Protocomputation
“THE REALITY SELF-SIMULATION PRINCIPLE: REALITY IS A SELF-SIMULATION … If one finds it hard to see how language and reality could have anything in common even though everyone uses language to describe various parts of reality every day, then one can focus on the identification operators themselves, and view reality as a kind of "operator algebra". This is an identity system consisting of identity operators that identify the states of other identity operators. Each identity operator identifies itself by self-modeling, and by the virtual synonymy of modeling and simulation, “self-simulates” in the bargain. One can think of these operators, albeit simplistically, as a swarm of interpenetrating spheres which intersect and absorb each other - or internally "simulate" each other - in space and time, but extend into “metaphysical pre-reality” or the nonterminal domain N in order to do so. They interpenetrate through a grammatical operation called conspansion, and couple with each other and transform their states through a “protocomputational” self-modeling operation called telic recursion which collapses and displays their wave functions in terminal measurement events (where protocomputation is a primitive generalization of computation appropriate to CTMU structure). Thus, not only is reality a self-modeling identity operator and therefore a global self-simulation, but it everywhere consists of conspanding identity operators and is therefore “quantized” in terms of self-simulative conspansive cycles as well. That is, it is everywhere a self-simulation (Langan, 2002). The conspansive cycles of identity operators quantize reality with respect to not just self-simulation, but consciousness and emergent quantum information.” https://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/download/867/1477/0
“The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe: A New Kind of Reality Theory … In effect, the system brings itself into existence as a means of atemporal communication between its past and future whereby law and state, syntax and informational content, generate and refine each other across time to maximize total systemic self-utility. This defines a situation in which the true temporal identity of the system is a distributed point of temporal equilibrium that is both between and inclusive of past and future. In this sense, the system is timeless or atemporal.
A system that evolves by means of telic recursion – and ultimately, every system must either be, or be embedded in, such a system as a condition of existence – is not merely computational, but protocomputational. That is, its primary level of processing configures its secondary (computational and informational) level of processing by telic recursion. Telic recursion can be regarded as the self-determinative mechanism of not only cosmogony, but a natural, scientific form of teleology.” http://infolab.ho.ua/Langan_CTMU_092902(1).pdf
“Flash from Deep Space: Supernews on Supernovas … Originally called the Computation-Theoretic Model of the Universe, the CTMU was initially defined on a hierarchical nesting of universal computers, the Nested Simulation Tableau or NeST, which tentatively described spacetime as stratified virtual reality in order to resolve a decision-theoretic paradox put forth by Los Alamos physicist William Newcomb (see Noesis 44, etc.). Newcomb’s paradox is essentially a paradox of reverse causality with strong implications for the existence of free will, and thus has deep ramifications regarding the nature of time in self-configuring or self-creating systems of the kind that MAP shows it must be. Concisely, it permits reality to freely create itself from within by using its own structure, without benefit of any outside agency residing in any external domain.
Although the CTMU subjects NeST to metalogical constraints not discussed in connection with Newcomb’s Paradox, NeST-style computational stratification is essential to the structure of conspansive spacetime. The CTMU thus absorbs the greatest strengths of the CAMU – those attending quantized distributed computation – without absorbing its a priori constraints on scale or sacrificing the invaluable legacy of Relativity. That is, because the extended CTMU definition of spacetime incorporates a self-referential, self-distributed, self-scaling universal automaton, the tensors of GR and its many-dimensional offshoots can exist within its computational matrix.
An important detail must be noted regarding the distinction between the CAMU and CTMU. By its nature, the CTMU replaces ordinary mechanical computation with what might better be called protocomputation. Whereas computation is a process defined with respect to a specific machine model, e.g. a Turing machine, protocomputation is logically "pre-mechanical". That is, before computation can occur, there must (in principle) be a physically realizable machine to host it. But in discussing the origins of the physical universe, the prior existence of a physical machine cannot be assumed. Instead, we must consider a process capable of giving rise to physical reality itself...a process capable of not only implementing a computational syntax, but of serving as its own computational syntax by self-filtration from a realm of syntactic potential. When the word "computation" appears in the CTMU, it is usually to protocomputation that reference is being made.” https://web.archive.org/web/20180804031832/http://www.megafoundation.org/CTMU/Articles/Supernova.html
