One thing to keep in mind is that math is descriptive, not explanatory. The map, not the territory. Epicycles were brilliant math, as a description of our view of the cosmos, while the crysalline spheres were lousy physics, as explanation.

I seriously think, as the field spins off into post-empirical science, we really should ask if there are any hidden fallacies built into our models, given much of it is patchwork over inconsistancies in prior models.

One basic idea that I see as being overlooked is that as mobile creatures with a sequential process of perception and a narrative based culture, we think of time as the point of the present, moving past to future. Which physics codifies as measures of duration.

The reality is that change turns future to past. Tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns.

There is no literal dimension of time, because the past is consumed by the present, to inform and drive it, aka, causality and conservation of energy. Cause becomes effect.

Duration is the present, as the events come and go, future to past.

Time is asymmetric, because it is a measure of specific actions and action is inertial. The earth only turns one direction.

Different clocks can run at different rates simply because they are separate actions. Think metabolism.

Time then, is an effect, like temperature, pressure, color, sound. Think frequencies and amplitudes.

Energy is "conserved," because it is the present. Its changing configuration creates time.

So as process, the energy goes from one configuration to the next, past to future, as these patterns emerge and dissolve, future to past.

As consciousness goes past to future, while thoughts and emotions go future to past.

Think in terms of a wave; The energy is driving it, but what we recognize are the patterns, the undulations, fluctuations, rising and falling, frequencies and amplitudes.

So the energy goes past to future, while the information being generated goes future topast.

Now consider that math is descriptive. It is the information. Any measurement, pattern, form, information that we can process is only the form, not the energy.

As biological organisms, we have the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems processing the energy driving us on, while the central nervous system sorts through and organizes the forms, patterns and information precipitating out. Signal from the noise.

We cannot mentally process the energy, because it is dynamic. Like our vision, if we simply left the shutter open and all the light in, it would be a whiteout. Our conscious thought process works like a movie camera, extracting stable signals from the cacaphony of energy flowing around us.

The information we perceive are derived from the definition of this energy, the frequencies and amplitudes emerging from the cresting of the waves. So the "present" seems like this dimensionless point between past and future, as the wave recedes.

So, yes, it is information all the way down, but it is energy all the way up. That's why our models always seem to have small cracks in them and then our imagination takes over, bubbling up from the desires driving us, our gut and heart. Instead of dragons and dancing angels, now it's multiworlds and multiverses, to explain why all the pieces don't just fit together in some clear, stable pattern.

"The cracks are how the light gets in." L. Cohen