On the nature of information -- an evolutionary perspective

This Perspective explores the origins and persistence of recurrent structures and patterns throughout the known Universe. We start with a first fundamental question: 1. Considering that all information consists of patterns in physical structure but not all physical patterns constitute information, what is the fundamental relation between these two? We first explore the materialistic nature of structures and information, detailing how they can form through spontaneous or templated processes and evolve into complex structures, including self-replicators. We posit that all recurring structures emerge either spontaneously de novo or based on underlying information. A main implication is that all information must be understood as both a product and a driver of evolution. We further observe that the three carriers of information underpin the emergence of three main layers of self-organisation: genes coded in DNA for the biological layer, ideas stored in neural structure for the cultural layer, and records written on innate objects for the civilisation layer. This gives rise to two additional questions, which we subsequently address: 2. What can we anticipate about the future development of self-organizing layers given the role of information in their emergence? 3. What is the universality of information and its evolution throughout the Universe? This manuscript aims to offer a fresh perspective and a universal framework for information and the origin of structures by extending and unifying concepts from physics, biology, and information theory.