a fool would not believe them. I cannot prove that electrons exist..........if you don't believe in them I have a high voltage cattle prod I'm willing to apply as an argument on their behalf. Electrons speak for themselves. Seth Lloyd argument fool believe Yes, I am a quantum mechanic! Those darn quantum computers break all the time. Seth Lloyd mechanic computer break There are considerable advantages to using many degrees of freedom to store information, stability and controllability being perhaps the most important. Seth Lloyd degrees information important Bits of ignorance are like viruses that are copied and spread by interaction. Seth Lloyd viruses spread ignorance If you take a more Darwinian point of view the dynamics of the universe are such that as the universe evolved in time, complex systems arose out of the natural dynamics of the universe. Seth Lloyd dynamics views hair Instead of having to be a member of the Royal Society to do science, the way you had to be in England in the 17th, 18th, centuries today pretty much anybody who wants to do it can, and the information that they need to do it is there. Seth Lloyd information want needs 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 significant computer information For hundreds of millions of years, Sex was the most efficient method for propagating information of dubious provenance: the origins of all those snippets of junk DNA are lost in the sands of reproductive history. Move aside, Sex: the world-wide Web has usurped your role. Seth Lloyd dna sex moving 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. Seth Lloyd digital computer facts 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 computer powerful wanted 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. Seth Lloyd density sitting years In order to figure out how to make atoms compute, you have to learn how to speak their language and to understand how they process information under normal circumstances. Seth Lloyd atoms information order Of course, one way of thinking about all of life and civilization is as being about how the world registers and processes information. Certainly that's what sex is about; that's what history is about. Seth Lloyd civilization sex thinking
