Time, Space, Matter & Information
The physical universe as a structured archive
Missing dimensions: Observer, Energy
Overview
Time, space, matter, and information together describe the physical universe as a structured archive: material objects distributed through space, changing over time, each encoding informational content. This quadruplet is the domain of paleontology, archaeology, geology, and astrophysics — sciences that read the informational record inscribed in matter across space and time. Without the observer, the archive exists but is unread; without energy, the processes that write and erase the archive are invisible.
Central Tension
The tension is between the permanence of the material-spatial archive and the temporal processes that erode it. Geological strata, fossils, cosmic background radiation — all are material records of temporal information distributed through space. Yet entropy guarantees that these records degrade over time. The universe is simultaneously writing and erasing its own informational history, and the question is whether the archive will ultimately be preserved or lost.
Key Philosophical Questions
- Is the material universe a permanent informational archive, or will entropy erase all records?
- Does the spatial distribution of matter encode temporal information, or is this a projection we impose?
- Can the informational content of the early universe be recovered from its present material-spatial state?
- Without an observer, does the material-spatial-temporal archive have informational content at all?
Schools of Thought
The universe is a self-writing archive: material configurations in spacetime naturally encode information about their causal history.
Quantum unitarity ensures that the informational content of the material universe is never truly lost, even as matter transforms across space and time.
Space-time is the storage medium, matter is the data, and information is the content; the universe is a database that records its own computational history.
Matter and form (information) are inseparable across space and time; the material world is always already informed, and its spatial-temporal structure is its informational content.
God's creation is a book written in matter across space and time — 'the heavens declare the glory of God.' The informational structure of the material world is divine communication, readable by those with faith and reason.
Synthesis
Time, space, matter, and information describe the universe as a cosmic library: material records distributed through space, accumulating and degrading over time. The missing dimensions — observer and energy — are what would turn this static archive into a read, dynamic, living world.
Related Dimension Triplets