That seems to be the approach he's advocating, yes. As to its success - well, you don't see many (any?) papers like this... If you are interested in this, go r

That seems to be the approach he's advocating, yes. As to its success - well, you don't see many (any?) papers like this... If you are interested in this, go read "Gödel Escher Bach". It brilliantly explores this complexity-from-simplicity theme and the consequences of various viewpoints. E.g. you can easily observe/guess whether someone likes to eat curry; however, deriving this from the atoms making up said person is utterly infeasible.