Pattern exploration
Information as substrate
The I Ching has 64 hexagrams. Each is six binary lines. That’s 2⁶ = 64 — the complete 6-bit space. Leibniz spotted it in 1703 and published it. 245 years later, Shannon formalised the bit. The DNA code has 64 codons (4³). Pythagoras said reality is number. Modern physics says information is one of the deepest conserved quantities there is. The holographic principle encodes the bulk on the boundary.
This is the pattern with the strongest technical backbone and the most dangerous vocabulary. “Information” is a word that covers many different things — and pop treatments slide between them. Here’s where the claim holds, where it bends, and who put it in print.
The web of concepts
Pulled from the Oracle’s knowledge graph: 115 concepts, 133 edges, filtered to information / bit / code / Logos territory.
The full graph is 1,626 nodes and 2,006 edges — see /graph for the whole thing.
The nine bridges
Specific points of contact
Each is a specific structural parallel between an ancient framework treating symbol/number as substrate, and a modern physics or information-theory claim. Confidence tier on each.
Ancient
I Ching — 64 hexagrams, 6 binary lines each
Modern
6-bit encoding space. 2⁶ = 64.
The I Ching's 64 hexagrams are each six stacked broken-or-unbroken lines. That's 2⁶ = 64 six-bit numbers, a complete binary enumeration. In 1703 Leibniz wrote 'Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire' and credited Jesuit missionary Joachim Bouvet for pointing out the I Ching structure. The structural match is not contested. Whether early Chinese thought meant it as binary is.
Noticed / explored by: Gottfried Leibniz (1703) · Claude Shannon tradition · Martin Schönberger
Ancient
I Ching 64 ↔ DNA 64 codons
Modern
Genetic code: 4³ = 64 codons mapping to 20 amino acids + stop signals
Both systems have 64 elements. Schönberger's I Ching and the Genetic Code (1973) popularised the parallel. Petoukhov has published mathematical treatments comparing the algebraic structure of codons and hexagrams in peer-reviewed journals (Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, etc.). Mainstream molecular biology treats the numerical coincidence as genuinely interesting but not evidence of ancient biological knowledge.
Noticed / explored by: Martin Schönberger (1973) · Johnson Yan (1993) · Sergei Petoukhov (2011+)
Ancient
Pythagorean 'all is number'
Modern
Mathematical universe hypothesis (Tegmark) · digital physics (Wolfram, Fredkin)
Pythagoras (6th c. BCE) taught that reality is fundamentally numerical — that number is not a description of things but what things are. Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis (2014) is a modern defense of essentially that claim: reality is a mathematical structure and we are substructures within it. Fredkin and Wolfram's digital-physics tradition argues reality is a cellular automaton. Neither is mainstream physics, but both are published, peer-reviewed, and taken seriously.
Noticed / explored by: Max Tegmark (2014) · Stephen Wolfram · Edward Fredkin
Ancient
Kabbalistic letter permutation · Sefer Yetzirah
Modern
Information as generative substrate of matter and life
Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation, c. 200-500 CE) treats the 22 Hebrew letters as the building blocks of creation, with permutation and combination generating the cosmos. Abulafia (13th c.) developed letter-combination meditation explicitly as a generative-information practice. Scholem and Idel are the 20th-c. mainstream Kabbalah scholars who documented this. The claim that this is 'information theory' is interpretation, but the structural claim — reality as combinatorial output of symbolic atoms — is explicit in the texts.
Noticed / explored by: Abraham Abulafia (13th c.) · Gershom Scholem · Moshe Idel
Ancient
Vedic akṣara · phonemic atomism
Modern
Symbol as substrate · signal as primary
Vedic Sanskrit treats the syllable (akṣara) as both the smallest unit of speech and an irreducible element of reality. Panini's grammar (c. 500 BCE) described Sanskrit as a formal generative system centuries before Chomsky's work. Frits Staal argued extensively that the Vedic tradition treated sound-structure as cosmological substrate. Whether this is 'information theory in embryo' or something else is the fight.
Noticed / explored by: Paninian grammarians · Frits Staal · modern Indologists
Ancient
Egyptian Ma'at — cosmic order as measurable principle
Modern
Physical law as information constraint
Ma'at is the Egyptian principle of truth, order, balance, and cosmic structure — weighed against the soul at death. Hornung and Assmann, mainstream Egyptologists, read Ma'at as a proto-theory of normative cosmic constraint. Some modern commentators map this onto physical law as information constraint. The analogy is suggestive; the case for intent is weak.
Noticed / explored by: Erik Hornung · Jan Assmann · information-theoretic physics
Ancient
The Logos tradition · 'In the beginning was the Word'
Modern
Language-model / code-first cosmology
Heraclitus (c. 500 BCE) used Logos for the rational principle ordering the cosmos. Philo of Alexandria (1st c. CE) made it a divine intermediary. John 1:1 identifies Christ with the Logos — 'In the beginning was the Word.' All three frame reality as emerging from an ordering symbolic principle. Modern digital-physics commentary sometimes draws the parallel to code-as-substrate. The parallel is structural; the theological vocabulary is not reducible to information theory.
