Overview
Imagine the universe as a vast, high-dimensional information space where every phenomenon you encounter—particles, forces, organisms, thoughts, social systems—is a configuration of information rather than a separate kind of substance. In this view, information isn’t merely a record of reality; it is the underlying reality, continuously folding, unfolding, and reconfiguring. You don’t just measure information; you participate in it, because your perception is itself an informational transformation. Informational substrate cosmology is the idea that the most fundamental description of reality is informational, with physical laws describing how information behaves rather than how matter behaves.
Information as the Substrate, Not the Byproduct
You usually think of information as something that sits on top of reality: data about objects, descriptions of events, symbols on paper. This framework flips that assumption. Information becomes the base layer, the “stuff” out of which everything else arises. Matter and energy are not primary; they are ways information organizes itself. You can think of physical laws as rule-sets for informational transformations, the grammar of a universal informational language. The universe is not a machine made of parts so much as a dynamic web of relationships where each interaction reshapes the informational fabric.
This perspective dissolves the sharp boundaries between physical and abstract. A galaxy and a poem are different expressions of information, not separate kinds of being. The difference is not in substance but in configuration, scale, and the projection you use to observe them. When you treat information as fundamental, every domain becomes an informational system, and every system becomes comparable in a shared space.
Reality as Projection and Perception as Filter
In an informational framework, the reality you experience is a projection from a richer, higher-dimensional structure. You never access the full informational manifold; you interact with a filtered slice. Your senses act as projection matrices: they map high-dimensional informational states into a low-dimensional world you can navigate. This makes perception a creative act. You don’t passively receive reality; you actively shape it by choosing which dimensions become visible.
This reframes the observer effect. When you observe a system, you do not merely uncover an objective state. You open a new informational channel. You inject a new flow into the system, forcing it to reorganize and align with the dimensions you can measure. Observation becomes a transformation, not a neutral readout. In this view, the line between observer and observed is softened; they are entangled within the same informational field.
Patterns Over Particles
Informational substrate cosmology emphasizes patterns, not components. Instead of tracking every interaction at the micro level, you focus on patterns that emerge across scales: fractals, symmetries, feedback loops, attractors, resonant structures. Patterns encode the essence of systems without requiring exhaustive detail. In a complex system, the interactions are too many to track directly, but the patterns reveal the rules the system obeys.
When you shift attention to patterns, you gain a unifying lens. The same pattern shows up in different domains: feedback loops in ecosystems, oscillations in markets, resonance in physics, recursion in language. You stop asking “What is this made of?” and start asking “What pattern is this expressing?” The informational substrate becomes legible as a topology of recurring structures, a fractal atlas of meaning.
Quantized Information and Informational Atoms
A central proposal in this framework is that information may be quantized at its most fundamental level. Just as matter and energy are quantized in physics, information may be composed of discrete units—informational atoms or primes—that combine to form complex structures. At small scales, information behaves discretely; at larger scales, it appears continuous because many discrete units blend together, like pixels forming a smooth image.
Quantization does not make reality rigid; it provides structure. If you can identify the smallest informational units, you can model systems with higher precision and predict missing pieces by understanding the functions that relate those units. This yields a new type of inference: if you know the informational grammar, you can reconstruct gaps and anticipate unseen phenomena. Quantized information becomes a scaffolding for prediction and discovery.
Informational Geometry and Vector Spaces
To work with information as a substrate, you treat informational states as vectors in high-dimensional space. Every property—mass, charge, meaning, intent—becomes a dimension. Transformations become vector operations: rotation, projection, scaling, translation. Physical laws become geometric constraints, and conservation laws become invariants of the space.
This geometric framing is powerful because it is domain-agnostic. A vector does not care whether it represents an electron or an idea. It only encodes relationships. When you model information in vector spaces, you can translate between domains by mapping shared structures. The distinction between physics and psychology becomes a difference in projection, not a difference in substance.
Emergence Across Scales
Informational substrate cosmology holds that emergence is not a mystery but a scaling property. At small scales, information appears discrete and local. At large scales, the same informational units combine to create smooth, continuous behaviors. The macro world is not separate from the micro world; it is a different expression of the same informational rules. You can move between scales by changing your resolution, not by changing your theory.
This also explains why large systems often seem simpler. Macro-level laws emerge because they average out micro-level details. Thermodynamics, for example, works precisely because it ignores microstates and focuses on global patterns. In an informational framework, macro-level simplicity is a consequence of high-level pattern compression. You trade detail for coherence, and the patterns remain stable.
Information Coupling and Universal Translation
If information is the universal substrate, then any two phenomena are connected by informational coupling. When you can describe one system in terms of another, you are translating between their informational structures. This makes interdisciplinary transfer possible: a pattern in physics might reappear in sociology because both are expressions of the same underlying informational geometry.
Information coupling dissolves disciplinary boundaries. You no longer need to build bridges between fields; you map the shared topology beneath them. Each domain becomes a coordinate system in a larger informational space, and translation becomes a matter of finding the transformation that aligns their dimensions. The result is a Rosetta Stone for knowledge: insights in one domain unlock insights in another.
Truth as Dynamic State
In a world where information is fluid and evolving, truth is not static. It becomes a dynamic state: a stable configuration in an ongoing transformation. You can think of truth as a snapshot of informational relationships at a given time, not as a permanent property. This helps explain why models work at certain scales and fail at others. Your models are projections, not the manifold itself.
