Tetris is capable of universal computation
It seems like I quite often see posts here about how $thing$ can perform universal computation, or simulate a UTM, or whatever. And obviously the HN readership selects for these articles.<p>But is there any significance to be found in all these things having this attribute? Does it tell us anything about the universality of computation as a property of the universe?<p>I seem to recall that sed and C++ template installation are known to be Turing complete - and i can kind of understand that as they are designed to manipulate information, even if it is surprising that their limited syntax provides enough "power" for universality. But Tetris was not designed with this capability, yet it has it. Same with Minecraft - within which it is apparently possible to implement a Turing machine.<p>I've seen claims that DNA replication and other naturally occuring systems may be capable of universal computation too.<p>So in the bigger picture, whats going on here?