Conceiving the universe as the "output of a computer program" seems like an empty idea, as computation depends on a physical substrate (its laws of physics). It

Conceiving the universe as the "output of a computer program" seems like an empty idea, as computation depends on a physical substrate (its laws of physics). It leads to an infinite regress: What laws of physics govern that physical substrate? David Deutsch (mentioned in the WP article) has a discussion of this (and many other related deep topics!) in his excellent "The Beginning of Infinity" http://www.amazon.com/The-Beginning-Infinity-Explanations-Transform/dp/0143121359 http://www.amazon.com/The-Beginning-Infinity-Explanations-Tr...