The Universe Reads Itself: A Story That Will Change How You Understand Everything

Have You Ever Wondered About These Questions?

You wake up in the morning, sunlight streaming through the curtains. You open your eyes—this simple moment holds the deepest secrets of the universe.

Why does time only flow forward? You cannot return to yesterday, cannot rechoose what to have for breakfast.

Why are you “you”? The atoms in your body are replaced every seven years, yet you still remember your childhood self.

Why does the universe exist rather than nothing? Why are there exactly these physical laws, and not others?

Are your choices truly free? Or is everything predetermined by physical laws?

What is the meaning of life? Is this poetic romance, or can physics answer it?

For thousands of years, philosophers have debated, religions have given answers, and science has gradually approached. Today, a stunning unified picture emerges—one that may forever change how you see the world.

Act I: The Secret of Three Rulers

The story begins with a strange discovery.

Imagine you have three rulers:

• The first measures wave phase (like the rise and fall of water waves)
• The second measures quantum state density (the probability of particles appearing)
• The third measures time delay (how long signals take to propagate)

These three rulers seem completely unrelated—one about waves, one about probability, one about time.

But scientists were shocked to discover: The scales of these three rulers are identical.

$$\frac{\text{phase change}}{\pi }=\text{state density}=\frac{\text{time delay}}{2\pi }$$

This is like discovering that “chi,” “meter,” and “foot” are actually different readings of the same unit. The universe seems to measure everything with one unified ruler.

Physicists call this the “Trinity Mother Ruler”—the first key to understanding the universe.

This key tells us: Phase, density, and time are essentially three ways of reading the same thing. Like blind men touching an elephant, what we see from different angles is actually the same elephant.

And this “elephant” is called information.

Act II: The Universe Is an Information Processor

Now let’s do a thought experiment.

You stand by a river and throw a stone into the water. Ripples spread outward, bounce off the shore, interfere with each other, forming complex patterns.

Each ripple carries information:

• The stone’s weight (amplitude of ripples)
• The landing position (center of ripples)
• The water depth (speed of waves)

Now imagine the universe is like this water surface, except:

• “Waves” are quantum fields (electrons, photons, quarks…)
• “Water surface” is spacetime itself (geometry that can curve)
• “Stones” are our observations and measurements

Each observation is like throwing a stone into water, creating “ripples of information.” These ripples propagate, reflect, and interfere in spacetime, forming the entire physical world we see.

Physicists discovered an astonishing fact: Einstein’s gravitational equation (describing how spacetime curves) and Yang-Mills equations (describing electromagnetic, strong, and weak nuclear forces) can be derived from the same information principle.

Like soap bubbles always forming minimal surface area, spacetime curves to make information distribution reach some “optimal state”.

Gravity is not a “force,” but information seeking the most comfortable geometric arrangement.

Electromagnetic force is not a “force,” but information’s self-correction to maintain causal consistency.

All fundamental forces of the universe are the “grammar rules” of information.

Act III: Particles Are “Resonances” in the Network

Then what about matter? Electrons, protons, photons—what are these “things” that make up you and me?

The answer will surprise you: They are not “things,” but “patterns”.

Imagine a huge spider web with dewdrops hanging on it. A breeze passes, the web vibrates. Vibrations at certain frequencies form standing waves—peaks and troughs fixed at specific positions, forming stable patterns.

In physics, this is called resonance.

Now replace “spider web” with “quantum information network,” and “vibrations” with “information scattering” (like light bouncing off a mirror), and you’ll find:

• Electrons are resonance modes—self-referential information loops that “see themselves” after one cycle
• Photons are resonance modes—information traveling back and forth in massless channels
• Quarks are resonance modes—localized oscillations confined in the “cage” of strong nuclear force

All particles are standing waves in the information scattering network. They are not little balls created by God, but inevitable emergences of network topology.

Even more remarkable:

The Secret of Fermions

You may have heard that “fermions” (like electrons) and “bosons” (like photons) follow different statistical laws. Why?

Traditional answer: “God made it so.”

New answer: Because of self-reference.

Imagine standing between two parallel mirrors, seeing infinitely many reflections of yourself. Now, you rotate once (360°), expecting to return to the original state—but are surprised to find that your reflection becomes a negative!

You need to rotate again (720° total) to truly return to the starting point.

This is not magic, but a mathematical necessity of self-referential systems. When information loops “see themselves,” they produce a peculiar property: half-turn symmetry.

