Remember the old "Conway's Game of Life", a simple cellular automaton structure based on a few extremely simple rules and a two dimensional grid. Give it any random input and it responds by creating "Life Objects", simple constructs in the space that have existence, move around, reproduce, do all sorts of things. These objects are simply groups of grid squares that are either on or off and which interact amongst their interior cells and with other objects to create structures of great complexity, using those original rules. I don't remember the rules, but they are extremely simple, like "if a square has two neighbors which are on, it turns on, if not it is off" , that sort of thing.

There are "gun" objects, which project moving objects across the space, and these streams of objects can be modulated by other objects to transmit information to distant places in the space. Even scarier, all the Boolean operators and logic functions can be duplicated by life objects, so it is possible in principle to build computers in this space. Think of it, virtual hardware.

This is only a two-dimensional cellular automaton definition, people are experimenting with multiple dimensions, and even with fractal automatons. It is easy to conceive of an entire Universe constructed of pure thought. Perhaps subatomic particles are like life objects, simple finite combinations of finite properties randomly determined and interacting by means of simple rules in n-space.

Just as the simple little creatures of Conway's Life exhibit their behavior as little moving clusters of dots on a monitor, but their true reality is independent of any display medium, perhaps matter is also a virtual representation of an abstraction.

I think you software weenies are really onto something, and I think AI is probably already here, we just don't recognize it.

Consider that information is an essential part of physics, the concept of entropy is tied in with information content, it dominates thermodynamics, relativity and quantum theory are expressions of the nature of phenomena described by how they are perceived (observed, the physicists prefer to say). Mechanics, optics and electromagnetism are described by equations where the maximum speed of information propagation, c, is all powerful. Relativity deals with the relationship of observer to observed. Quantum theory is immersed in a fundamental granularity in space-time (Bits?) and what is the Uncertainty Principle except an attempt to quantify the limits of perception? Physics is saturated with what was once considered a strictly psychological phenomenon: Information. Philosophically, physics has become so abstract we can only proceed by the paradigm of observation...if its manifestation can't be observed you can't study it. I was an astronomer, we can't experiment, everything we do and guess is designed to exploit or suggest a perception, an observation, an intellectual act.

In spite of my materialist convictions, I am convinced consciouness plays a vital role in the evolution of the cosmos. The Universe doesn't look like a machine, it looks like a computer model.