ABSTRACT
The main question about pancomputationalism is thus what it might mean by saying that the universe is a computer. The pancomputationalist remarks: This is all computation! This remark has three interpretations: It says just that under some meaning of computation it may be useful to describe the process as computational MullerVincent call this metaphor below. This view is sometimes called pancomputationalism because it says that anything in the world can be described as a computer. In the following, he will deal with a stronger theory, what he call realist pancomputationalism. Pancomputationalism as theory would not make these disputes trivial, but it would have to explain how some systems can be computers on the basis of computers. A computer can be described on at least three levels: What people call computation takes place on the level of syntax, it is a purely formal procedure taking place in a physical mechanism, and perhaps having meaningful symbols.
