What is the underlying substrate that allows the universe to exist?
I didn't like the answers provided in the Quora thread I read on this subject, so I won't even really bother linking it here. I'm far more interested in what the HN community would have to say about this topic.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 25.5 ms ] threadExcept! A very interesting idea that I've drawn out of recent reading is the way that physical systems can map onto other physical systems (usually representing them at a drastically different scale) and that this "mapping" is independent of the human mind, or a conscious observer. The only natural examples I can think of are the way that genotype maps to phenotype, and the way that the neural behavior of the brain can map to certain aspects of reality. Computers are an "unnatural" (human-created) example.
Is this related to what you mean by "information"?
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Information has to do with entropy... measuring information is a form of measuring entropy. Low entropy information is less random than high entropy information.
The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics says __closed__ systems tend towards disorder, which means they tend to increase in entropy. As a quick example a bunch lego blocks (let's say they magically stick together) thrown together, will most of the time create clumps. Most of the time it will be clumps, but if done enough times eventually more interesting structures are made that are by definition lower entropy, they are statistically less probable. A lego dinosaur is less probable than a clump, and also lower entropy.
So the question remains what exactly is Information, and the best answer I can think of is that it's the Universe's 2nd Law in action. However it does it, we move forward in time, this in turn creates non-random structures in space, eventually leading to more complex systems like life, but it's all just structures transforming into other structures (including energy structures), and as astrophysics is saying in the future the Universe will be at a very high entropy state with little information processing left to do.
This is a descent intro BBC documentary on information and entropy -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj7HH0PCqIE
It may be tricky to grasp at first, but it all builds from there, information structures become complex creating lifeforms, which in turn create their own structures like language. In our attempts to understand our own patterns of communication, we discovered information processing at every level of reality, from DNA molecules that store information down to atoms and particles that create the substrate on top of which all other information processes take place.
More seriously, I generally don’t put too much stock in questions of metaphysics...we have trouble enough explaining things _inside_ the universe, I’m reluctant to tear it all down and start from an even more fundamental place.
(I don’t mean to reject the question, it’s just my own preference to focus on questions closer to my reality; I think this question quickly moves towards ‘objective’ reality, and that’s a lot to handle!)
Some theories argue that it is just a mathematical equation in which the maths <-> physics link is somehow defined within it.