  I am most honoured to have the privilege to present the Foreword to this
fascinating and wonderfully varied collection of contributions, concerning the
nature of computation and of its deep connection with the operation of those
basic laws, known or yet unknown, governing the universe in which we live.
Fundamentally deep questions are indeed being grappled with here, and the fact
that we find so many different viewpoints is something to be expected, since,
in truth, we know little about the foundational nature and origins of these
basic laws, despite the immense precision that we so often find revealed in
them. Accordingly, it is not surprising that within the viewpoints expressed
here is some unabashed speculation, occasionally bordering on just partially
justified guesswork, while elsewhere we find a good deal of precise reasoning,
some in the form of rigorous mathematical theorems. Both of these are as should
be, for without some inspired guesswork we cannot have new ideas as to where
look in order to make genuinely new progress, and without precise mathematical
reasoning, no less than in precise observation, we cannot know when we are
right -- or, more usually, when we are wrong.
