The Einstein black hole equation got me thinking. In a universe where so many things seem random, unexplained, and misunderstood, how can numbers on a paper explain and predict how the universe works?
It blows my mind that this concept (math) is so young relative to the universe and can be used to explain how and why things happen. Where’s the connection?
In: Mathematics
The answers so far mostly talk about mathematics being made for and by physically modelling the universe. That is mostly true, but it misses the question:
It is actually quite extraordinary that simple equations describe and model our reality so very well. Life, consciousness, all those things could theoretically also exist in a much less “reasonable” universe with weird magics, time travel, and the sky turning green for an hour each day. More akin to the worlds of [Welcome to Nightvale](https://www.welcometonightvale.com/) and [UNSONG](https://unsongbook.com/), a surrealist horror-fantasy impossible to truly grasp by anybody.
Yet the universe is not, it is unreasonably simple. This is actually a very deep philosophical problem yet to be resolved, if ever possible.
There are some attempts at explanation, none final or perfect, but some at least not completely bonkers. A relatively common one springs from the _simulation hypothesis_, that the universe essentially runs on a computer. If so then simpler code that still spawns life is more likely than complex ones. This especially happens if one has a kind of evolution of programs resulting from simulations again running simulations within them, like we do already at increasing accuracy.
From that point of view, a simpler program-organism is much more likely to appear, and thus much more common, than a needlessly complicated one. Even more, one that is easier to understand by the sapient life within might be more prone to lead to computers and simulations.
But that is just one out of many options.
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