I couldn't help but notice that Hive updates are called "Swarm of Swarms" which is especially interesting since today I am unveiling my Practical Theory of Everything called ... Swarm Theory!
This is pretty wild since I have only just returned to Hive and have no idea when this language started being used, however, I am inclined to interpret it as a positive omen, a sign of fortuitous convergence. That being said, I would love it if someone explained to me in the comments how this terminology began being used on Hive!
From the moment I came back the top questions I've been getting are, "What's wrong with Hive?" And "How can we fix Hive?" Unfortunately, my experience building my own blockchain and company have only shown me how difficult these things are to do, and how limited my own understanding is.
Point is, I can't answer those questions directly, but I think the most value I can add is sharing my theory and exploring it with you all because I think the answers to those questions lies in a deeper understanding of reality itself. Not because there is necessarily something wrong with Hive, but because the key to solving any problem is coming up with a better explanation, and I believe that Swarm Theory can provide a strong foundation on which to build better explanations.
Some background...
One of the most formative events in my life was graduating from Law School into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. My future had already been uncertain because I had decided that I wouldn't practice law, but this took things to a whole new level. Up until that point, the prevailing narrative had been "the end of history" — economics had solved economic crises, every advanced country would inevitably become a capitalist democracy, and the "smartest people in the room" were in charge. Then it all fell apart. There was no return to equilibrium. Things just kept getting crazier.
Looking back, I think that's when I first felt what so many people feel now: we used to feel like we were standing on solid ground, but more and more we've come to realize it's a thin layer of dirt on top of ice—and the cracks have been accumulating for a long time.
Religion gave us a story about why we're here, but people have stopped believing. Manufacturing gave us physical grounding—we made things, we understood the economy through what we built. But then we stopped building. We offshored the factories, moved to an information economy, and the last stable ground became "knowledge work." Now AI is putting the nail in that coffin.
I feel like the ice is on the verge of breaking and when it does, we could fall into an abyss of meaninglessness we might never get out of unless we find something new to stand on.
A New Kind of Theory of Everything
That's what Swarm Theory is: a framework that reconnects mind, matter, life, and technology into one coherent picture. Not a replacement for religion or ideology. Not a retreat to older frameworks (though we're already seeing that impulse—socialist revivals on one side, right-wing authoritarianism on the other). This is an attempt at the forward path.
I've been developing it for nearly a decade. This is the first time I'm sharing it publicly.
You've probably heard the term "Theory of Everything," but there's a reason nobody actually uses one to make sense of their life: they're mathematical abstractions, useful only to theoretical physicists. But I've always felt that a theory of everything should mean exactly what it says — a framework that helps you understand everything. That's what Swarm Theory attempts to be.
The Core Axiom
Reality is constructed by nested swarms of information processing nodes.
Look anywhere and you'll find things inside of things inside of things—and at every level, order is emerging out of chaos. Your mind processes more information than any other animal on the planet, seemingly enabled by trillions of neurons, none of which have any awareness of what they're doing. The cells composing each neuron have no knowledge of the neuron which they constitute. And yet here you are, reading this sentence and understanding it.
As much information as you can process, it's practically nothing compared to the amount of information we can process when we combine our efforts with other people inside of organizations. No other life form is even close.
Like a neuron, a human inside a department/corporation/nation, has little awareness of what the organization is doing, and yet that organization is acting with intelligence. These are more than mere networks, they're swarms; organizations of information processors networked together such that they can process not just quantitatively more information, but qualitatively more, and this happens everywhere at every level.
Everything is Information
In 1948, a 32-year-old researcher at Bell Labs was trying to figure out how to transmit information without noise. To solve this problem, he developed a mathematical framework that would become known as "information theory." His name was Claude Shannon.
The story goes that when Shannon showed his equation to John von Neumann, von Neumann told him to call it "entropy"—partly because the mathematical form was identical to the entropy equation in thermodynamics, and partly, von Neumann joked, because "nobody knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage."
But this wasn't just a naming coincidence. Shannon had stumbled onto something profound: the same mathematics that describes how energy disperses in the physical world also describes how information behaves.
Information and physical reality share the same underlying structure.
Decades later, the physicist John Archibald Wheeler would take this insight even further. Wheeler proposed that information isn't just like physical reality—it is physical reality. As he put it: "every item of the physical world has at bottom ... an immaterial source and explanation; … all things physical are information-theoretic in origin."
It from Bit
Wheeler called this idea "it from bit"—the notion that every particle, every field, every physical thing emerges from information.
But how do we get from the idea that reality is fundamentally information-based to the rich physical world we see all around us? What persists when all your atoms are replaced? What are you? What is everything around you? What is the universe?
In the articles ahead, I'll explore the answers this lens provides to these questions.
What's Next
This was just the foundation—the core axiom and the hint that information is more fundamental than matter. But a framework is only useful if it actually helps you understand things.
In future articles I will explore this framework by applying it to current events and we'll go deeper into Wheeler's revolutionary insight: "It from bit." The idea that transformed physics in the 20th century and is only now beginning to transform everything else.
