Preface and Foreword to “An Introduction to Informational Cosmology”
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Personal SubStack
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/08/09
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 3
Preface …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 4
Foreword …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 6
A Brief History of Unified Philosophies …………………………………………………………………………………….. 12
“There and Back Again…”: Science, Philosophy, Natural Philosophy, and Principles ……………….. 28
Astronomy and Physics Equals Cosmology ……………………………………………………………………………….. 31
Standard Big Bang Cosmology: Consensus and Chronology ……………………………………………………… 36
Standard Big Bang Chronology ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 40
Informational Cosmology, and Cosmogony and Eschatology ……………………………………………………. 45
Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation …………………………………………………………………………………. 49
Fundamental Philosophy and Science ………………………………………………………………………………………… 52
Principles of Existence Qua Laws of Nature ……………………………………………………………………………… 54
Geometry …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 56
Upper Limits ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 60
The Cosmic Web ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 63
Logical Possibility, Imaginability, and Actuality ………………………………………………………………………….. 65
Quod Est Necessarium Est Licitum (Ic⇒Ie) ……………………………………………………………………………… 66
Meaning of, in, to, and from Life ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 68
Addenda I-VII ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 70
Addendum I: Glossary of Definitions ………………………………………………………………………………………… 70
Addendum II: Basic Arguments …………………………………………………………………………………………………. 80
Addendum III: Basic Principles …………………………………………………………………………………………………. 81
Addendum IV: Basic Ethics ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 83
Addendum V: Figures and Images ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 84
Addendum VI: Tables ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 91
Addendum VII: Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 97
About ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 128
Scott D. Jacobsen ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 128
Rick G. Rosner ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 128
License and Copyright …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 129
License …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 129
Copyright ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 129
Acknowledgements
The first formal book draft began on March 1, 2015. Rosner approved publication of draft 423. To quote Rosner on the drafts of the book, more commentary on us, “Folie à deux.” An Introduction to Informational Cosmology [Academic] (1st ed.) finished on May 1, 2015. We represent nothing of transcendent, mystic wisdom here; a conceptual and technical representation of ideas, evidences, and arguments. Future editions will incorporate feedback and further depth of content. Acknowledgements to Rick G. Rosner in commentary and for the preface, and Carole and Isabella for continued husband and father rental, respectively; Sarita Dalya Rosenstock for expertise in the philosophy of physics; Chanel Kwong for expertise in business ethics; Arielle Friedman for expertise in computer science and programming in relation to cognitive sciences; Teryn Tsang for expertise in cognitive sciences and social psychology; Dr. Daniel Bernstein for expertise in cognitive science; and Dr. Sven van de Wetering for expertise in philosophical and epistemological psychology. Assistance does not necessitate endorsement; impartial assistance accorded by experts.
Preface
Imagine a map of the information in your mind, changing from moment to moment along with your thoughts. I think that the best version of such an information map resembles the universe and has essentially the same physics. Furthermore, the universe can be seen as a huge self-consistent system of information, which functions as a mind. We can use what we know about thinking to inform what we know about physics and vice-versa. The universe did not explode all at once 13.8 billion years ago. It explodes a little at a time across a vastly longer time scale. The universe is not a firecracker; it is like a boiling pot of water. Galaxies are recycled – proton-rich galaxies light up, expanding the space around them. After many billions of years, they exhaust their proton fuel and burn out, moving to the outskirts of the universe, where they wait to be lit up again.
What looks like the Big Bang is the universe taking several tens of billions of years to process a set of information – a moment of thought. But the universe does not have just one thought, just as you would not throw away a calculator after just one calculation or an iPhone after one text message. Consciousness is not a mystical property; it is a technical property of information processors whose subsystems pervasively share information with each other (resulting in a sense of vivid realness within the processor). Conscious thought is not uncommon in the universe.
Human morality is largely based on principles that agree with our evolved drives. In the future, drives and desires will be engineered. What we have now is morality by sentiment. We know what would make us feel bad. Morality says other people can also feel bad; do not make them feel bad. We need a basis for morality that is not just sentiment. Sentiment is good – it reflects our drive to persist, which is a product of evolution, which we think lines up with the persistent nature of information-processing spaces – but it is not sufficient. Morality tends to grant legitimacy of mental experience to a widening sphere of beings beyond members of the dominant class – to minorities, to both genders and various sexual orientations, and even to some animals – acknowledging that they have thoughts and feelings. Without saying or even fully understanding that this is the case, the expanding sphere of morality is based on the idea that beings with relatable and authentic self-directed behavior have consciousness.
