Reality is...

Reality is digital with analog override - R. Moran At least I think reality is like this after checking out this cool interactive site (click on above graphic) showing how the classic Thomas Young Two Slit experiment depicts the duality of nature where base components of matter (electrons, protons, neutrons etc., etc.) and the carriers of force (photons/electromagnetic, gravitons/gravitational & gluons/strong) can be both particle and wave at the same time depending on how the entity is "looked" at.. Of course we don't see this weirdness (because of decoherence) but it's there and it's the reason why the universe works as it does.

After reading the brilliant book, Programming the Universe, I learned that the little quote I have had running in my head for many years was probably true as Lloyd points out the fact that while "particles" are discrete entities, the "state" of each (i.e. electrons, photons etc., etc.) can be infinite, thus giving rise to the analog part of the quote. (Quantum Theory, Parallel Universes, Collapse of the Wave Function)

Where the book really takes off, however, is Lloyd's notion that the Universe computes and we can replicate the process. Before reading this, I thought Quantum Computers, using Qubits as the calculator, would "only" be fiendishly fast parallel systems able to crack encryption schemes and search huge databases at blinding speeds but the implications are far greater. To whit "Such computers — a handful of labs have built rudimentary prototypes — mimic the natural world perfectly, Lloyd claims: the two systems are not just similar, they are the same. The universe is a quantum computer whose computations are the movements of information that define the world we experience."

To see just how fast this tech is evolving, click on the above graphic.

If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there. Lewis Carrol