Pancomputationalism: Theory or metaphor?

Abstract

Pancomputationalism posits that the universe and all its constituent processes are fundamentally computational. This claim can be interpreted either as an ontological thesis—that the world is a computer—or as an epistemic one—that the world is best described as a computer. Under the ontological interpretation, physical properties are assumed to supervene on computational properties. This leads to a reductio ad absurdum because computation is multiply realizable; if physical reality were determined by syntax, a computational simulation of a physical phenomenon would be identical to the phenomenon itself, which ignores the necessary distinction between hardware and software. The epistemic interpretation is equally problematic as a formal theory because it is underdetermined. Since any physical process can support multiple formal mappings, the computational status of a system often depends on observer-relative interpretation rather than intrinsic physical properties. Pancomputationalism thus fails as a literal theory of everything. It remains useful primarily as a metaphor, providing a conceptual framework for information science and the description of complex systems without necessitating a commitment to an underlying digital reality. – AI-generated abstract.