From there, we'll build outward: consciousness, biology, economics, meaning itself. Each article will add a layer to this lens until we have something genuinely useful—a framework that helps you make sense of the chaos, find solid ground, and maybe even see why you matter more than you've been led to believe.
Very interesting Andrew, I already follow you, so "no further action is needed" but I do find this subject fascinating. I'm curious as to the pragmatic implementation of the idea, but I have a brain teaser for you.
Can't remember where I heard this, but I suspect you will enjoy thinking about this too.
Imagine a boat that has been in service for 80 years. Naturally this boat has needed a lot of work to continue to be operational. Over the span of the decades almost every single piece of the boat has been swapped, replaced, improved.
Is it still the same boat?
If we are the result of information, if we evolve, if we replace our ideas for "better ones" - change our convictions even (possibly once in a lifetime at least) - Are we the same person? And if we are? How? Why?
Anyways...
Great read my friend. Glad you are back.
Great question! I was actually considering giving a very similar example! Every cell in our body is eventually replaced, so are we the same person? I believe Bernardo Kastrup’s analytical idealism will be most consistent with Swarm Theory. Basically this holds that the perceived barriers between things (e.g. the boat, the body) are “dissociative boundaries” within a unified “mind at large.” In Swarm Theoretical terms, boats and bodies are both swarms of information processing nodes. Creating information processing nodes which aggregate into swarms which themselves become information processing nodes, and so on, is how the universe scales consciousness and better understands itself. But Swarm Theory is still a work and progress, so working this all out in public and integrating the relevant science is part of what this journey is all about! So feel free to share your thoughts, feedback, and anything you think might be relevant.
You may be thinking of the Ship of Theseus:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
I was talking to a relative over Christmas holiday about this. We were talking about consciousness and how it is an emergent property of brains, much like digestion is an emergent property of stomachs and intestines. I was saying that I'd have no problem becoming a robot bit by bit as my broken bio parts are replaced by whatever high tech the future brings. As long as it happens bit by bit, I'll never lose conscious identity and I'll consider myself one entity from birth to this future robot version of me.
So I'd say yes, same boat/body/being. But operating in a different sea of information if we have upgraded our behavior and thought processes for better ones.
Cool stuff to contemplate! :)
If I recall correctly what I read online, the cells in the brain are completely replaced by new cells in roughly six months, for which some say that a person is "replaced" by a new one after about half a year. 🤔🧘♂️🤯🤯🤓 !WEIRD !LOLZ
There is actually no proof that consciousness is an emergent property of brains. This is just a faulty assumption many have because they don't realize their worldview is fundamentally materialist. This is so ingrained that most people don't even know what materialism is and that there is an alternate worldview that many brilliant people hold (idealism).
Well I'm a materialist so that explains why I said what I said. :)
Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/materialism-philosophy
Of course I may be wrong! I will be reading what you post in your series on swarm theory. I love to learn about many different points of view. I will change and adapt when I get new information if I see that it leads me in a new direction. I am not married to my current beliefs. Wherever the data goes, I'll go too.
I think saying "many brilliant people hold" some point of view is a bit of an appeal to authority or popularity.
Source: copilot AI
However, I also use this, quite often! It makes sense to me to know what brilliant people are thinking, and why they think it.
You're smart, well spoken and accomplished, so I will be reading what you write on this topic. I've been reading your posts for almost 10 years now, and I have learned a lot. Thanks!
I didn't mean to suggest that I know this perspective is right. I just think a lot of people would be surprised to hear some of the names who hold idealist views.
Thanks for the kind words and for expressing an interest in what I have to say! It means a lot especially since I am trying to motivate myself to write more and create more content!
I hope you do create more content; I'm planning on reading all of it.
Wishing you all the best!
Entropy always reminds me of the No Hiding theorem, that states information cannot be lost to the universe. If information is matter, then matter can't be lost either. However, E=MC^2, so matter is energy, which is what is lost to entropy. This brings me back to my original resolution, the fundamental paradox of everything. Certainty is the enemy of knowledge.
Thanks!
I wouldn't say information is matter. Information is the asking of a yes/no question and registering an answer. When we ask these questions about the world we observe with our senses, matter emerges. In Swarm Theoretical terms, matter emerges from the fundamental, nested, and hierarchical information processing dynamic. When we ask whether a table is there, we touch it and our answer is "yes." But then when we look with more precise instrumentation, we see that the table is mostly empty space and our hand never touches anything. The feeling of touch is the result of electron repulsion. The table becomes a swarm of atoms all interacting with one another, sharing electrons, asking each other questions and propagating the results. Look into the particles that make the atoms and those particles disappear leaving only "wave functions" which seem to be a swarm of their own. The multiple worlds theory contends that they are a cross-dimensional swarm of that particle.
I do agree, but note that matter, the swirling particles thereof, are merely energy in such highly ordered relationships, as E=MC^2 reveals. As I understand it then, the only reason information isn't matter in the Swarm theory you are explaining is that matter is actually energy.
As to the multiple worlds theory(s), I have attempted to put forth arguments that dark matter results from matter causing gravitational effects at other times, but fortunately a competent physicist proved it could not be so. I have yet to espouse such hypotheses of such theory successfully in discussion with competent physicists. It seems to make sense to me, so I doggedly keep trying LOL