I really appreciate your thorough description. If you are a fan of "mathy" scifi, check out "Permutation City" - it takes what I have described as my philosophy

I really appreciate your thorough description. If you are a fan of "mathy" scifi, check out "Permutation City" - it takes what I have described as my philosophy of science (physical reality being dependent on math) to a very entertaining extreme. I think you might find it entertaining even if you have the opposite views (math "just" being an indispensable tool for physics).