The statement can only be interesting as a matter of interpretation ("as a computer") of formalism. Formalism, by definition, involves a desemantification of th

The statement can only be interesting as a matter of interpretation ("as a computer") of formalism. Formalism, by definition, involves a desemantification of the domain. So yes, if you redescribe some aspect of something in terms of syntactic rules, and then do the same thing for another domain, there might be a correspondence. But correspondence is not the same as identity, especially when the method that produces the corresponding objects involves stripped elements of it away and redefining whatever remains syntactically. Otherwise, a statement like "the universe is a computer" is worthless. "Computation", as understood by computer science, is observer relative. It is a matter of subjective interpretation not objective fact that what we call computing devices are actually computing anything. Computer architecture is a purely abstract mental construct that can at best be simulated using physical devices. "Registers" and "bits" and "instructions" have no objective existence, but we can appropriate matter to simulate the abstract models of these things.