The Universe Is a Giant Abstract Turing Machine That Doesn’t Need to Be Run

If U() is the set of all possible Turing machine definitions, U(a) is just one of them, one that represents ours. This philosophy is also termed digital physics, and this essay attempts to put the philosophy in layman’s term.

Our universe is probably defined by a set of 10 or so functions or physics rules plus 10 or so initial variables (representing half of our universal constants, with the other half being implied by the first), that when played out over a power tower set of loops, would describe the position and velocity of every particle in the universe. Our universe is much like Conway’s Game of Life, where simple rules lead to complex phenomena. We know our universe has a compact definition, based on our progress towards a Unifying Field Theory. And we can rewind nearly everything in the universe back to the Big Bang.

It seems that life as we know it is rare, but U() is infinite. It represents every possible computer, even a non-compact one where every frame of our existence is simply hard-coded. Even though there are a power tower number of particles, velocities, and moments in our universe, there exists some U(k) that could just have all that information by assertion. However, we are likely not just an abstract film reel, as the odds that the next moment after reading this text would follow the rules of physics instead of being pre-written, particle-by-particle, is astronomical.