Stephen Wolfram has been taking a stab at it. Researching fundamental physics via computational exploration is how I'd put it. https://www.wolframphysics.org/
>There’s a whole way of thinking about the world using the idea of computation. And it’s very powerful, and fundamental. Maybe even more fundamental than physics can ever be.
>Yes, there is undecidability in mathematics, as we’ve known since Gödel’s theorem. But the mathematics that mathematicians usually work on is basically set up not to run into it. But just being “plucked from the computational universe”, my cellular automata don’t get to avoid it.
I definitely wouldn't call him a crackpot, but he does seem to be spinning in a philosophical rut.
I like his way of thinking (and I would, because I write code for a living), but I can't shake the feeling that his physics hypotheses are flawed and are destined to bear no fruit.
But I guess we'll see, won't we?
[1] http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/ [2] https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2020/04/how-we-got-here-...
But I think his articles about Machine Learning are excellent. [2]
[1]https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=%22comp...
[2]https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/category/artificial-inte...
Most people in the field don't think his research will be fruitful, but that doesn't make him a crack pot
He also did some important early work on cellular automata if iirc.
Then he wrote "A New Kind of Science", which reads like an ego trip and was not received well by the community (it is a massive tome that could have been summarized with a much smaller book). He also tried to claim discoveries from one of his workers due to some NDA shenanigans (or something along these lines iirc). The latter doesn't make him a crank, just a massive egotist, which is a trait nearly all cranks have. Sabine Hossenfelder did a video on him and how he only publishes in his own made up journals and generally doesn't use the process used by all other scientists. I think a lot believe where there is smoke, there is fire. To his credit, she also mentioned that some physicists gave him some critical feedback and he did then go and spend a bunch of time addressing the flaws they found.
Wolfram's claim is that Cellukar Automata can provide as good or better mathematical model of the universe than current current theories, by commonly appreciated metrics such as "pasimony of theory" (Occam's Razor). He's not making claims about metaphysical truth.