but that is not how real life works
I agree
In reality, high-level code even if it exists cannot override low-level code. Low-level code is the laws of nature! So the tension that I am talking about is unavoidable.
But not for this reason, this is just begging the question.
It's totally in principle possible for a universe to exist where there is high level code, and it does override low level code. I don't see any reason to believe that's not possible, you're just insisiting that it's not, even despite acknowledging that I'm capable of programming a world where it does happen. If I can program it, then surely you must agree that it's in principle possible in some world.
The reason it's not possible in this world, in my opinion, is because the principle of locality is much more fundamental in this world than in Conway's Game of Life.
You see, in Conway's Game of Life, the base rules are fully local - the only rules governing what a single pixel will do next are all based on the state of neighboring pixels, so the only hard causes of anything in Conway's are entirely and completely local. BUT as we've discussed, it is totally possible to change Conway's programmiong slightly to introduce non-locality. Even as a simpler example, just imagine that I added in a stipulation that a pixel 20 pixels up and to the left may ALSO affect the pixels next state -- that would be easy to code, *not* an example of strong emergence but still non-local, and wouldn't require any sort of large scale overhaul of the basic logic of Conway's Game -- not an overhaul, just an extra rule to code in.
However, in our universe, we have an Einstein, and in our Universe, our Einstein seems to have proven Relativity, specifically for the case of this conversation, Relativity of Simultaneity. So while in Conway's game we can ask a question like "what is the state of a pixel 20 pixels up and to the left right now?", in our world, anything sufficiently far away from another thing, you cannot objectively ask the question "What is the state of that thing
right now?" "Right Now" isn't an objective global thing in our world like it is in Conway's Game.
Locality in physics seems to have been a long-standing preference - something that physicists thought was probably true, but didn't have any proof, but it was more based on what they thought would be mathematically beautiful, which is to some a compelling reason to believe something but not necessarily to everyone. But the advent of Relativity, in my view, made locality no longer just a matter of mathematical beauty but a complete requirement. If Relativity is true, Locality must also be true. And if locality is true, that means that the source code of the universe CANNOT ask questions analogous to "what is the state of a pixel 20 pixels up and to the left right now?". That question isn't allowed, because it's not even meaningful in our universe. So in our universe, then, the only things that can be in the source code are things about "neighboring pixels".