Simulating Life?

I don’t often read Uncommon Descent, but Tom Gilson pointed out an excellent post by mathematician Granville Sewell, called “My Failed Simulation.” He asks:

In my 2000 Mathematical Intelligencer article I speculated on what would happen if we constructed a gigantic computer model which starts with the initial conditions on Earth 4 billion years ago and tries to simulate the effects that the four known forces of physics (the gravitational and electromagnetic forces and the strong and weak nuclear forces) would have on every atom and every subatomic particle on our planet. If we ran such a simulation out to the present day, I asked, would it predict that the basic forces of Nature would reorganize the basic particles of Nature into libraries full of encyclopedias, science texts and novels, nuclear power plants, aircraft carriers with supersonic jets parked on deck, and computers connected to laser printers, CRTs and keyboards?

Before you balk at his gross ignorance, make sure you read the whole thing. ;)