The Computational Limits of the Universe and Recursive Creation

Under current models, the Universe is finite. There is an 'end' in a temporal sense, because the universe began in the event we call the big bang. If you were to travel faster than the speed of light in any direction for around 13.7 trillion years you would a hit a wall in which the entirety of the universe becomes a fireball the size of an atom. (God knows what might happen to you or your craft under these conditions.) Because of this finite property the Universe has a Mass Energy Budget. There is an upward limit to the amount of mass and energy available in the universe. As our ability to organize matter into ever more information-rich forms increases, a profound question arises; Is it possible to organize the available matter and energy in the observable universe in such a way as to simulate the particle histories of the observable universe?

If so, granted thats a big if, it is possible that sometime in the far distant future our Homo Amplio descendants will create a universe simulating computer, powerful enough to model every electron in every valance shell from the big bang to the decay of the final muons. Turning such a device on might appear to the sentient beings who emerge from its computations as something very like a big bang. Exactly like the big bang, since that's what the computer would be simulating. If this is possible, yet another question arises; Can the sentient beings living in a simulated universe create a computer with their allotted mass energy to simulate their universe? And can this process repeat ad. infinitum?

In essence the question becomes this; Is the universe as we know it part of a recursive cycle of information? Are universes unfolding like a lotus tended by the hand of consciousness? The question has been grappled with by computational theorists for decades. For more see Digital Physics.