The Relationship Between Bananas and the Universe

I think what you're saying is that there are things that sort of don't disappear. Maybe every time someone eats a banana here, a banana is born in another planet somewhere in the universe. The number of bananas is not fundamentally interesting to the universe even if it might be personally interesting to various people. So when you discover a conserved quantity, something the universe maintains, then you're seeing something about the inner workings of the universe.