"1" does not refer to anything. Mathematics, properly understood, is the theory of everything.
The proper understanding of math derives all numbers, mathematical operators, and all the other mathematics, from the starting symbol 0.
Then as by rules most parsimonious, there would be an ordering of mathematical structures, in regards to the zero.
The start would be 0. Then to derive the 1 from the 0, the 0 is rewritten as a 1. The rewrite principle is like when the same information can be rewritten to harddisk, and to a dvd, and to RAM, and it's still the same information, but rewritten in a different form.
So the 1 is essentially a rewrite of the 0. Now we also get the boolean operator, because 1 being a rewrite of 0, means they have boolean interchangeability.
Now we have the mathematical structures of 0, 01, 10, 00, 11
0, 01, 00, and 10 would all total 0, because of the boolean operator making the 01 and 10 also total zero. But there is no boolean operator for 11, making it not total zero, which is totally uncool.
Therefore logic must respond to make it total 0 zero again. So logic responds to the 11 with a 00. And all is parsimoniously total zero again, and we get additional mathematical structures. And so on.
And it should be shown to be the case that in physics, the physical 0 and 1 in isolation, would have boolean properties, that this would be some kind of phenomenon of physics.
And the main laws of physics, and constants, would be apparent in the ordering of the mathematical structures in respect to the zero.
And the human mind, and the DNA system, and the universe, would all be shown to have the same fundamental mathematical ordering. But no the sequence of CATG, or where the planets and stars are, and what pictures someone dreams of. That is not fundamental.