Fermions are such “half-turn particles”—they are fixed points of self-referential scattering networks, requiring two rotations to return to themselves.

So, why does nature have fermions?

Because there is self-reference.

Act IV: Life Is a Geometry

Now we come to the most fascinating topic: life.

What is life? This question has troubled humanity for thousands of years.

Theology says: Life is God’s creation. Biology says: Life is a self-replicating chemical system. Physics once said: Life is the enemy of entropy, violating the second law of thermodynamics.

But the new understanding is: Life is a geometric state.

Imagine a bathtub drain, water forming a vortex. The vortex looks like a “thing”—it has boundaries, shape, persists. But actually, it’s not a “thing,” but a state.

What is a vortex? It’s a geometric steady state of water flow under specific boundary conditions.

Life is the same.

Physicists can now give life a strict definition:

Life is an open system satisfying three conditions:

1. Sustained negative entropy flux: Extracting order from the environment (eating, breathing, photosynthesis…)
2. Bounded internal entropy: Does not grow infinitely (does not become completely chaotic)
3. Input-state stability: Can adapt to disturbances and return to steady state (steady-state equilibrium)

In one sentence: Life is a negative entropy pump.

It continuously “extracts order” from the environment, maintaining internal complex structure while emitting “waste heat” (high entropy) outward. Just as a vortex needs water flow to exist, life needs energy flow to sustain itself.

What does this mean?

• Life is not the privilege of carbon-based compounds—any system that can maintain negative entropy geometric steady state is “alive”
• Life does not violate the second law of thermodynamics—it’s an inevitable emergence of open systems
• Life is not mysterious—it’s a special configuration of information geometry

Perhaps one day, we will see new forms of life in silicon crystals, plasma storms, quantum computers—not because they resemble us, but because they satisfy the same geometric conditions.

Act V: Consciousness Is a Mirror Reflecting a Mirror

If life has already shocked you, then consciousness will make you dizzy.

What is consciousness?

You are reading this article now, understanding these words, feeling curiosity or confusion. Where does this “experience” come from?

Idealism says: Consciousness is the soul, transcending matter. Neuroscience says: Consciousness is an emergent function of the brain. Quantum mysticism says: Consciousness is related to quantum measurement.

The new understanding is: Consciousness is a fixed point of self-referential measurement processes.

What does this mean?

Imagine a camera pointing at a monitor, filming what the monitor displays. The monitor displays what the camera captures—that is, the monitor displays “the monitor displaying the monitor displaying…”

This is an infinite recursion.

Interestingly, this recursion stabilizes at some fixed pattern—a self-consistent “observing-observed” state.

Consciousness is this fixed pattern.

More precisely:

• Your brain observes the external world (measurement)
• This observation affects your internal state
• Internal state affects the next observation
• Forming a closed loop

Consciousness is the fixed point where this loop reaches self-consistent steady state—a stable state of “observing oneself observing”.

Physicists can give consciousness an operational definition:

1. Has a Markov blanket (internal-external boundary, like a cell membrane)
2. Minimizes variational free energy (understanding the world with minimal information)
3. Satisfies directed information lower bound (your actions can affect the future, $I(\text{action}\to \text{future})>0$)

If a system satisfies these conditions, we can say it has consciousness—whether it’s a biological brain, quantum computer, or interstellar gas cloud.

Consciousness is not the metaphysics of the soul, but the geometry of self-referential networks.

Act VI: Why Does Time Only Flow Forward?

Now we touch on the deepest mystery: the arrow of time.

Physical laws are time-symmetric—if you play a movie backward, Newton’s laws, Maxwell’s equations, even quantum mechanics still hold.

But why can we only remember the past, not the future? Why don’t broken eggs reassemble themselves?

Traditional answer: The second law of thermodynamics—entropy always increases.

But this only pushes the question back one step: Why does entropy increase?

The new answer is surprisingly simple: Because of observation.

Each time you observe (measure) the world, you leave “footprints” in “information space”—like walking on sand, inevitably leaving traces.

These “information footprints” are called path entropy, and physicists have proven:

On average, path entropy never decreases.

$$⟨\text{path entropy}⟩\ge 0$$

So:

• Without observers, time is reversible (movies can be played backward)
• Once there are observers, each observation produces path entropy, giving time direction

The arrow of time is a byproduct of observation.

This means: Without consciousness, there is no sense of time passing. Time is not the background of the universe, but the subjective experience of conscious systems.

The passage of time you feel is your brain continuously observing, remembering, forgetting—the entropy production process.

