The Carriers of Information…

Where does evidence exist?

We are reliant on what is written on that which we come into contact with. A particle from without reacts with a particle from within, and we feel their effects…

That being so, if we as collections of particles (living), could it be the same for another set of particles (traditionally seen as non-living) or a single particle to be effected from without. The action of this effect will cause a reaction, and who is to say that these (non-living) particles don't feel that reaction for themselves. If it were true these particles would be considered living, such that the whole Universe is considered truly alive…

What kind of information would be encoded on a particle?

Not that you can get there, but if could read the information encoded on a single particle, you may find the sum of all knowledge encoded within it. This is due to one part of the Universe affecting the entire rest of the Universe. As in some way that every particle has something to do with every other one, then the sum of all experience would be encoded on each and every single particle. It's just that we have no real way of reading the information on a single particle…

What about matter disappearing?

Consider the possibility of matter reacting with antimatter, and the possibility that both are destroyed, and the matter that once existed no longer does…
Then matter may be able to be created and destroyed in some ways…
However, the influence of particles that once were is still found after their disappearance. The influence comes from other particles having once interacted with these ex-particles, and thus will carry the information that was once found primarily on these ex-particles…

What carries information to us (the living)?

When you think about information, you think of memory, of knowledge and the recording of experience. When you think of carrying, you think of something brought from without reach or without an area towards it being within reach or within an area…
What carries the information? Particles move about. We all move about. There is a domino effect of movements. There is momentum. Information naturally moves, just as all the particles in the Universe do. The information itself is written on these particles in the form of inertia, and other qualities that effect a particles composition and it's movement…
The reading of the information is a little more sophisticated. It relies upon the emulation of the grosser movements involved, as it is a little hard to emulate the movement of a single particle. This grosser emulation involves reading a number of particles that would be considered to be carrying the same information.
Through emulation the reader knows what must have happened, from previous experience with similar events, and combinations of events.
The first emulation has a question mark next to it. That being, how can you relate from previous experience to the very first event that must have ever existed.
One explanation being, the possibility of being able to read the future (which the ability of at certain times may be more heightened).
Another possible explanation being, the element of time is merely a process, by which there are underlying qualities which are certain. Like the ideas involved with logic (mathematics for example), where no matter where you are, this kind of information is always true.
Yet another explanation being, that, we were given help with our first experience(s) initially for the first liver(s) perhaps by a God (or similar entity) and for those who have come later down the line, by our mothers and fathers (from which we have traits)…

What chance is there that information can be carried to the non-living?

There is no doubt the non-living can be affected much in the same way the living are. The question really is more whether the non-living are actually alive, and can actually have experiences.
Can a particle by itself understand any of the information which is encoded on it, which relates not only to the direct actions of it's own, but also the more indirect actions of other particles?
I like to think an all living Universe is a cool idea, and explains where our souls may come from.
One other idea is that the reason why as a group of many particles, one sole liver takes control of the mind or body, may have something to do with domination, and also the similarity in the various particles making up the mind and body.

The last question… How do our identities survive during life and after our living time (if at all)?

Encoded on each particle, there is an association. This is such, that as has been said before, that when one particle comes into contact with another, it is influenced. Such influence allows for the particle to have some sort of memory.
The information that is stored within the particles of the body remains there after those particles no longer exist or exist somewhere else.
This is due to the influence of one particle over another, and that not only the non-living aspect of influence allows for some sort of memory. But also, through the activity of emulation (seen in memory, knowledge and the recording of information) the living identities survive.
As for our identities surviving after bodily death, we will experience the non-living aspect, but most likely not the living aspect (at least in the corporeal world). Though this implies that the body after death still retains some sort of memory. This may well be true. However, the possibilities of communication here may be impossible. Although, the possibilities of reading one's particles somehow may be more probable, although they would include nothing newer than what was at the time of death.
One interesting thing is that if you were able to read someone's brain after death, you may be able to complete one of the logical progressions that person was working on, simply by knowing what part of the brain was responsible for what, and basically ‘joining the dots' as such…

I like your thinking. I too like the idea of a living, experiencing universe. I suppose you can equate progression and movement and all non-living interaction with experience , memory, life. But what is life? How do you say what is alive? It would depend on the definition. I say the universe is already alive, it is breathing, changing, developing, multiplying, expanding, growing in complexity and diversity, by the very fact that life on Earth has come from the building blocks of what one could say is a universe devoid of life is in itself proof that life comes out of what is not alive. Perhaps the energy itself that exists in every corner of the blackness of space is the living breathing, experiencing carrier of information that you are looking for!

An interesting post Black Gold.
Here are my thoughts on what you have said thus far.

I think you are mixing objective logic with a desire for a credo to make sense of your world. Before I go further with this part of your post I would like you to give me your definition of "living".

I agree with the concept that information or "memory", as you put it, are imprinted on everything in the universe as it reacts with the rest. However, there are limits to information. For one, interaction with any object is required to gain information from it. As in quantum physics, when finding the velocity of an electron you will only find the speed or direction but never both, because you will effect the particle in gaining info on the aspects. Therefore, even though particles have been effected by the rest of the universe and have the "sum of all knowledge", the amount of information attainable from them is limited.
Also, I would like to say that while particles may be effected and in that sense record "knowledge" it is not to say it is the same as a human mind recording information and utilizing it.