The Consequences of Finite Nature
The following is a list of some of the more obvious consequences of Finite Nature:
1. The fundamental process that underlies physics must be computation universal. Since the test of a computation universal process is that one can program up a universal machine within it, the existence of computers proves that the fundamental process is universal.
2. Things don't just happen; everything is a simple consequence of the fundamental process. Viewed from the informational perspective, the idea that a particle just has a momentum makes no sense. If the momentum is reasonably precise, meaning that it is one of a large number of possible momenta, then it contains a substantial amount of information, and that information must have a means of its representation.
3. The most fundamental stuff of physics is not the cells and bits. It is the result of the fundamental process run in the cells with the bits.
4. The future is computed as a function of the present and (most likely) the past. One way or another, it is very likely a second order system.
5. Matter has inertia because it takes some kind of process (like from a field) to change the momentum information (the information that governs the motion of the particle).
6. A particle accelerates when the environmental information, representing a field or a photon, interacts to change the information associated with the motion of the particle.
7. Information must have a means of its representation. If we had the right kind of magic microscope, we should always be able to see the digits that represent whatever information is present. Information is never "just there".
8. What cannot be programmed cannot be physics. This is a very important idea. If a process cannot be programmed on a particular universal computer, despite having enough memory and time, then it cannot be programmed on any computer. If we can't program it on an ordinary computer, Finite Nature implies it can't be a part of physics because physics runs on a kind of computer.
9. An informational process cannot represent motion without a reference metric; finite nature demands the existence of a metric. This is a difficult idea. The implication is that the computational substrate of quantum mechanics must have access to some kind of metric in order to create inertial motion. Whether or not higher level processes in physics can access that metric is another question. It is hard to see why such access need be forbidden, since every particle must access the metric in order to move. Of course it is also clear that experiments done so far fail to detect any such metric. The argument for asserting the metric is that inertial motion requires an informational process that can take information that represents the velocity and use it to change the position of the particle. There must be information available that allows the process to know the velocity relative to something (the metric) that persists throughout the space that the particle will travel through. Without access to a constant, fixed space‑time metric or its informational equivalent, there is no way to create an informational process that can involve particles moving independently in rectilinear motion
10. Energy, time, spin and other properties of the world cannot be programmed (made to work in an automata) without the existence of a metric.
11. Digital Mechanics is deterministic with unknowable determinism.
12. In general, physics is computing the future as fast as it can.
13. Some special cases (like the motion of the planets) can be computed faster than physics, allowing for predictions.
14. Most microscopic things, like quantum mechanics, cannot be computed on an ordinary computer faster than real time. From our perspective, the information bath that all events are immersed in will always be beyond our computing (in general). Thus, we call events dependent on that information "random".
15. The speed up theorem limits the detail with which we can know the future.
16. Physics is a consequence of the fundamental bits being engaged in the fundamental informational process.
17. The Engine is the computer that runs the fundamental informational process that runs physics.
18. The Engine and the fundamental informational process are computation universal.
19. Any universal Engine will do (given enough memory).
20. Physics is totally independent of the characteristics of the engine, so long as it is universal.
21. Everything mentioned in items 1 through 20 above that is in italics, is not a part of physics and is not to be found in this universe. Rather, it is stuff that exists somewhere, where, perhaps, the rules may be different. If we imagine using a computer to simulate air flow in a wind tunnel, we can think of that simulated airflow as a little universe following simple laws of physics. The computer is not made up of the air flowing in the simulated wind tunnel; the computer is not in the simulated wind tunnel, it is somewhere else.
