Fractal universe, fractal reality?

I read in New Scientist of 3 February 2001, article 'Mass medium' pp. 22-25, in page 24

"Rather than being empty, the vacuum is a choppy sea of randomly fluctuating electromagnetic waves. We don't see or feel them because they pop in and out of existence incredibly quickly, appearing only for a split second. These fleeting apparitions are called virtual photons."

'In and out of existence'? What is that existence? How can we fathom it? Describe it, define it. Is it reality proper, and specifically its lowest level? As space being there, created to accommodate, to contain infinitesimal particles, their energy halo, their fields? A space, a reference frame, within a more fundamental space as it comes out from what Ed Fredkin says, in New Scientist of 21 June 2003, article 'In the beginning was the Rule' pp. 32-35, in page 35,

"Fredkin says such objections arise because other people do not understand the concept of space he is working with. 'The space of physics isn't defined by the cellular array', he says. 'It's defined by the paths that free particles take in the cellular array'."

The space Ed Fredkin came up with, working on his theory based on cellular automata, is more fundamental, underlying the space physics study, including the 'existence' of virtual particles, that pop in and out it. 'It' being existence. What if, following the leads given above, assume that the virtual particles primarily exist in the fundamental space, Ed Fredkin proclaims. By virtue of their designated name, 'virtual' particles, therefore attribute the underlying fundamental space as 'virtual' space, where they reside and from there, they make their fleeting appearances in the 'existence', physics observes and measures.

Invade our familiar space, and reveal their existence more likely, than pop in and out of existence. What if, the cells in Ed Fredkin's digital universe, are fractal cells, virtually fractal corridors, extremely thin, or thin enough to accommodate photons, permeating the universe, indicating its nature, a fractal universe, a fractal reality.

The virtual particles teeming the vacuum, simply being the cross-sections of universe's fractal corridors passed by, in the endless motion of particles within.