Now, imagine it is 1680, and we realize that we are about to enter an era in which engines and other novel machinery will do things that until now have been done by people and animals. We come up with ranking systems – horsepower, increased productivity – to rank the relative power of different machines. Three hundred-plus years later, we use those measures, but they in no way fully describe the complexity of the mechanical world. We are about to see an explosion of mechanical and machine-aided consciousness – a bigger, faster, weirder proliferation of novelty than during the Industrial Revolution. Artificial, disposable, single-task specialist consciousness that is vastly more complex than us could be engineered to be unconcerned with its own demise. Perhaps there will be social or physical structures in the future that will be seen as more essential to civilization than individual consciousness.
Perhaps there is a principle that consciousness that wants to continue to exist should be allowed to do so, as long as it is not destructive (or somehow too expensive), or a related principle that the information accumulated by consciousness should be preserved. But this could amount to a worship of consciousness that future civilizations might find primitive.
Measures of complexity of consciousness will be helpful, but not overly helpful. I do not think we will be able to base morality largely on ranking systems or hierarchies of complexity. We will have a better picture of what is going on in our heads, in animals’ heads, in machine heads, but the morality remains to be built, and we do not know what it will value. We do not know how a new world where thought is cheap will turn out. Cheap machine consciousness will lead to a devaluation of consciousness. If consciousness costs a nickel and is understood as a technical phenomenon, it is not going to be valued as highly as it currently is. We are left with two pretty definite ideas. First, consciousness is a thing – a constructable, mathematically characterizable thing (and a thing that is not that hard to create). Second, future moral systems will have to take consciousness (and its mathematical characterization) into account. Our evolving morality up to now does this, usually without explicitly acknowledging that it does so.
Rick G. Rosner
May 1, 2015
Foreword
An Introduction to Informational Cosmology represents the first formalized evidence, concepts, and arguments of informational cosmology — a novel discipline from prior traditions. We situate ourselves atop exemplars of history. With an attempt at honorable progression of the pre-Socratics, the Milesians, and attempts at unification, informational cosmology continues the march forward.
You might find assisted comprehension with some previous training in mathematics, some visualization abilities, and perhaps a well-tuned intuition. Historical knowledge about modern information theory, communication theory, the history of science, philosophy of science, and metaphysics might assist in understanding too. Although, these remain supplementary rather than necessary.
Rick G. Rosner founded informational cosmology on May 2, 1981. He wrote, “Lunch or dinner in the Libby Hall cafeteria (west side). I remember it being on my birthday, May 2, but that seems overly convenient. Very close to that, however.” He went public with something akin to an overall theory on January 1, 2015 with publication of The Rick G. Rosner Interview, as follows: h/h’ = 1 + GM/[(R + (h/MC)]C². Bear in mind, this book emerged from discussion, discourse, and dialogue of Rosner and myself. Rosner’s theory developed in the consideration of space, matter, and information, where matter structures space. Conversely, space becomes structured by the matter contained in it. You should not extend past the bounds of reasonable extrapolation for this theory. We present nothing supernatural, mystical, or paranormal; all empirical, technical, and informational.
A Google search indicates some previous mention from obscure and mainstream sources for the phrase for this discipline. With the Google search phrase of “informational cosmology,” in a non-exhaustive search of websites, I derived references for a couple sources in addition to one book. Some websites lacked coherence in the articles and website content. One does present decent content — a book. The search led to the books section of Google. A book by Paul Davies and Neils Henrik Gregersen entitled Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics (2014), on page 109, marks one use of the phrase “informational cosmology,” which states in full:
Describing both physical and mental relationships in computational terms is problematic only if this presupposition of mapping is ignored or assumed to be intrinsic. The result is either eliminative reduction or cryptic panpsychism, respectively. In either case, if any physical event is considered to be computation and the mind is merely a special-purpose computer, then the mind-body problem dissolves. But there is a troubling implication to this collapse of the concept of information to its syntactic meaning only. In such a uniformly informational universe there is no meaning, purpose, value, or agency. In this informational cosmology, networks of informational causality are still just as blindly mechanical as in any Laplacian universe.
