> If someone believes the world is purely mechanistic, then it follows that a sufficiently large computing machine can model the world

Is this controversial in some way? The problem is that to simulate a universe you need a bigger universe -- which doesn't exist (or is certainly out of reach due to information theoretical limits)

> ---like Leibniz's Ratiocinator. The intoxication may stem from the potential for predictability and control.

I really don't understand the 'control' angle here. It seems pretty obvious that even in a purely mechanistic view of the universe, information theory forbids using the universe to simulate itself. Limited simulations, sure... but that leaves lots of gaps wherein you lose determinism (and control, whatever that means).