Rather than just remain immobile as a gold ring, it must exhibit complex dynamics so that its future state depends in some complicated (and hopefully controllable/​programmable) way on the present state. Its atom arrangement must be less ordered than a rigid solid where nothing interest- ing changes, but more ordered than a liquid or gas.
I think Tegmark is mischaracterizing solids, at least above absolute zero. Materials, even solid gold, are subject to lots of interesting dynamics, such as creep and grain growth. Wikipedia has a nice animation of the latter.
One irrelevant comment about this cool article.
I think Tegmark is mischaracterizing solids, at least above absolute zero. Materials, even solid gold, are subject to lots of interesting dynamics, such as creep and grain growth. Wikipedia has a nice animation of the latter.