The Universe as a Self-Observing Process: Information, Emergent Complexity, and the Cosmological Construction of a Global Observer

We propose a formal interdisciplinary framework in which the universe is modelled as a dynamical process of progressive self-representation. Abandoning anthropocentric assumptions about information and consciousness, we introduce two novel quantities: the Cosmological Self-Representation Capacity G(t), measuring the universe's aggregate capacity to model itself, and the Cognitive Entropic Efficiency C(S), measuring the ratio of self-referential information acquired to thermodynamic entropy generated in doing so. Grounding these constructs in Shannon entropy, von Neumann entropy, Kolmogorov complexity, Tononi's Integrated Information Theory (IIT), and Friston's Free Energy Principle, we prove a series of formal lemmas and state a central conjecture: that evolution by predictive selection tends to increase C over time. We situate this framework within the philosophical tradition running from Hegel's Absolute Spirit through Teilhard de Chardin's Omega Point and Tipler's Physics of Immortality, and in Wheeler's participatory universe. We argue that artificial intelligence constitutes a cosmologically significant phase transition in this process. Five classes of falsifiable empirical predictions are proposed.