Everything processes information. DNA is code. Physics is math. Black holes store data on their surfaces. The universe might BE information.
Every piece of information—this text, your thoughts, the laws of physics—can be reduced to bits. Yes/no. On/off. 1/0.
Physicist John Wheeler proposed that physical reality arises from information. Every particle, field, and force derives its existence from bits.
When you measure a particle, you're asking a yes/no question. The universe answers in bits. Spin up or down? The answer is always binary.
The equations of physics aren't just descriptions—they might be the source code of reality.
Life runs on code. DNA uses a 4-letter alphabet (A, T, G, C) to encode instructions for building every living thing.
Your genome contains 3 billion base pairs—roughly 750 megabytes. It's been copying and updating itself for 3.8 billion years.
Evolution is information processing: mutation introduces variations, selection filters, inheritance passes data forward.
Why does math work so well? Equations discovered for abstract beauty—complex numbers, topology—perfectly describe quantum mechanics and spacetime.
One possibility: reality IS mathematical structure. We're not discovering math in nature—we're discovering nature is math.
Black holes destroy matter but preserve information. Everything that falls in is encoded on the event horizon—the 2D surface.
This led to a radical idea: maybe all of reality works this way. Our 3D universe might be a projection of information on a 2D boundary.
If reality is computational: is it being computed by something?
Bostrom's argument: If civilizations can run simulations, and many do, then statistically we're probably in one.
The deeper question: what's the difference between "real" and "simulated" computation? If computation = reality, what's "real" anyway?
From bits to DNA to black holes, information isn't just something we process—it might be what reality is made of.
You are information processing information about information. That's not poetry. That's physics.