[Trasmatta]

Isn't this essentially Max Tegmark's Mathematical Universe hypothesis?

[codeflo]

I believe so, yes. I think it's somewhat likely that mathematically minded people would come up with that idea independently -- it's essentially Platonism taken to its logical conclusion.

For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothes...

[kirill5pol]

Yep, had the same thoughts a few years ago too. Basically if you accept mathematical realism as an axiom, pretty often you get to this idea

[omnicognate]

Had this thought in the bath ~25 years ago. Not an idea you can actually do anything with, though, other than go 'huh, interesting' and add more hot water.

[iahwrites]

OP here... yeah it sure looks like it is!

I hadn't heard of it before, and will need to do some more reading, but at a high-level it does look to be the same line of thinking.

[ttctciyf]

You might also like to check out Greg Egan's Permutation City[0] which (in the form of entertaining scifi) presents some related arguments about the need for a computational substrate, or lack thereof.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City

[Trasmatta]

Cool! He has some books on the topic that you'd be interested in.