What if information is deeper than matter?

Let’s imagine that we gradually remove from the universe everything that we normally consider basic.

First the bodies. Then atoms. Then the particles. Finally, the space in which they should be stored and the time according to which they should move.

What will be left?

Almost nothing in the ordinary picture. However, events, relationships, change options, and records of what actually happened could remain in General ITHKOR.

And it is from them that the world that we perceive today as matter could be composed.

Reader Agreement: This article is a thought experiment. General ITHKOR is not a confirmed physical theory. We are only trying to imagine what would result from it, if it turns out that information is a deeper layer of reality than space, time and matter.

Matter may not be “substance”

When we say matter, we intuitively imagine something solid. A pebble, a table, a planet, or at least a small ball-like particle.

However, modern physics has long been less material than our everyday perception suggests.

In quantum field theory, the electron is not a tiny mechanical ball. It is a manifestation of the electron field. A photon is an excitation of an electromagnetic field. Particles of the same kind are perfectly indistinguishable: each electron has the same charge, spin and rest mass.

That’s strange.

Two stone balls can have scratches, different compositions and different histories. Two electrons are not two separately manufactured copies. They are identical quantum objects without individual serial numbers.

In an informational image, it could be read more naturally:

An electron is not a specific piece of substance. It is a stable type of pattern that can arise at different points in the event network.

Like an eddy in a river.

A vortex is not made of the same water molecules throughout its existence. Water flows through it, but the vortex structure remains. Its identity lies not in the material it contains, but in the organized way of change.

If Generic ITHKOR were to apply, the particle could be something like: a locally stable information mode that maintains certain invariants during updates.

Those invariants would appear to us to be, for example, charge, spin, mass or other quantum numbers.

Why would the pattern be stable?

A nice metaphor is not enough here.

If we say that matter is information, we have not yet explained anything. We just replaced one word with another.

A true theory would have to show why some information structures persist for billions of years while others disappear instantly.

A generic ITHKOR could look for an answer in a combination of three properties:

local consistency – each step must be compatible with neighboring events;
preserved invariants – some properties must not be lost during permitted changes;
fault tolerance – a stable pattern returns to its allowed class after a small error.

Such an image resembles a wave, a dynamic attractor, and a correction code at the same time.

Not in the sense that an electron is literally a ZIP archive or a program object. Rather, in that its identity can be stored distributed in rules and relationships, not in one small material dot.

This could explain why elementary particles are such incredibly exact copies of their type.

But only if their properties could really be derived from the mechanism.

Quantum superposition without placing the cat in two worlds

Quantum mechanics is often explained to the layman by saying that a particle is “in two places at once”.

This wording is catchy, but it can be misleading. It assumes that classical place is a fundamental property of the world and that a quantum particle just strangely decided to have two values at the same time.

In an informational view of reality, it could be the other way around.

A quantum state would not be a vague answer to a pre-existing classical question. It would be a full fundamental state, from which the classical position will arise only in a specific interaction.

Superposition would then not mean:

The particle is secretly in two exact places.

Rather:

The fundamental layer does not yet contain a single stable record that would dictate one classical outcome to the rest of the world.

This is a subtle but important difference.

The quantum world would not be a corrupted version of the classical world. The classical world would be a special regime of quantum informational reality—a regime in which the outcome has already spread to many mutually consistent records.

Measurement as the creation of a record

Here we come to Schrödinger’s cat.

In a popular version of the story, the cat waits in a strange state of “alive and dead” for the man to open the box. This leads to the idea that consciousness has a magical physical role.

General ITHKOR would not need consciousness for this purpose.

A physical record would be important.

The radioactive atom interacts with the detector. Detector with mechanism. Mechanism with ampoule. Ampoule with air, cat, box walls and thermal environment. The information about the result will start to be copied into a huge number of degrees of freedom.

The outcome is no longer an isolated possibility. It becomes a trace that can be read by many other systems.

This is close to the physics direction of decoherence and quantum Darwinism, in which the environment does not act only as noise. It becomes a “witness”: it carries redundant copies of certain information about the system.

ITHKOR could translate this picture into its own language:

Classical reality arises where quantum possibility is transformed into a stable, repeatedly readable record.

