If nature computed, why not the entire universe? The first to put down on paper the outrageous idea of a universe-wide computer was science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. In his 1956 short story "The Last Question," humans create a computer smart enough to bootstrap new computers smarter than itself. These analytical engines recursively grow super smarter and super bigger until they act as a single giant computer filling the universe. At each stage of development, humans ask the mighty machine if it knows how to reverse entropy. Each time it answers: "Insufficient data for a meaningful reply." The story ends when human minds merge into the ultimate computer mind, which takes over the entire mass and energy of the universe. Then the universal computer figures out how to reverse entropy and create a universe.
Such a wacky idea was primed to be spoofed, and that's what Douglas Adams did when he wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In Adams' story the earth is a computer, and to the world's last question it gives the answer: 42
The above is from an online Wired Article: God Is the Machine
I know of Vernor Vinge, but was wondering if this really was the first reference to a kind of Computronum. Interesting article nontheless.
Another quote from the article:
Strangely, nearly every mapper of this new digitalism foresees human-made computers taking over the natural universal computer. This is in part because they see nothing to stop the rapid expansion of computation, and in part because — well — why not? But if the entire universe is computing, why build our own expensive machines, especially when chip fabs cost several billion dollars to construct? Tommaso Toffoli, a quantum computer researcher, puts it best: "In a sense, nature has been continually computing the 'next state' of the universe for billions of years; all we have to do — and, actually, all we can do — is 'hitch a ride' on this huge, ongoing Great Computation."
