By Occam’s razor this means that the universe follows the simplest possible interesting rule. That’s your Theory of Everything right there. This rule might be the Langton Ant, or it might even just be the subsequent numbers, represented by the simple formula n2=n1+1. Which, as we can see from prime number research, is as interesting as it gets.
From this emerges everything else, and that is why mathematics is so successful an instrument in physics.
So because there can not be nothing, there is the infinite, infinitely interesting universe. Infinite in all directions, probably not just space and time but also scale and dimensionality. Inside every single singularity, before the big bang, after the heat death, and inside every single truly elementary particle on the Planck scale of sizes could lie another, or I should say THE universe. That makes the universe super-infinite and super-deterministic, and at the same time still unpredictable on any too large or too small a scale, just like the Game of Life.
But before you say “infinity is also platonic”, think of a Möbius strip.
A few more words about that: on a paper Möbius strip an ant can walk straight ahead forever, but it will pass by the same spot again and again. However, this is not possible in reality, because while traversing, the Möbius strip and yourself both age.
If the distances approach the size of our local universe, it will actually take forever to traverse even a small fraction of the way to the starting point. You will reach an event horizon first. This should give you an approximate idea of what I mean by Möbius-Infinite; you have to take Einstein’s General Relativity into account, and remember that singularities can only be entered from one side.
So there ARE real kinds of infinities, and whenever I mention infinity, it’s the Möbius kind of infinities I am referring to.
Now we have answered two of the three questions of life, the universe and everything. The universe seems more obvious than we thought. “Everything” is already the answer to the question of nothing, of why the universe exists.
Now about life.
Better don’t READ ON if you are easily scared, because what follows might be the most freightning thing you could ever imagine!