[ExI] Google’s Willow Quantum Chip: Proof of the Multiverse?

[Jason Resch]

On Fri, Oct 10, 2025 at 11:54 AM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Saving people a click: no, it is not proof of the multiverse.
>
> "But what they did is just so mind-blowingly large" is not, contrary
> to what the video claims, proof of any sort of new physics - any more
> than the staggeringly large odds against sentient life evolving mean
> that it could only have happened through the sentient, conscious
> action of some godlike entity.
>

I think the answer of a multiverse is inescapable once we begin to probe
more deeply, and ask "how could it be that quantum computers achieve what
they do?"

This question, of how quantum computers work, ties directly to some of the
most fundamental questions, and I believe answering it requires that we
understand the nature of reality itself. I will provide my cliff notes
answer to this question here, and add further references at the end. I have
arrived at this answer through my approximately 20-years of research
seeking answers to fundamental questions. Note that the ideas I present
below are not original to me, but represent what I consider to be the most
promising and satisfying results by contemporary thinkers.


*How Come the Quantum?*

When quantum mechanics was first formulated (approximately 100 years ago)
physicists were shocked:

"Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory
cannot possibly have understood it." -- Niels Bohr
"I repeated to myself again and again the question: Can nature possibly be
so absurd as it seemed to us in these atomic experiments?" -- Werner
Heisenberg
"I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics."
-- Richard Feynman

And despite mulling over quantum mechanics for nearly a century, the
mystery persisted. In 1998, John Archibald Wheeler wrote: "I have never
been able to let go of questions like: How come existence? How come the
quantum?" And he continued searching for an answer all his life.

*Infinite Logic*

In 1965, Richard Feynman wrote in his famous "The Character of Physical Law
<https://archive.org/details/characterofphysi0000feyn/page/56/mode/2up?q=it+always+bothers+me>"
series:

"It always bothers me that, according to the laws as we understand them
today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of logical
operations to figure out what goes on in no matter how tiny a region of
space, and no matter how tiny a region of time. How can all that be going
on in that tiny space? Why should it take an infinite amount of logic to
figure out what one tiny piece of space/time is going to do?"

As the genius he was, Feyman figured out a way to turn this seeming problem
into an advantage. In 1982 he proposed
<https://www.fisica.net/computacaoquantica/richard_feynman_simulating_physics_with_computers.pdf>
that
this property could be exploited to build computers that could simulate
physics much more efficiently. And in 1985, David Deutsch described
<http://user.it.uu.se/~hessmo/QI/notes/deutsch85.pdf> how such a "quantum
computer" could be built.

But we know the bounds on regular, or "classical" computation. Seth Lloyd
calculated <https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9908043> the entire
computational capacity of the entire universe over its entire history, to
be around 10^120 operations. And yet, a single quantum computer, one that
in principle, could sit on a desk, can perform more operations in a few
seconds than all the matter in the universe could over the billions of
years of its existence. A quantum computer with 300 qubits, could
simultaneously process 2^300 distinct states. This not only far exceeds the
10^120 operations, it even exceeds the 2^265 atoms in the observable
universe.

Where is all this computational capacity coming from?

Deutsch offered <https://www.kurzweilai.net/taming-the-multiverse> his
opinion on this question:

"Since the Universe as we see it lacks the computational resources to do
the calculations, where are they being done? It can only be in other
universes. Quantum computers share information with huge numbers of
versions of themselves throughout the multiverse."

But this only poses deeper mysteries: Why should reality consist of a
myriad of other universes, why should there be any form of
interaction/information sharing (i.e. interference) between them, and where
does all the computation necessary to support all those universes come from?

*What underlies Matter?*

It is only very recently, in the past few decades, that any progress was
made on these questions, and we now arguably have empirical evidence to
support a viable answer to this question.

Wheeler was one of the first modern physicists to speculate that matter was
not the most fundamental thing, writing: "Now I am in the grip of a new
vision, that Everything is Information. The more I have pondered the
mystery of the quantum and our strange ability to comprehend this world in
which we live, the more I see possible fundamental roles for logic and
information as the bedrock of physical theory." He termed this theory "it
from bit <https://philpapers.org/archive/WHEIPQ.pdf>" in 1989.

Then in 2001, the logician and computer scientist, Bruno Marchal published
a paper
<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237005417_Computation_Consciousness_and_the_Quantum>
demonstrating
how many of the stranger elements of quantum theory, including parallel
states, indeterminacy, and the non-clonability of matter would emerge from
a reality consisting of all computations.
In a more recent paper he writes
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S007961071300028X%EF%BF%BD>,
"Matter is only what seems to emerge at infinity from a first person plural
point of view (defined by sharing the computations which are infinitely
multiplied in the [Universal Dovetailer’s] work) when persons look at
themselves and their environment below their substitution level."

