I've often wondered if the speed of light was somehow related to the computation cycles per second of our universe.
For example, imagine if the universe was made of a three dimensional fabric of tiny pixels, and the only way information could move to another adjacent pixel was one universe calculation at a time.
So when something without mass is moving across a field of pixels, its speed is capped by the number of universe calculations happening per second.
There are such theories, even with mass requiring more calculations. So when there is mass nearby, you need to make more calculations, which slows down that speed in that place. Slowing down speed in medium typically provides refraction/bending of light, so maybe bending of path of light/mass (aka gravity) is due to computational complexity.
How would you propagate information in a 3D pixel array so that it would move at the same speed (and generally, everything would behave identically) in any direction?
Like Conway's game of life. Time and distance are the same thing. On a chess board, it takes a King 7 moves to reach the other end of the board, regardless how long it takes someone to make that move, or how big chess board is - from King's pov its all the same. Also heard somewhere "speed of causality". There must be some good argument for why it couldn't have been any other way.
I meant, how to make the calculation so that the speed is the same in horizontal and diagonal direction.
Imagine a chessboard where every square is 1 meter wide. When the king moves horizontally, his speed is 1 meter per turn. When he moves diagonally, his speed is 1.4 meter per turn. How would you define the rules so that the speed is same in all angles? (Not just 0 and 45 degrees, but also e.g. 13 degrees.)
Can you make in Conway's game of life an expanding circle that remains circular at large scale (and doesn't become e.g. some kind of octagon)?
In our universe all directions are equivalent. If you fly in a rocket, you can't distinguish between moving horizontally or diagonally according to some hypothetical absolute coordinates of the universe. (The theory of relativity is based on the assumption that there is no such thing as absolute coordinates, not even the coordinate of time!) Which makes me suspect the models that assume the existence of some absolute coordinates (such as a 3D grid of Planck-sized cubes).
For example, imagine if the universe was made of a three dimensional fabric of tiny pixels, and the only way information could move to another adjacent pixel was one universe calculation at a time.
So when something without mass is moving across a field of pixels, its speed is capped by the number of universe calculations happening per second.