How Did the Universe Get Started?

This is the greatest of puzzles because it seems impossible to find an answer. We are not asking "Did the Big Bang Happen?" but rather "What caused the creation of this universe?" The question seems at odds with both science and common sense. Common sense tells us that something can't come from nothing. Science proclaims that the quantity of Mass-Energy is conserved or always the same and unchanging. Science has a fancy way of saying the same thing as common sense. Common sense says that the story of the Universe has to have a beginning. Science says that the Universe started with the Big Bang. Once again Science and common sense agree. Common sense tells us that there is something here; "Cogito ergo sum". A reasonable estimate of the mass of the Universe is something like 10^53kg (the number of tons of stuff is 1 followed by 50 zeroes). So far science and common sense are in complete agreement. The rub is: if the Universe had a beginning then before the beginning the Universe wasn't here; the Universe can't come from nothing and yet the Universe is here.

It just doesn't hang together. Either we have to believe the Universe has been here forever or some kind of magic took place in the beginning. In a sense, physics lets us down when we try to peer at what was it that created the Universe so that the Big Bang could happen. Nevertheless, Finite Nature gives us a way to look beyond the Big Bang. It gives us the possibility of thinking about how the Universe got here and even about why the Universe is here. Additionally it gives us an idea of how the laws of physics were created, and why the laws have certain characteristics.

The answer lies in the amazing consequence of the simple assumption of Finite Nature. As we have explained, Finite Nature means that what underlies physics is essentially a computer. Not the kind of computer that students use to do their homework on, but a close cousin; a cellular automaton. Not knowing the details of that computer doesn't matter because a great and tragic British mathematician, Alan Turing proved that we don't need to know the details!

What Turing did in the 1930s was to invent the Turing Machine. It was a way to formalize all the things that a mathematician could do with pencil and paper. The result proves that any ordinary computer, given the proper program and enough memory, can do what any other computer can do. It can also do what any mathematician can do; if we only knew how to write the program! Finite Nature implies that the process underlying physics is a kind of computer, therefore it is subject to Turing's proof. This means that there is not just one kind of underlying computer, but there are many possible equivalent computers. Of course some are simpler, some are more elegant, some use the least amount of various resources, some are faster... This means that once we have figured out that it's a computer at the bottom, we already know a lot even if we don't know what kind of computer would be most efficient at the task.