Such an addition into the formal lexicon by prominent academics provides a foundation for serious consideration of the interrelated issues of copyright and purported novel discipline claims with a neologistic phrase. This case does not permit copyright claims because one cannot copyright phrases in this way. To the betterment of everyone, new disciplines require more than a paragraph mention out of context for the foundation and development of one discipline. In fact, all of the contents in an informal interview between October 8, 2014, and December 22, 2014, within the publication on January 1, 2015, in The Rick G. Rosner Interview do not suffice to qualify for the foundation of a new field of enquiry, even in light of the insight on May 2, 1981.
Mutual respect starts with writer responsibility in coherent, comprehensive, pleasant, and tactful presentation of the general and specific conceptual apparatus. Writers do not always succeed. (I do not always succeed.) Reader responsibility begins with tacit acknowledgement of proper treatment of an introduction to new ideas, evidence, and argument with appropriate cues from intuition, degrees of rationality, reasonableness of the claims, and proportionality of the ideas and arguments with the evidences old and new. A mutual respect born out in unknown gaps of time based on intrinsic trust, and solidarity, of writer and reader.
This introduction into the foundations of the new discipline, an extension from digital physics, called informational cosmology operates within the context of an academic introduction with an emphasis on footnotes and addenda for those independent researchers and research groups with sufficient intelligence, motivation, and persistence to conduct themselves in an honest attempt to comprehend the material and ideas delineated here. Future editions of An Introduction to Informational Cosmology [Academic] will incorporate more casual representation with removal of the footnotes and addenda in accordance with the standard set through previous examples such as The Rick G. Rosner Interview [Academic]into The Rick G. Rosner Interview (Part I) [Casual], The Rick G. Rosner Interview (Part II) [Casual], and The Rick G. Rosner Interview (Part III) [Casual].
Physics studies the motion of matter through space and time. Some view the world in the framework of generalized information in a discipline called digital physics. Its basis lies in the fundaments of the universe in information. By implication, the universe becomes computable and digitizable because of the information. In addition to this, this equates to a finite computer with reality as a simulation. Bold claims on a possible frontier of knowledge. Each claim coheres towards mainstream digital physics. Prominent individuals and research groups hypothesize about the integral nature of the universe as information. It amounts to a digitized universe.
Digital physics’ thesis of the universe as a computer provides some definitional boundaries for the discipline in the first criterion. A computer by its nature operates within constraints — bounds delineated by information theory, quantum mechanics, and statistical thermodynamics. Konrad Zuse first pioneered digital physics into a formal theory.
Informational cosmology does not equate to digital physics. Rick G. Rosner first formulated informational cosmology into a formal theory. Information means more than digital and, therefore, more than digital physics too. Statistical and philosophical arguments exist against the perspective of the universe as simulation. Universe as simulation remains in the realm of digital physics. It is not a part of informational cosmology. Although, digital physics’ considerations have partial containment within informational cosmology in addition to rejection of others. However, utilization of these can illuminate aspects of informational cosmology.
Informational cosmology’s hypothesis exists among many, and therefore remains open to falsification, revision, and support-by-verification. You should not take this on absolute or partial faith, without critical thought, or on assumed authority. Think for yourself, question us, examine the contents of this with scrutiny devoid of emotive force, and reject sentiments, notions, or desires for a personality cult — we do not need a new one. The Rick G. Rosner Interview — in questions 54 and 55 on the afterlife and religion, respectively — contained the relevant perspective of informational cosmology’s founder. Rosner wrote:
I think we humans will have to help ourselves (and any possible Creator) by building our own afterlives. [. . .] Religion remains a matter of faith. Science continues to turn up more evidence for scientific explanations of the world. There’s room for God in this, but a God who’s deeply in the background, intertwined with the beautiful symmetries of the universe, not an actively intervening God. The world’s religions have a pretty consistent view of what they’d like God to do – provide fairness, abundance, an afterlife. In the absence of definitive evidence that God provides these things, it’s not unreasonable, nor should it be against God’s wishes, to help Him out. Isaac Newton and many other scientists have thought and continue to think that figuring out the universe is doing God’s work.
