Reflection20268 min read
Quantum Theory and Computational Perspectives
Tracing the threads between interpretations of quantum mechanics and the metaphors of computation.
Quantum mechanics has always borrowed metaphors from whatever the dominant technology of its time was — clockwork, waves, fields, and now, increasingly, information.
The computational lens is more than a metaphor. It is a working hypothesis: that the universe processes information, and that the rules of that processing are, at some level, what we are uncovering when we do physics.
Whether or not this lens turns out to be the right one, it has been generative. It has produced quantum computing, quantum information theory, and a renewed conversation between physicists and computer scientists about what computation actually is.