  This Perspective explores the origins and persistence of recurrent structures
and patterns throughout the known Universe. We start with a first fundamental
question: 1. Considering that all information consists of patterns in physical
structure but not all physical patterns constitute information, what is the
fundamental relation between these two? We first explore the materialistic
nature of structures and information, detailing how they can form through
spontaneous or templated processes and evolve into complex structures,
including self-replicators. We posit that all recurring structures emerge
either spontaneously de novo or based on underlying information. A main
implication is that all information must be understood as both a product and a
driver of evolution. We further observe that the three carriers of information
underpin the emergence of three main layers of self-organisation: genes coded
in DNA for the biological layer, ideas stored in neural structure for the
cultural layer, and records written on innate objects for the civilisation
layer. This gives rise to two additional questions, which we subsequently
address: 2. What can we anticipate about the future development of
self-organizing layers given the role of information in their emergence? 3.
What is the universality of information and its evolution throughout the
Universe? This manuscript aims to offer a fresh perspective and a universal
framework for information and the origin of structures by extending and
unifying concepts from physics, biology, and information theory.