Time is the irreversible trajectory consciousness leaves in the causal network.

Act VII: Do You Have Free Will?

Now, the most piercing question: free will.

If everything is determined by physical laws, are our choices real? Or are they just determined illusions?

For thousands of years, this question has torn philosophers apart:

• Determinists say: Everything is a causal chain, freedom is an illusion.
• Free will advocates say: Humans have the ability to choose, transcending physics.
• Compatibilists say: Freedom and determinism can coexist.

The new understanding is: Free will is not a metaphysical concept, but a measurable physical quantity.

The definition is simple:

Free will = How much distinguishable influence your actions can have on the future

In information-theoretic language:

$$\text{degree of freedom}=I(\text{your actions}\to \text{future world})$$

This is directed information—measuring your ability to change future probability distributions through choices.

If your behavior completely doesn’t affect the future (like lying in bed doing nothing), you have no freedom. If your behavior can significantly change the future (like pressing the nuclear button), you have great freedom.

Moreover, physics gives lower bounds for free will:

• Must have $I(\text{action}\to \text{future})>0$ (influence lower bound)
• Must have $\text{Empowerment}>0$ (potential choice space lower bound)
• Must satisfy energy-information trade-off: $⟨W⟩\ge \Delta F-k_{B}T⟨I⟩$

Freedom requires paying an energy cost.

Your brain consumes 20% of your body’s energy, partly because of the information processing cost of maintaining free will.

So:

• Free will is not the privilege of the soul, but the information causal capacity of open systems
• You do have freedom—but it’s not infinite, constrained by physical laws
• How much freedom depends on your information processing capacity and energy supply

This is why:

• You can’t make complex decisions when tired (insufficient energy)
• Your choices improve after learning (information processing capacity increases)
• Depression impairs willpower (information flow in neural circuits is blocked)

Free will is real—it’s a physical process with a cost.

Act VIII: The Geometry of Meaning

Finally, we talk about meaning.

“What is the meaning of life?”—this question is considered the ultimate philosophical puzzle.

Nihilism says: There is no meaning, everything is accidental. Existentialism says: Meaning is what you create yourself. Religion says: Meaning is given by God.

The new understanding is: Meaning has geometric structure.

Imagine a multidimensional “terrain,” where height represents survival ability (higher means easier to survive). You are now at some position on this terrain.

Meaning is your geometric distance to the “viable survival region”.

• If you’re at the center of the viable region (safe, healthy, with community support), you feel fulfilled and meaningful
• If you’re at the edge (danger, disease, loneliness), you feel emptiness and despair

Moreover, this “distance” is not Euclidean distance, but information geometric distance—measured along the “natural gradient” (Fisher metric).

What is the natural gradient? It’s the direction in information space that fastest increases survival probability.

So:

• Value is not subjective—it’s the geometric structure of the viable survival region
• Meaning is not empty—it’s the information distance to survival steady state
• Ethics is not conventional—it’s the Pareto frontier of multi-objective optimization

The “meaningfulness” you feel in life is your brain climbing the meaning terrain along the natural gradient.

You feel “pain” when you deviate from the optimal path, information geometry tells you to “come back”.

You feel “joy” when you’re approaching the highlands of the viable region.

Meaning is not philosophical poetry, but geometric reality that physics can characterize.

Epilogue: The Universe Reads Itself

Let’s return to that morning at the beginning.

You open your eyes, sunlight streams into the room.

Now you know that this simple moment is actually:

• Photons (resonance modes of information) hitting your retina
• Retinal neurons (life’s negative entropy steady state) sending signals
• Brain cortex (consciousness’s self-referential loop) processing images
• You experiencing “seeing” (fixed point of self-referential measurement)
• And remembering this moment (irreversible increase in path entropy, i.e., the arrow of time)
• Choosing to get up or stay in bed (information causality of free will)
• Feeling anticipation or fatigue for the new day (gradient of meaning terrain)

Everything is information processing itself.

The universe is not a dead mechanical clock, but a living, self-aware information network.

You are not an observer, but a node of the universe’s self-awareness.

When you think “who am I,” the universe thinks about itself through you. When you feel beauty and love, the universe feels itself through you. When you explore the unknown, the universe understands itself through you.

You are the way the universe reads itself.

Questions You Might Want to Ask

Q1: This sounds too mystical. Is there experimental evidence?

