The Universe is Comprehensible

"The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it's comprehensible." - Albert Einstein

• humans are incredibly small creatures in relation to the size of the universe
• to be able to look out into the universe and percieve things, our brains must simulate it (usually only approximately as a compressed/simplified representation)
• fundamental simulations are hard-wired by evolution (i.e. percieving depth, tracking moving objects, feeling the properties of an object...)
• abstract simulations are created through experience and thought, but are built upon the fundamental simulations
• abstract simulations are simulations of the patterns of correlations between fundamental simulations

• what separates humans from other animals is our predictive ability (we can take an immediate choice before us and project the consequences of it years into the future), and our ability to be self aware and to learn how to learn (this gives us powerful adaptive capability -- we are the only animals who can completely go against their instincts)

• the amazing thing about the universe, however, is how easy it is to understand -- something as tiny as a fly, whose brain is just a tiny clump of neurons, has enough predictive ability to navigate through a chaotic system of turbulent wind votices, avoid predators, find sustinance, interact with other flies, mate, and produce offspring
• the reason that such powerful behaviour can come from such a simple being is that the universe is set up with simplicity and universality at the forefront
• all of the laws of nature are, individually, incredibly simple and stable, but give rise to a staggeringly complex array of different phenomena
• example: all of the sensory input which we can percieve at our size-scale (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch) is a result of the electromagnetic force

Since our brains have to do something called dimensionality reduction to convert our complex breadth of experience into simple patterns that we can fit into our limited neural matter, that means the universe is highly ordered and dimension-reducible.

Evolution is the only rule you need...

It turns out that this idea can be found in Richard Dawkins' books, The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker, as well as Lee Smolin's book The Life of the Cosmos.

• the idea behind evolution is so brilliantly simple: what survives is that which is best at surviving (a self-defining principle)
• to create anything you want, just make it more likely for your creation to survive, then make infinite variations of random things, and give them limited resources so they have to fight for them.
• what if our local universe (the quantum universe -- currently 14-billion light years in radius) is only one of many other universes? what if each universe has slightly different rules, and slightly different properties. what if the ones that couldn't survive flew apart and dissolved almost instantly, but the ones that could survive continued to expand and coalesce? what if the ones that were particularly well-suited to survive could create new universes inside them, based on their own rules?
• it seems to me that the intelligence at work in the universe isn't the result of a pre-ordained plan, but rather is the result of a mindbogglingly long evolutionary process. the universe seems more like it's driven by a mindless force of creation and change than a premeditated intelligence...

• one of the prevalent patterns in the universe is larger entities with complex behaviours made up of many smaller entities with simpler behaviours, which themselves are made up of smaller entities... eg. people->organs->cells->organelles->proteins->molecules->atoms->subatomic particles->quarks->?!?