ARCO investigates a deeper question than what a particular computer can compute: which dynamical conditions cause memory, information processing, and computation to emerge in the first place?
What minimal dynamical conditions are sufficient for persistent information storage?
Search across different information universes for the structural, dynamical, and informational properties that predict memory. The central test is whether the same principles survive changes in substrate, topology, locality, reversibility, conservation, noise, and update rules.
Are storage, information transfer, and transformation fundamentally distinct computational resources?
Map different information universes into a common computational space and test whether substrate-independent trade-offs or bounds exist between storage, transport, and transformation.
Does computational capacity systematically peak near dynamical phase transitions?
Revisit the long-standing edge-of-chaos hypothesis using substrate-independent measurements. Test whether memory, information transfer, and transformation peak in a universal dynamical regime—or whether different computational functions prefer different regimes.