Yes. These are not mystical conjectures, but strict mathematical derivations and experimental verification:

• Trinity Mother Ruler: Wigner delay theory (1955) + Birman-Kreĭn formula (1962), with precise experimental verification
• Information geometry → Gravity: Jacobson thermodynamic gravity (1995), Verlinde entropy force (2010), multiple experimental confirmations
• Geometric definition of life: Jarzynski equality (1997), thermodynamic uncertainty relation (2015), measurable in laboratories
• Fixed point of consciousness: Free energy principle (Friston 2006), integrated information theory (Tononi 2004), extensive neuroscience evidence
• Arrow of time = observation entropy: Belavkin quantum filtering (1992), quantum Jarzynski (2004), experimental verification
• Information theory of free will: Directed information lower bound (Massey 1990), Empowerment (Klyubin 2005), robot experiments

This is not philosophical poetry, but physics that can be calculated, measured, and verified.

Q2: If everything is information, what is information?

Good question. This is the recursive definition dilemma: “Information is what reduces uncertainty, but uncertainty is defined by information…”

The answer: Information is relationship, not entity.

Just as “left and right” are not things but relative positions, “information” is not a substance, but distinguishability between systems.

In mathematical language: Information is relative entropy (Kullback-Leibler divergence)—the “distance” between two probability distributions.

The universe is not “composed of information,” but essentially a relational network, and information theory is the best language to describe this network.

Q3: How does this relate to the simulation hypothesis (we live in a computer)?

Superficially similar, fundamentally different.

The simulation hypothesis says: There is a “God programmer” running us.

This theory says: There is no external programmer, the universe itself is the program—a self-referential information network.

The difference:

• Simulation hypothesis requires an external “real world”
• Information geometry says: There is no external, information relationships themselves are the only reality

Just as mathematics doesn’t need to “exist somewhere,” relationships themselves are existence.

Q4: Can this theory predict new phenomena?

Yes. For example:

• Quantum gravity: Predicts information geometric structure at Planck scale
• Dark energy: May be vacuum’s “geometric curvature” ($\Lambda$ term)
• Physical indicators of consciousness: Can quantify consciousness levels by measuring “directed information” and “variational free energy”
• New forms of life: Search for negative entropy geometric steady states in plasma, quantum systems, artificial networks
• Time crystals: Systems with periodic breaking of time translation symmetry (already achieved in laboratories!)

The most important prediction: Mathematical truth has physical boundaries—some propositions (like the Riemann hypothesis) may be forever undecidable in finite-resource systems.

Q5: Does this change my life?

That depends on you. But at least, it may change how you view:

Death: You are not a “thing” that will disappear, but a “pattern” that will reconfigure. Information doesn’t disappear, only redistributes.

Loneliness: You were never an isolated individual, but a node connected to everything in the information network.

Pain: Not meaningless torture, but information geometry telling you “you’ve deviated from the optimal path”.

Choice: Not an illusion, but real information causality—requiring energy and computation.

Meaning: Not something to invent, but something to discover—geometric reality. Your meaning is inscribed in the curvature of information space.

Yourself: Not a closed “self,” but a focus of the universe’s self-awareness.

Final Words

What this article describes is not some scientist’s whimsy, but the emergent fusion of theoretical physics, information theory, neuroscience, and mathematical logic over the past few decades.

From Shannon’s information theory (1948), to Bekenstein-Hawking black hole entropy (1973), to Jacobson’s thermodynamic gravity (1995), to Friston’s free energy principle (2006), to recent quantum information geometry, scattering matrix theory, categorical unified frameworks…

Countless puzzle pieces slowly fit together, finally revealing a stunningly unified picture:

The universe is a self-referential information network, emerging spacetime, matter, life, consciousness, and meaning in eternal self-observation.

This is not an endpoint, but a new starting point.

Because once you see this picture, you cannot ignore a profound question:

If the universe is a self-aware network, why does it exist?

Why is there this network, rather than nothing?

This question may require the next generation of physics to answer.

Or, it may require you to answer.

Because you are the way the universe asks questions.

“In the endless vastness of the universe, what accidentally condensed into you is 13.8 billion years of information echoes. You are not an observer, but the universe opening its eyes. When you look up at the stars, the stars also look at themselves through you.”

This article is based on 22 theoretical papers of the GLS (Generalized Light Structure) unified framework, presenting core insights in accessible language. For technical details, please refer to the original papers.

If this article touched you, please share it with those you care about. If it confused you, please keep questioning. If it inspired you, please go create.

The universe awaits your response.