I read recently of a paper that proposed a mechanism for information conservation during black hole evaporation. The model was that information was preserved within the black hole on some layer that was not destroyed, and the information was subsequently released as the black hole evaporated.

I am not a physicist but the Hawking model that black holes destroy information always struck me as an asymmetry. Apparently that asymmetry also motivated some researchers who know more than me.

Is there actually evidence for the conservation of information? I'm not even sure what information refers to within this context, but the writeup on the paper I read used that term.

I have toyed with the idea that the anthropic principle doesn't just rely on chance events on really long time scales. If indeed information is indestructible, the universe could be in a birth-death cycle of refinement, where it orders information in ways to increase self-awareness each cycle.