If we imagine the universe as a set of data and each observer as an outcome of a series of measurement operations, then we can view ourselves as being unique series of cryptographic keys reflecting a particular track in the data (like a bubble track in a cloud chamber). We can turn to computer science for examples of perfectly deterministic systems where we regularly try to anonymize data instead of decipher it, and use insights from that field to understand physical problems. Onion routing, for example, provides a means of encrypting data so that nodes in a chain only know the node where data came from and the node data is to be sent, via the use of Chaum mixes as part of a mix network. This has implications for the information paradoxes surrounding black holes and topics of computational complexity, and how decoherence approaches which include the environment as active participant can avert the paradox and provide an additional means to connect mathematics and physics.
Harlan Swyers