It is not yet a new explanation of quantum mechanics. It is rather a candidate for an architecture that would have to be mathematically tightened.

What would the field be then?

If a particle is not a small thing, what is a field?

In the information picture, the field would not have to be an invisible liquid spilled in the finished space. It could be a rule of available local changes.

For example, the electromagnetic field would determine how phases and charge states can change in interconnected regions. The particle would be a stable excitation of this rule. A force would be the way in which the presence of one pattern changes the allowed updates of another.

Such language is tempting because it links object and law:

the particle is a stable mode;
the field is the space of permitted changes;
interaction is a change in relationships;
measurement is the creation of a shared record.

But right here it is decided whether it is about physics or a nice essay.

A theory would have to derive concrete equations, symmetries, and measurable probabilities from this architecture.

Why would the world appear solid?

If everything is a dynamic pattern, why does the table not look like a flickering probability?

Because stability can be collective.

A single quantum object can be held in fine superposition. However, the macroscopic object is constantly connected with the environment. The light is reflected from it. Air molecules hit it. It radiates heat. Its condition leaves millions of interlocking traces.

Thus, classicism would not be a property of “great things” in itself. It would be a property of states whose information is:

robust;
redundant;
available to many independent readers;
and practically impossible to reassemble into one isolated quantum phase.

The table appears solid not because it has ceased to be quantum, but because information about its macroscopic state is everywhere.

Would this mean we are living in a simulation?

Nope.

This is one of the most important frontiers of the entire series.

From the statement:

Reality can have a fundamental informational description

does not follow:

Reality was started by a programmer on an external computer.

Even the vortex can be accurately described by equations, but it does not follow that the river runs on a server outside our world.

The universe can be informative in itself. It doesn’t have to have a user, a monitor, source code or a higher civilization. The word “computation” can only mean that the state is changing according to the rules – not that someone pressed the start button.

The simulation hypothesis is another, separate step. General ITHKOR does not need it.

What could such a notion explain?

If correct, it could offer a common language for several peculiarities:

why particles of one kind are perfectly indistinguishable;
why the quantum state is fundamental and the classical result contextual;
why interaction with the environment creates a seemingly objective world;
why the identity of the object can be preserved even when its material parts are constantly replaced;
why physics so often works with symmetries, invariants and state spaces instead of mechanical pictures.

But that still wouldn’t be proof.

A theory that knows how to name everything in retrospect can only be a new dictionary.

Five things that ITHKOR should really show

1. Born’s rule

It would have to derive why the outcomes of quantum measurements appear with probabilities given by the squared amplitude. It is not enough to say that the system will “select a stable record”.

2. Interference

It would have to reproduce the phase, superposition and interference experiments without hidden classical simplification.

3. No-signalling

Its deeper layer must not make it possible to send usable information faster than light, if the observed physics does not allow it.

4. Spectrum of particles

It would have to explain why the known particles, their charges, spins, masses, and three generations exist—not an arbitrary collection of stable patterns.

5. New prediction

In at least one well-specified mode, it would have to say something that ordinary theory doesn’t, and risk the experiment saying no.

Without it, it remains a fascinating interpretation.

What we know, what we assume and what is missing

What we know: Quantum systems create superpositions, interference and entangled states. Interaction with the environment leads to decoherence, and the environment can carry redundant information about the system.

What General ITHKOR would assume: Stable physical objects are robust information patterns, and classical reality arises together with stable records.

What to prove: Derive quantum probabilities, particle properties, symmetries, and at least one new measurable prediction.

A world composed of verbs

If General ITHKOR were true, perhaps the deepest layer of reality would not be nouns, but verbs.

Not particle, but sustain a pattern.

Not field, but change options.

Not measurement but create a record.

Not object, but preserve identity during changes.

Matter would not be an illusion. The table would still be real and the electron would still have its exact properties.

It would only turn out that the solidity of the world does not arise from immobile matter.

It arises from the rules that allow certain patterns to persist.

Series: If General ITHKOR were true — part 1/4
Next part: Space and time as outcomes: what if the universe has no common clock?
Origin of the story: From Devs to ITHKOR and ITHZ
Current project map: ITHKOR theory

Information before matter: what if particles are only stable patterns?