I kinda thought of those as thought-entities running on a compute substrate which was out of "phase" with normal space. But it has been many years since I last read those books :D

The commonwealth sage was much better on the "thought-entities" part. I really liked their approach on the topic.

Commonwealth is a good series yes. In general PFH does a good job of explaining things without deus-ex-machina type situations.

Mostly yes. Even though I hated the serie about SF and ghosts.

You strike me as someone who perhaps gets on better with Greg Egan then :D

I didn't know this author. Gonna add him to my list.

If I were to recommend any of his stuff for you to start with, perhaps Schild's ladder

Arf, not translated in french. Gonna have to read in english then I guess...

desolé

Je survivrai. ;)