How to Build a Universe
Is there a name for “unifying theories of the Universe”? For example, I’m a fan of the free energy principle, which roughly states that human brains — and by extension, the Universe — are trying to reduce uncertainty. My contribution is the idea that our universe is fundamentally a ratio between liquidity and optionality:
The magic of our universe is embodied in a physical hierarchy, from neutrino to Neutron star, where at each level, we see the same beautiful pattern: many, mostly uniform objects interacting with each other, forming a foundation for complexity at the next level. For example, the elements in the Periodic Table are distributed logarithmically in the Universe, which just so happens to be important for our version of conscious complexity. If there were only one type of atom in the Universe, for example, that wouldn’t be good. If all the atom types were uniformly distributed, that probably also wouldn’t be good. And if there were only 80 atoms in the Universe instead of 10e80, that wouldn’t work.
This pairing of lateral combination with telescoping vertical combination, similar to Russian dolls, appears to be the most fundamental properties. If you had to boil this down to a few “atomic” components, you’d say that our universe has an incredible amount of liquidity and optionality.
