Creating the world

Could there be an algorithm for the creation of the world? An algorithm in the sense of a sufficiently complete description of (dynamical) initial conditions (matter, energy, various derivatives thereof) that it would accurately predict the actual course of development of the whole universe? Where would such an algorithm reside? It would seem that it could not reside within those original conditions. A complete description of the state of anything seems to require at least as many data points as there are objects in (or attributes of, or whatever) the thing to be described. It therefore cannot be contained within the thing described without generating an infinite regress (or an infinite expansion, more like).

Or can a part completely describe the whole? Can some rule-based description sufficiently describe something, even something of which it is a part, to allow perfect prediction? Doesn’t the absence of a complete description, in the sense above – a complete catalog of initial conditions – imply some necessary uncertainty as to outcome?

If the algorithm did not exist in the initial conditions, could it exist in some later evolution? Could the world evolve in such a way that it could eventually contain a complete description of the way it was at some former time? Doesn’t this imply that the future world has more stuff in it than the former one did? Doesn’t this defy conservation of matter/energy? But doesn’t every instant of the world contain stuff that the former didn’t? Because at every instant matter and energy are arranged differently than they were before. Isn’t this structure “stuff” in some sense? An object? A thing? A collection of things? (Even, potentially, an unlimited collection of things, in the sense that some observer might interpret the same structure in different ways, for the purpose of different analyses.) The law of conservation of matter and energy says there can be no net increase or decrease in the total quantity of matter/energy, only – it says nothing about “stuff” or “things”, per se. New things, in the sense above, are created and destroyed by (rule conforming) changes in the state of the world’s matter and energy all the time. Can these changes in state create an expansion of the total amount of “stuff” in a way that it could include a complete description of a former state w/out requiring an infinite expansion?

The answer to my original question may be “no”. I rather suspect that the structure-stuff cannot generate the kinds of things that could record sufficient data points to completely describe a former state of the matter/energy, unchanging in total quantity, of whose current state it is the structure. Which implies that the best we can even theoretically hope for in terms of world-generating algorithms is a rule based algorithm, to be applied to an incompletely specified set of initial conditions, which could create many different worlds, including, possibly (purely by chance) our own, or a complete algorithm, including initial conditions, of a much, much smaller universe.

But it sure is an interesting question to wonder about, in any case.