I think I misspoke a little. A more natural division is between physical law, knowledge of the universe’s state (which can be localized around you, you don’t have to start at the big bang), and miscellaneous correction terms. Of course there are programs that don’t look anything like this, but the idea is that if we really are in a universe governed by simple laws, in the limit of lots of observations this sort of hypothesis will become good. This is also a requirement for using a Solomonoff inductor to talk about physical laws in the first place.
Why would the simplest program that describes all your observations so far be a specification of the entire universe along with your location?
I think I misspoke a little. A more natural division is between physical law, knowledge of the universe’s state (which can be localized around you, you don’t have to start at the big bang), and miscellaneous correction terms. Of course there are programs that don’t look anything like this, but the idea is that if we really are in a universe governed by simple laws, in the limit of lots of observations this sort of hypothesis will become good. This is also a requirement for using a Solomonoff inductor to talk about physical laws in the first place.