Noticed / explored by: Philo of Alexandria · Gospel of John · modern digital-physics commentators
Ancient
Black hole information paradox
Modern
Information is conserved at the deepest level of reality
Hawking argued in 1976 that information falling into a black hole is destroyed. Susskind and 't Hooft countered that information must be preserved (it follows from quantum mechanics). The resolution — via the holographic principle and AdS/CFT — is that information is never lost; it's encoded on the horizon. Hawking conceded in 2004. The upshot: modern physics now holds that information is one of the most strongly conserved quantities there is, ranking with energy and charge. This is not a mystical claim. It's the consensus position in fundamental physics.
Noticed / explored by: Stephen Hawking · Leonard Susskind · Gerard 't Hooft
Ancient
Holographic principle
Modern
Reality's bulk information encoded on its boundary
Bekenstein's black-hole entropy bound (1973) showed information content scales with surface area, not volume. 't Hooft generalised it (1993); Susskind named the principle (1995); AdS/CFT correspondence (Maldacena 1997, the most-cited physics paper of the last 30 years) made it mathematical. The bulk 3D reality we experience is, in this framework, information encoded on a lower-dimensional boundary. Mainstream theoretical physics. Nagarjuna would have recognized the structure.
Noticed / explored by: Jacob Bekenstein · Gerard 't Hooft · Leonard Susskind · AdS/CFT tradition
The dialogues
Four documented engagements
1700–1703
Leibniz and the I Ching
Gottfried Leibniz · Joachim Bouvet SJ
Bouvet, a Jesuit missionary at the Kangxi court, sent Leibniz diagrams of the I Ching's 64 hexagrams. Leibniz recognised them as binary numbers 0–63. He published 'Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire' in 1703, explicitly crediting Bouvet and the I Ching structure. 245 years before Shannon formalised the bit.
Leibniz, 'Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire' (Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, 1703)
1989
It From Bit
John Archibald Wheeler
At the Santa Fe Institute complexity workshop, Wheeler delivered 'Information, Physics, Quantum: The Search for Links.' Proposed 'it from bit' — that every particle, field, and spacetime event derives from binary yes/no answers to observational questions. Not mainstream then; intellectual parent of much that followed in quantum information and digital physics.
Wheeler, in Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (Tokyo, 1989)
1973–present
Schönberger · Yan · Petoukhov
Martin Schönberger · Johnson Yan · Sergei Petoukhov
Schönberger's I Ching and the Genetic Code (1973) first popularised the 64-codon / 64-hexagram match. Yan's DNA and the I Ching (1993) extended it. Petoukhov has published mathematical analyses of codon algebra in peer-reviewed venues (including Bulletin of Mathematical Biology) since the early 2000s. Mainstream molecular biology is sceptical of historical claims but the math has cleared peer review.
Schönberger (1973), Yan (1993), Petoukhov various (2000s+)
1973–present
The holographic principle consensus
Bekenstein · 't Hooft · Susskind · Maldacena · Hawking
The most substantive 'reality is information' argument in 20th-century physics. Bekenstein proposed the entropy bound (1973). 't Hooft generalised it (1993). Susskind named the principle (1995). Maldacena's AdS/CFT correspondence (1997) gave it mathematical form. Hawking conceded the information-conservation point at GR17 in Dublin (2004). Ongoing.
Bekenstein, Phys. Rev. D 7 (1973); 't Hooft, gr-qc/9310026 (1993); Susskind, J. Math. Phys. 36 (1995); Maldacena, Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 2 (1998)
Who put it in print
Five figures on the record
John Archibald Wheeler
1989, 1990
Princeton physicist, coined 'black hole,' advisor to Richard Feynman and Hugh Everett. 'It from bit' as his 1989 proposal. 1990 paper 'Information, Physics, Quantum' put it in formal print. Not considered fringe — Wheeler was central-establishment — but treated as speculative program rather than mainstream physics.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
1703
Co-inventor of calculus. Formalised binary arithmetic in 'Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire' and explicitly credited the I Ching as the ancient Chinese instance of the same structure. The credit is in the published paper; it is not mysticism.
Seth Lloyd
2006
MIT mechanical engineer and quantum information physicist. Programming the Universe argued that the universe computes — that physical law is literally the operating system of a cosmic quantum computer. Mainstream academic press (Knopf, Vintage). Argued from physics, not from mysticism.
Max Tegmark
2014
MIT physicist. Our Mathematical Universe laid out the 'Mathematical Universe Hypothesis' — reality is a mathematical structure and we are substructures within it. Pythagoras's claim in modern dress. Controversial in physics; not crank.
