If you imagine the physical world as a vast machine. Something like a cellular automata, you can imagine theories about the universe as ‘compressions’. Parts of

If you imagine the physical world as a vast machine. Something like a cellular automata, you can imagine theories about the universe as ‘compressions’. Parts of the universe which show repeating patterns can be explained by theories, which can be used to make predictions about future state. Sometimes the universe permits such theories and some times it does not. Sometimes it’s irreducibly complex and there is no ‘compression’, no pattern.