What’s most significant about this question is that we’ve seen more than enough evidence to conclude that if we’re at all generic observers, then universes must be weighted pretty directly by simplicity of the underlying mathematical structure.
Otherwise, as you point out, we’d be likely to be in a very labyrinthine mathematical structure; but most of those should not have the property that progress in physics leads you to consecutively (mathematically) simpler laws with more explanatory power. Instead, the things that make fire burn and the things that make plants grow should turn out to have nothing in common, etc...
Could observers saliently like us exist in a universe where the things that make fire burn and the things that make plants grow have nothing in common?
I don’t know how to make that question concrete, but it feels like there ought to be a way to do it. I suspect it depends on understanding the actual commonalities better than I do.
What’s most significant about this question is that we’ve seen more than enough evidence to conclude that if we’re at all generic observers, then universes must be weighted pretty directly by simplicity of the underlying mathematical structure.
Otherwise, as you point out, we’d be likely to be in a very labyrinthine mathematical structure; but most of those should not have the property that progress in physics leads you to consecutively (mathematically) simpler laws with more explanatory power. Instead, the things that make fire burn and the things that make plants grow should turn out to have nothing in common, etc...
Could observers saliently like us exist in a universe where the things that make fire burn and the things that make plants grow have nothing in common?
I don’t know how to make that question concrete, but it feels like there ought to be a way to do it. I suspect it depends on understanding the actual commonalities better than I do.