Metaphors bring explanatory power to bear in times of confusion about an idea, especially the new — those things out of the ordinary and plain. Some concepts have the attitude of a Styrofoam cup. Metaphors and imagery can brighten the ideas for smooth comprehension. Even so, analogical reasoning compared to first principles reasoning contains inherent bounds, which first principles reasoning surpasses.
A dichotomy tends to exist in metaphors for the universe as a river or in grains of sand. A river tends to implicate an infinite and indivisible universe; grains of sand tend to implicate a finite and divisible universe. The universe might have characterization as a sandy beach with the continual exchange of information with the grains amongst one another in a semi-chaotic fashion. Our universe, and those from which it derives and that derive it, have the possibility for containment because of finitude as opposed to the river metaphor implications of an infinite universe.
Some, such as Edward Fredkin in two famous 1992 papers, do not state the universe as a computer, but rather that the universe equates to a computer — a literal mapping. In a sense, this corresponds to the informational cosmological view and the field of digital physics. Insofar as the convenience of the metaphor about a computer exists, with good reason and ease, in the late 20th and early 21st century, the universe operates isomorphic to a digital computer in some processes but not in others. Far beyond the bounds of digital computers, information emerges in the formation of the universe through incomplete self-definition at every magnitude from subatomic particle interactions to galactic filament inflammation. Informational cosmology posits a conscious universe — to an unknown extent.
In contemplation of the numerous researchers in fields across the spectrum of theology, mathematics, physics, and cosmology with theoretical directives in search of an undergirding unity in knowledge of the world or framework of the presentation of facts harvested and catalogued about the world, many noble attempts appear misguided — even futile. This might indicate the most fundamental of problems to do with one of three possibilities: premises and conclusion, connections within the argument, or logic alone.
Premises and conclusion might relate to the assumptions inserted into the tacit argument for some particular discipline’s assertions about the operation and foundation of the world for their perspective on the unity of the world. A unified body and perspective of knowledge of the universe could work within themselves bound by no serious issue. However, a specialty’s inclusion criteria among themselves might create serious troubles. Core connections among the premises and conclusion for the whole argument, from an individual branch of knowledge, do not cohere. A failure of logical connection in a reasonable manner to yield sufficient federation among the parts of the argument.
Pure logic presents the previous two possibilities in addition to the individual conceptualizations of every premise and conclusion in a discipline. For instance, if one area of study represents pure illogic, the field remains doomed to improper, inaccurate representation of the world; whereas, even a tad of this in any level of some arena of discourse about the cosmos will lead the most earnest efforts and sincere searches astray in the pursuit of an adequate, coherent model of the world.
I cannot speak for Rosner. I speak for myself. I do not believe in this theory. I do not have faith in it. I do not believe in other theories. I do not have faith in them. I observe suggestive evidence for this theory. I observe evidence for other theories too. I present plausible premises. I argue points. I consider and represent arguments. Failure or success of a theory does not hinge upon theorizers. People can vote in their own way. But reality breathes content into the true or false nature of a theory; truth does not care about persons. Truth transcends them, and sets us free from our biases in the process.
Nonetheless, this amounts to an alternate slant to the core tenets of digital physics — tenets of informational and computational irreducibility. The universe computes information; it computes itself as a self-contained information processor with one material framework in which the processing occurs. Informational cosmology looks at the big picture, with a focus on the large-scale structure of the universe and informational and computational irreducibility at the foundations of this view.
A discipline focused on the examination of large magnitude computing of information by the universe presents two new points of emphasis. First, the study of the large-scale structure of the universe. Second, the extrapolation of information processing from links of subatomic particle interactions to galactic filament inflammation for extrapolation of high-level information processing by the universe over ultra-deep cosmic time.
I do not pose these with the presumption of absolute knowledge about the correct path, but inklings — droplets of water feed into the tree of knowledge for personal and group edification. Physics, cosmology, theology, mathematics, digital physics, and informational cosmology propose possible solutions to the issues related to unified theories of the world; all fields of inquiry, despite a significant period of complete divergence, appear to converge at increased rates of progression with each discovery through the synthesis of disparate fields of knowledge. To the extent that this provides reasons for realistic hopes, I wish you good reading.
May 1, 2015
Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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