Assume without loss of generality that each universe can be represented by a program in some Turing-complete language. Assume for the sake of argument that we are ignoring small programs and considering only large ones. Divide all programs into two categories:
Those that produce regular output. (A large program may do this if, for example, its execution gets stuck in a small loop.)
Those that produce pseudorandom output.
The ratio of the two categories (in the limit as size goes to infinity) depends on the language, but this doesn’t matter, because the second category is unobservable from inside (a pseudorandom universe is unlikely to support life and certainly won’t provide selection pressure for intelligence). Therefore we must observe our universe to be in the first category. This means the observed laws of physics must be simple (such as could have been generated by a small program), regardless of whether the “actual code” of the universe is small or large.
Assume without loss of generality that each universe can be represented by a program in some Turing-complete language. Assume for the sake of argument that we are ignoring small programs and considering only large ones. Divide all programs into two categories:
Those that produce regular output. (A large program may do this if, for example, its execution gets stuck in a small loop.)
Those that produce pseudorandom output.
The ratio of the two categories (in the limit as size goes to infinity) depends on the language, but this doesn’t matter, because the second category is unobservable from inside (a pseudorandom universe is unlikely to support life and certainly won’t provide selection pressure for intelligence). Therefore we must observe our universe to be in the first category. This means the observed laws of physics must be simple (such as could have been generated by a small program), regardless of whether the “actual code” of the universe is small or large.
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