Why is the universe so hard to figure out?
The universe is hard to figure out because every attempt has started by assuming most of the answer. Physics begins with a spacetime, a list of fields, a symmetry group chosen to match the detectors, and about twenty-six numbers copied from laboratories. Write a spacetime on line one and you can never derive one, or say why space has three large dimensions. Each past breakthrough deleted an assumption, as Einstein did with absolute time, and each was resisted, because an assumption held since childhood feels like the world. The four big programs since the 1970s all kept the arena, a ready-made stage for events. Gravity and quantum theory clash right there, since each needs as input the stage the other produces. And nobody can step outside to inspect the machine, because the engineer is one of its parts.
Also in Prologue: No Source Code, No Documentation.
This answer comes from OPH, Observer Patch Holography. OPH is a rigorous, consistent and complete description of the unified, self-creating computational Universe we inhabit. Its consistency is machine-checked: the fixed point at its core is constructed explicitly, and a theory with a model contains no contradiction.
To understand OPH and check every step yourself, start with the free book Reverse Engineering Reality. It builds the theory from the ground up, and the OPH Notebook answers your questions while you read.
read the free bookask the notebookor ask sage:read chapter 1: Why Is the Universe So Hard to Reverse Engineer?watch a universe make its own particles