This post is part of a larger set of ideas about how Ethereum is a decentralized world-modelling computer, which you can find here. This post can be understood in isolation as well.
In order to answer this question of what Ethereum might be modelling, we will need to identify and understand its inputs. The Ether (sp. Aether) has been historically described as a “fifth element” used to explain phenomenon such as travelling light and gravity. This motivated Vitalik Buterin to decide on Ethereum as the moniker:
"I immediately realized that I liked it better than all of the other alternatives that I had seen; I suppose it was the fact that [it] sounded nice and it had the word 'ether', referring to the hypothetical invisible medium that permeates the universe and allows light to travel."
Consensus regarding the Ether has historically evolved in accordance with shifting paradigms. In the 1600s, the Ether was a point of reference from which Sir Isaac Newton eventually discovered gravity. In the 18th century, the notion of Luminiferous Aether was rigorously studied to discover the medium through which light propagated. With the advent of modern physics and Einstein’s theory of relativity, the path was forged for the Electro-Magnetic Spectrum to be provably regarded as the medium through which (light) waves travel.
In the 1940s the field of Information Theory was born, and the hypothetical medium of Ether was additionally found to transmit information. Waves transmit information in the form of binary digits/bits, E.g., light waves travelling through fiber-optic Ether-net cables that comprise the internet and other telecommunication systems.
A Channel is the medium which relays information carried through a message, but it can be corrupted by noise, i.e., information entropy. A Receiver functions to decode uncertainty contained within the message; therefore, Information is simply the resolution of Uncertainty.
An illustration of this evolution:
Fast forward to present day, Ether (ETH) is the cryptocurrency that powers the Ethereum decentralized network, and it is also the second most valuable digital asset in the world. Like Bitcoin, several narratives have evolved around Ethereum to better understand it. While the asset Ether (ETH) embodies qualities of Oil, Gas, Money, and even a Digital Bond, the Ethereum network has been dubbed as the “world computer.”
Though this narrative is not yet viral, it is worth noting that over a decade transpired before the consensus around Bitcoin as Digital Gold was consolidated.
Much to the vindication of Bitcoin maximalists, there would be no Ethereum without binary digit coin.
Be that as it may, the future is undeniably Ethereum:
“Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water…Water can flow, or water can crash. Be water, my friend.”
-Bruce Lee