In the latter case the word "representation" is somewhat misplaced. For what is a representation representing if there isn't anything it is re-presenting?
There is a school of ancient thought (Stoicism) that does not distinguish between a representation and what it otherwise represents. Stoics treat these things as one and the same thing. A "presentation" perhaps. The universe is a surface (superficial) beyond which there is no deeper reality. The surface itself is the "reality". This is not the same thing as the universe proposed by The Matrix.
In the Matrix there is a deeper reality run by aliens.
But back to what is far more weirder: a weird aspect of nature.
We think of things being where we see them. We have an entire branch of mathematics (geometry) for defining where things are and how they relate to each other. We have theoretical physics (ie. mathematics) to formalise the forces between things in space and time. And Einstein to clarify the relations. But the "fact" is that when you look very closely at these things they do not behave according to the assumptions on which geometry (land measure), space and time are conceived. A branch of physics (quantum mechanics) is devoted to this. It is no less mathematical.
In quantum mechanics a thing (typically a particle) has no classical reality until it is observed. The observation (a particle detection), whether by man, machine or other entity, is the only thing conforming to classical reality.
From the observation (as in ordinary classical observation) one gains a sense of where things are supposedly in reality. But in quantum mechanics this sense (of where things are) gives rise to the thing having been in more than one place before we saw it.
Mathematically there is no way around this.
So either mathematics is not the right tool for analysing this, or things really are in multiple places at the same time. The latter is the position of most theoretical physicists.
While we observe things to be in one place only, when we use mathematics (and statistics) to determine where they are (or were) in "reality" (before we saw them) we end up with some weird conflated universe or multiverse of things. Yet we never see this. We never experience it. This multiverse of things is just what we mathematically infer from where we otherwise see things.
Now for the Stoics there is no deeper reality beyond what we observe (unless we're deranged, deluded etc). One of the original architects of quantum mechanics (Neils Bohr) held a similar position. He questioned the reality (classical reality) of what the mathematics was saying. He didn't question the mathematics. The mathematics, as far he was concerned, was not the issue. By definition mathematics is correct. If you've made a mistake in your mathematics it's not mathematics.
Einstein, on the other hand, treated the mathematics, not as incorrect (of course), but as incomplete (with respect to the apparent problem). Einstein believed there was a deeper reality, beyond the observation, and that a completed mathematical conception would reveal it.
A Theory of Everything is supposed to be the completion of this particular quest.
But what if the Stoics are right - that the universe, as we observe it, with our senses, or our machines, is all that is really there. A superficial reality. What if the mathematical/statistical inferences of a weird multiverse (and so on) is just a formalisation for otherwise managing, organising, manipulating what we otherwise sense (nothing more than a technological purpose), rather than necessarily exposing some deeper reality (scientific/theoretical/philosophical conclusion).
Interestingly, either way it's weird.
We're either living in some sort of weird image of nothing, or we're living in some sort of image of a weird something.
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