"The idea that every physical event is a computation has spread like wildfire through science."
Not that it's necessarily true, but I think it would have made better science fiction had The Matrix claimed that humans were computation units in the Machine's world, rather than that "battery" stuff.
[Morpheus voice]
What an amusing reversal... Which lane is fastest through this interchange? How many people get in the elevator? Have the soup or the salad? Tastes great or less filling? Our surroundings are encoded problems, and the aggregate of human behavior presents a solution to those problems. How many people make a quantum bit? 1,000? 10,000? 1,000,000? It depends perhaps on the resolution of the solution that is sought. What questions are we answering for the machines? Who could possibly know?
[/Morpheus voice]
They could have explored that, maybe, in a sequel, had they ever made one. Shame they didn't get around to it...