Does a Turing Machine NEED to have the "machine" part or can it just be the tape with the information already there?

In other words, is an algorithm/function separate from the information it changes actually needed for anything to "happen" in a computation
Like in this comic, are the rocks actively simulating a universe just by representing one?


This is hurting my brain, I can't exactly see why it must be the case that a computation/simulation/representation isn't created when the information for it is already just 'there' on an abstract stream of pure information