Is the Universe its own Largest Computer?

missingmatterboy writes: "If the universe is simply a giant calculating machine, how big is it? Seth Lloyd, who two years ago worked out the theoretical maximum possible power a laptop computer could posess, has now "estimated how much information the Universe can contain, and how many calculations it has performed since the Big Bang." His conclusion: you'd need about 10^90 bits, with something like 10^120 manipulations of those bits, to express the universe since time began."

Comments

Change = Calculation?

[flewp]

If one plans on estimating the calculations (apparently changes) the universe has performed, how can you even make a guess when we still don't even know precisely how old the universe is, and how much matter there is?

And also, why does everything have to be made into a computer of some sort? DNA, and now the whole universe?