  It is generally believed that physical laws, reflecting an inherent order in
the universe, are ordained by nature. However, in modern physics the observer
plays a central role raising questions about how an observer-centric physics
can result in laws apparently worthy of a universal nature-centric physics.
Over the last decade, we have found that the consistent apt quantification of
algebraic and order-theoretic structures results in calculi that possess
constraint equations taking the form of what are often considered to be
physical laws. I review recent derivations of the formal relations among
relevant variables central to special relativity, probability theory and
quantum mechanics in this context by considering a problem where two observers
form consistent descriptions of and make optimal inferences about a free
particle that simply influences them. I show that this approach to describing
such a particle based only on available information leads to the mathematics of
relativistic quantum mechanics as well as a description of a free particle that
reproduces many of the basic properties of a fermion. The result is an approach
to foundational physics where laws derive from both consistent descriptions and
optimal information-based inferences made by embedded observers.