Expanding on this theme, the computer scientist Russell Standish in a 2004
paper <https://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0001020> and 2006 book
<https://www.hpcoders.com.au/nothing.html> was able to derive three
postulates of quantum mechanics, including the Schrödinger equation,
starting only from the assumption that observers exist in an infinite
plenitude of all possibilities. He writes: "The explanation of quantum
mechanics as describing the process of observation within a plenitude of
possibilities is for me the pinnacle of achievement of the paradigm
discussed in this book. I can now say that I understand quantum mechanics.
So when I say I understand quantum mechanics, I mean that I know that the
first three postulates are directly consequences of us being observers.
Quantum mechanics is simply a theory of observation!"

Then in 2017, the quantum physicist Markus Müller detailed
<https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.01826> how starting from the assumption state
that all observer states are generated algorithmically (i.e. through
computation) he could show that most observers will find themselves in
universes having the property of time, an identifiable beginning, and will
be governed by simple, computable, probabilistic laws. All of these
predictions align with observations of our universe and its properties.

In 2021, the computer scientist Stephen Wolfram published a theory of "The
Ruliad
<https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/11/the-concept-of-the-ruliad/>"
-- a computational structure that represents all possible
computational rules playing out in all possible ways. According to Wolfram,
all computations playing out in all possible ways directly leads to
observers who will see a universe with the second law of thermodynamics,
general relativity, and even quantum mechanics. Regarding the emergence of
quantum mechanics, Wolfram writes
<https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/03/what-is-consciousness-some-new-perspectives-from-our-physics-project/>,
"Does the observer 'create' the quantum mechanics? In some sense, yes. Just
as in the spacetime case, the multiway graph has all sorts of
computationally irreducible things going on. But if there's an observer
with a coherent description of what's going on, then their description must
follow the laws of quantum mechanics."

*Mathematical Truth*

We can explain why nature is quantum mechanical if we assume that reality
is something that contains all possible computations.

So far, this is the only known theory that can account for why nature is as
"absurd as it seems." This one assumption (that all computations exist)
produces so many verifiable predictions motivates us to take it seriously.

But why do all computations exist? On what do they *run*? To this question,
one answer appeals most to me: infinite, absolute, eternal, uncreated,
mathematical truth.

In a resolution to a mathematical problem posed
<https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1902-08-10/S0002-9904-1902-00923-3/S0002-9904-1902-00923-3.pdf>
by
David Hilbert at the turn of the century, four mathematicians proved
<http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Matiyasevich_theorem> in 1970 that
every computation exists within pure mathematics as a true statement about
an equation involving natural numbers
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diophantine_equation>. This may sound like
an obscure and trivial fact, but I think it has incredible consequences.
Consider: It means there is an equation that picks chess moves like Deep
Blue, there’s an equation that does your taxes like TurboTax, there’s yet
another equation that does spellchecking like Microsoft Word. But of
course, these are not the only equations that exist in math. There would be
equations representing every computer game, as well as every possible way
of playing them. There would be programs that simulate the physics of our
universe, accurate down to the detail of every particle. And there would be
simulations of every possible variation that must exist.

All these computations fall out as a consequence of there existing
objective mathematical truth concerning numbers and their relations. One
way to think about all this, is that we (an the multiverse we find
ourselves in) exist for the same reason that "2 + 2 = 4".

So if one can accept the self-existent truth of "2 + 2 = 4", it can
be demonstrated that one must further accept truths concerning other
equations, equations whose truths concern all computational histories and
all simulated realities playing out in all possible ways.

This is an answer to where our reality, consisting of infinite computation,
may come from. It is the most elegant and convincing answer I have
encountered in all my research into this question. And so, at last, we have
a way to explain fully how quantum computers work, why we're in a quantum
multiverse, and what underlies the infinite computations supporting that
reality. We have distilled the explanation to a final "because" which
throws up no further "whys" as ultimately, the answer reduces to "because
2 + 2 = 4."


Jason

Along with the references I included as links throughout this e-mail, you
can find further details and explanations here:

   - My full article on "Why does anything exist?" (
   https://alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/  or in video form:
   https://alwaysasking.com/episodes/#Episode_09_%E2%80%93_Why_does_anything_exist
    )
   - A short summary of this view published by Closer to Truth:
   https://loc.closertotruth.com/theory/resch-s-platonic-functionalism
   - An excerpt from a draft of my upcoming article on consciousness,
   concerning the nature of reality:
   https://drive.google.com/file/d/11-fcvG1TiuHcS9bDCN05UQJyYY6Dl0LY/view?usp=sharing
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