Sergei Petoukhov
2001–present
Russian mathematician, Institute of Machines Research. Published matrix-algebraic analyses of the genetic code showing that the I Ching's hexagram structure can be read as isomorphic to codon algebra. Peer-reviewed. Not widely accepted as historical claim; mathematically substantive.
The skeptics
Where mainstream physics pushes back
- 'Information' is a fuzzy word. Shannon information (bit count) is not the same as semantic information, not the same as physical entropy, not the same as consciousness content. Pop accounts of 'reality is information' often slide between these meanings without flagging the equivocation.
- Wheeler himself said 'it from bit' was a research program, not an established position. Treating it as established physics overreads his own framing.
- The I Ching-DNA 64-match is a real structural coincidence, but the detailed mapping of specific hexagrams to specific codons is where most treatments break down — the assignments are ad hoc and don't survive scrutiny.
- Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis is philosophy of physics, not mainstream physics. It's argued in peer-reviewed venues but not tested by any experiment. Calling it 'modern Pythagoreanism' is accurate; calling it 'what physics has discovered' is not.
- The holographic principle is mainstream theoretical physics. But reading it as 'reality is information in a mystical sense' stretches what the physics actually says. The principle constrains how information is counted; it does not reduce matter to mind.
- Several of the ancient parallels (Sefer Yetzirah, Vedic akṣara, Logos) can be read as information-substrate claims only in retrospect. The ancient texts had their own frameworks and vocabulary; forcing them into 20th-century information theory is interpretation, not translation.
The strong claim — “ancient traditions knew information physics” — fails. The medium claim — “several ancient traditions framed reality as symbolic/numerical substrate in ways that structurally anticipate 20th-century information theory” — survives. The physics-internal claim — “information is as fundamental as energy or charge” — is mainstream theoretical physics. Keep the three claims separate and the pattern stays honest.
Where the conversation is now
2019 onward
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2019 — Quantum supremacy experiments (Google Sycamore) and continued AdS/CFT work have kept information-theoretic framings central in fundamental physics.
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2020–2023 — Extensive work on the black hole information paradox via entanglement islands (Penington, Almheiri, Harlow, etc.) confirmed information conservation in increasingly rigorous frameworks.
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2022 — Petoukhov's Matrix Genetics, Algebras of the Genetic Code, and Biological Resonances (Springer, collected papers) formalised the mathematical side of the I Ching/codon parallel at book length.
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2023 — Ongoing AI-and-consciousness debate around Integrated Information Theory (Tononi's Φ) as a formal measure of consciousness — the newest chapter of 'information as fundamental.'
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Ongoing — The digital-physics / simulation-hypothesis discourse (Bostrom, Tegmark, various Silicon Valley adopters) keeps the 'reality is computation' framing in public circulation. Whether any of it is testable is contested.
The canon
Five works that carry the argument
01
Information, Physics, Quantum: The Search for Links
John Archibald Wheeler · 1990
The paper that put 'it from bit' in formal print. Speculative, program-setting, cited in everything downstream. Short.
02
Our Mathematical Universe
My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality
Max Tegmark · 2014
The serious modern defense of the Pythagorean claim. Physicist arguing from physics that reality is a mathematical structure. Divisive; not crank.
03
Programming the Universe
A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes on the Cosmos
Seth Lloyd · 2006
The universe-as-quantum-computer argument from an MIT information physicist. Technical but readable; the cleanest case for computation as cosmic substrate.
04
I Ching and the Genetic Code
The Hidden Key to Life
Martin Schönberger · 1973
Not scholarly, but the book that made the I Ching-DNA parallel public. Read alongside Yan (1993) and Petoukhov's papers for the mathematical formalisation.
05
Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire
Gottfried Leibniz · 1703
Four pages. In the paper Leibniz credits the I Ching's hexagram structure by name. The historical ur-document for 'ancient tradition anticipated information structure.'
Dig further
Ask the Oracle
Where this shows up on the site
Related reading across ForbiddenPast
Wisdom
The perennial philosophy and 20th-century physics
Where the holographic principle, Wheeler’s “it from bit,” and Bohm’s implicate order meet the Upanishads, the I Ching, and Kabbalistic letter-combination.
Deeper
Information physics catches up
Akashic records, the quantum vacuum, and why the holographic principle is where modern physics keeps meeting the old traditions halfway.
The Graph
Full interactive knowledge graph
115 nodes on this page are a filtered slice of 1,626.
The Oracle
Ask the 124-text corpus directly
Put any of the bridges above to the Oracle and see what the primary texts actually say.
This is the pattern with the strongest technical backbone of the four we map. Modern physics genuinely does treat information as fundamental. Ancient traditions genuinely did frame reality as symbolic substrate. The honest middle position: these are parallel structural claims made in different vocabularies, with the modern one empirically constrained by the physics of black holes and the ancient ones constrained by what the texts actually say. Keep “information is conserved in black holes” separate from “the universe is a computer” separate from “the I Ching encoded DNA.” All three claims live on this page and none should be confused with the others.