Can we debug the Universe?

Abstract

Roughly, the Church-Turing thesis is a hypothesis that describes exactly what can be computed by any real or feasible conceptual computing device. Generally speaking, the computational metaphor is the idea that everything, including the universe itself, has a computational nature. However, if the Church-Turing thesis is not valid, then does it make sense to expect the construction of a computer program capable of simulating the whole Universe? In the lights of hypercomputation, the scientific discipline that is about computing beyond the Church-Turing barrier, the most natural answer to this question is: No. This note is a justification of this answer and its deeper meaning based on arguments from physics, the philosophy of the mind, and, of course, (hyper)computability theory.