Virtual reality is a concept with a long established precedent, you just really don't hear about it unless you go looking for it.
Ultimately, Leibniz argued, there are only two absolutely simple concepts, God and Nothingness. From these, all other concepts may be constructed, the world, and everything within it, arising from some primordial argument between the deity and nothing whatsoever. And then, by some inscrutable incandescent insight, Leibniz came to see that what is crucial in what he had written is the alternation between God and Nothingness. And for this, the numbers 0 and 1 suffice.
While considering causality it suddenly occurred to me that the universe could be conceived as a gigantic computing machine… The thought settled firmly; over the years I have developed it into the concept of the Rechnender Raum, or ‘computing universe'.
It from bit. Otherwise put, every 'it'—every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself—derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely—even if in some contexts indirectly—from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits. 'It from bit' symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom—a very deep bottom, in most instances—an immaterial source and explanation; that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe.
Fredkin works in a twilight zone of modern science—the interface of computer science and physics. Here two concepts that traditionally have ranked among science's most fundamental—matter and energy—keep bumping into a third: information. The exact relationship among the three is a question without a clear answer, a question vague enough, and basic enough, to have inspired a wide variety of opinions. Some scientists have settled for modest and sober answers. Information, they will tell you, is just one of many forms of matter and energy; it is embodied in things like a computer's electrons and a brain's neural firings, things like newsprint and radio waves, and that is that. Others talk in grander terms, suggesting that information deserves full equality with matter and energy, that it should join them in some sort of scientific trinity, that these three things are the main ingredients of reality.
Fredkin goes further still. According to his theory of digital physics, information is more fundamental than matter and energy. He believes that atoms, electrons, and quarks consist ultimately of bits—binary units of information, like those that are the currency of computation in a personal computer or a pocket calculator. And he believes that the behavior of those bits, and thus of the entire universe, is governed by a single programming rule. This rule, Fredkin says, is something fairly simple, something vastly less arcane than the mathematical constructs that conventional physicists use to explain the dynamics of physical reality. Yet through ceaseless repetition—by tirelessly taking information it has just transformed and transforming it further—it has generated pervasive complexity. Fredkin calls this rule, with discernible reverence, "the cause and prime mover of everything."
"'Is there a simple computer that is the universe - a logical representation of how the universe fundamentally works?’ Wolfram asks. ‘I will admit to having made quite a lot of progress on that question. It strongly encourages me to say the answer is yes.’” - Robert Lee Holtz, "A Study in Complexity" (MIT Technology Review)
Technology Review: In your new book, you are admirably explicit: you write, “The Universe is indistinguishable from a quantum computer.” How can that be true?
Seth Lloyd: I know it sounds crazy. I feel apologetic when I say it. And people who have reviewed the book take it as a metaphor. But it’s factually the case. We couldn’t build quantum computers unless the universe were quantum and computing. We can build such machines because the universe is storing and processing information in the quantum realm. When we build quantum computers, we’re hijacking that underlying computation in order to make it do things we want: little and/or/not calculations. We’re hacking into the universe.
And of course, Fermilab wouldn't be spending millions testing to see if space is fundamentally discrete (one of the predicted indications of a digital universe) unless they believed the evidence was sufficient to justify the expense.