# The World as Evolving Information

## TL;DR

This paper proposes describing the world as information to better understand the evolution of life and cognition, introducing laws of information that unify multiple scientific principles across scales.

## Contribution

It introduces eight tentative laws of information that generalize existing principles, providing a unified framework for studying evolution as information complexity increase.

## Key findings

- Information-based description simplifies evolution modeling
- Eight laws of information generalize Darwinian and thermodynamic principles
- Supports a unified view of life and cognition evolution

## Abstract

This paper discusses the benefits of describing the world as information, especially in the study of the evolution of life and cognition. Traditional studies encounter problems because it is difficult to describe life and cognition in terms of matter and energy, since their laws are valid only at the physical scale. However, if matter and energy, as well as life and cognition, are described in terms of information, evolution can be described consistently as information becoming more complex. The paper presents eight tentative laws of information, valid at multiple scales, which are generalizations of Darwinian, cybernetic, thermodynamic, psychological, philosophical, and complexity principles. These are further used to discuss the notions of life, cognition and their evolution.