Pancomputationalism: Theory or metaphor?

Vincent C. Müller

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arXiv · 2506.13263

Pancomputationalism: Theory or metaphor?

Vincent C. Müller

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Abstract

The theory that all processes in the universe are computational is attractive in its promise to provide an understandable theory of everything. I want to suggest here that this pancomputationalism is not sufficiently clear on which problem it is trying to solve, and how. I propose two interpretations of pancomputationalism as a theory: I) the world is a computer and II) the world can be described as a computer. The first implies a thesis of supervenience of the physical over computation and is thus reduced ad absurdum. The second is underdetermined by the world, and thus equally unsuccessful as theory. Finally, I suggest that pancomputationalism as metaphor can be useful.

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Vincent C. Müller. 2025-06-16. Pancomputationalism: Theory or metaphor?. https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.13263

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