
Computation, Memory, Nature, and Life (2004) - refset
http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/comp_mem_nat_life/
======
jonny_storm
Thanks for the article. This was a really nice discussion of life as
computation.

That said, I disagree with Conjecture 2 on the basis that no independent
storage was ever indicated for any class 4 behavior in _A New Kind of Science_
, and "storage" achieved through encoding of information by transformation of
immutable (homeostatic, anyway) state seems downright ubiquitous in nature.

In the post, John seems to draw a false dichotomy between computation and
storage. I thought Stephen's book actually did a fine job of demonstrating
(repeatedly, and at length) how the data and the computational machinery can
be one in the same when the rules for transformation are inherent to the
system. Ultimately, whether or not one thinks this true is probably decided by
one's beliefs about the most basic laws of physics, and I'm rooting for a
discrete universe.