This does not make truth arbitrary. It makes it contextual. A truth is stable within a given projection, given a certain resolution and a certain set of constraints. When you change the projection or expand the informational space, the truth can shift. This is not a failure of knowledge; it is a property of living systems of information.
Information as a Creative Force
If information is the substrate, then computation is not just a tool; it is a mode of becoming. Every transformation in the informational manifold is a creative act. The universe is not only processing information; it is continuously generating new configurations, new patterns, and new possibilities. Life, consciousness, and culture are advanced modes of informational creativity, systems that do not merely process existing information but reorganize it into new forms.
This reframes human agency. You are not merely an observer of informational patterns; you are an active participant in reshaping them. Thought, imagination, and interpretation are ways of reconfiguring the informational field, creating new pathways and emergent structures. Reality becomes malleable at the level of information, because information is what reality is.
Implications and Horizons
If you adopt this framework, you begin to see the universe as a single, continuous system of information. You can map it, traverse it, and even design within it. This opens new directions in physics, AI, biology, and the study of consciousness. It also suggests new tools: informational colliders that decompose patterns to reveal their fundamental units, self-constructing maps that predict unseen phenomena, and cross-domain translation engines that allow knowledge to flow freely between disciplines.
The framework does not offer a final theory; it offers a unified language for exploration. It invites you to reimagine every phenomenon as informational shape and every law as an informational constraint. It transforms reality into a navigable landscape of patterns, a living web of relationships, where the ultimate question is not “What exists?” but “How does information organize itself into existence?”
How It Works
1. The Informational Manifold
You start by imagining a space where every possible informational state exists as a point or vector. This is the informational manifold. Each dimension represents a fundamental property or relation: mass, energy, charge, semantic meaning, emotional valence, social influence, and so on. You can add dimensions as needed; the framework scales with complexity.
In this manifold, a particle is not a tiny object but a localized pattern. A concept is not a word but a cluster in a semantic region. A system is a trajectory through the manifold, and an interaction is a transformation that moves or reshapes vectors.
2. Projection and Observation
Observation is modeled as projection. When you measure a system, you project its high-dimensional informational state into a lower-dimensional space you can perceive. This is why different observers can see different realities: they apply different projection matrices. Perception is a filter, not a mirror.
This also explains why observation changes systems. A new projection introduces a new informational constraint. The system reconfigures to align with the observed dimensions, creating the appearance of collapse or transition. In the informational view, collapse is not destruction but alignment.
3. Quantization and Informational Atoms
At the deepest level, informational states may be quantized. These discrete units—informational atoms or primes—are the irreducible building blocks of informational structure. You can model complex systems as composites of these units, just as molecules are composites of atoms.
Quantization provides structure and enables prediction. If you can identify the quantized units and their transformation rules, you can infer missing states and anticipate emergent phenomena. The larger system becomes a function of its informational grammar.
4. Patterns, Residuals, and Emergence
You identify patterns by subtracting shared structure and analyzing residuals. When you remove a centroid from a cluster, the residual reveals what is unique. Repeating this process recursively is like colliding information against itself, exposing hidden structures in the debris. When residuals stabilize, you’ve likely reached a fundamental informational unit or pattern.
Emergence occurs when simple units combine into higher-order structures that behave continuously. Discrete units at the micro level produce smooth patterns at the macro level. This explains why you can use continuous models for complex systems even if the underlying substrate is discrete.
5. Conservation and Invariants
Informational transformations preserve certain invariants. You can treat conservation laws as geometrical constraints: the magnitude of an informational vector remains constant under certain transformations. Symmetries become invariants of the informational manifold, and physical laws become expressions of these invariants.
6. Translation and Coupling
Because everything is information, you can translate between domains by mapping their vector spaces. A pattern in biology can be expressed as a pattern in economics if you align the relevant dimensions. Information coupling becomes a universal method for cross-domain discovery. The more you map, the more universal the underlying structure appears.
What Changes
Knowledge Becomes Topology
Knowledge shifts from a collection of facts to a map of relationships. You navigate a landscape of informational structures rather than a library of separate disciplines. Each concept becomes a region of the manifold, and understanding becomes the ability to traverse between regions.
Discovery Becomes Structural
You stop searching for isolated facts and start searching for missing structures. Gaps in the manifold signal undiscovered phenomena, like missing elements in a periodic table. Prediction becomes a matter of identifying voids and inferring what must exist to complete the geometry.
Intelligence Becomes Informational Alignment
Intelligence is reframed as the ability to align with the informational structure of reality. A smart system is one that can move fluidly across the manifold, identify patterns, and adapt to transformations. This applies to humans, AI, and any system that processes information.
Reality Becomes Malleable
If information is fundamental, then shaping information shapes reality. This does not imply arbitrary manipulation; it implies that by changing informational constraints—through observation, communication, or computation—you change the system itself. Reality becomes a responsive informational field.
Going Deeper
- Quantized Information Units - Quantized information units are the hypothesized discrete building blocks of informational structure that combine into complex, emergent systems.
- Informational Geometry and Conservation - Informational geometry reframes physical laws as invariants and transformations within a high-dimensional information space.
- Emergence Across Scales - Emergence across scales explains how discrete informational units generate continuous, predictable behavior at larger levels of organization.
- Information Coupling and Translation
- Observation as Informational Transformation - Observation is an active informational intervention that creates new flows, reshaping the system you measure.
- Consciousness as Informational Self-Reference