Victor Goodman
June 2025
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15725508
Abstract
Contemporary physics offers powerful descriptions of the material universe, yet it begins with foundational assumptions — space, time, force, mass, continuity — that it does not itself explain. Building on the ontological framework introduced in Primal Architectures of Being[1], this essay explores how physical law may arise from the recursive resolution of deeper structural tensions — termed Primal Questions[2] — that precede dimensional structure. In this framework, consciousness is not merely a byproduct of matter, but a multi-level phenomenon: both a primal field co-arising with dimensional structure and an emergent modulator of ontological coherence. This reframing interprets several foundational puzzles in physics — including measurement, entanglement, indeterminacy, fine-tuning, and cosmic acceleration — as surface expressions of deeper ontological dynamics: structural tensions resolving into coherence[3]. A comparative discussion of Bohmian mechanics, Many-Worlds, QBism, and decoherence-based explanations is presented. The essay concludes that physics is not the ground of reality, but its formalized surface — a coherent expression shaped by deeper metaphysical tensions.
[1] Primal Architectures of Being, Victor Goodman (2025). A foundational text outlining the multi-axis ontological model referenced throughout this essay. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15353357 and victorgoodman.com
[2] Primal Questions: Deep structural tensions that precede dimensional form and give rise to ontological becoming. Fully defined in Primal Architectures of Being, Axis 5.
[3] Additional foundational questions will be explored in a forthcoming companion essay.
Table of Contents
I. Introduction: What Physics Explains — and What It Presupposes
II. Ontological Foundations: Infinity and Primal Tensions
III. Crystallization as the Foundation of Structured Reality
IV. Physics as Emergent Formalism, Not Ultimate Cause
V. Consciousness as Ontological Participant
VI. Five Problems in Physics Re-explained
VII. Recursive Coherence and Ontological Depth
IX. Toward an Ontological Physics
Afterword: Distinctions of This Ontological Framework
Postscript: Implications and Future Directions
Version History & About the Author
I. Introduction: What Physics Explains — and What It Presupposes
Modern physics is a remarkably precise and predictive framework. Through general relativity, it maps the curvature of spacetime; through quantum theory, it rigorously accounts for uncertainty; and in black hole thermodynamics, it offers profound theoretical insights into extreme conditions. Yet it often leaves questions about its own conceptual foundations underexplored. Physics typically begins with the assumption of a structured arena — space, time, and force — in which its equations operate, but it seldom addresses where this structure originates or why it exhibits the coherence and order that make scientific inquiry possible.
This essay proposes that physics is not the base layer of reality. Rather, it is a crystallized outcome — the formal stabilization of underlying ontological tensions. These tensions arise not from human curiosity but from the instability inherent in Infinity[4] itself. The laws of physics are thus not universal decrees but emergent regularities that follow from the partial resolution of what this ontological framework calls Primal Questions.
Though the notion that physics may be emergent from deeper structures has been explored in various traditions — from Bohm to Wheeler to metaphysical cosmologies — this essay offers a distinct contribution: it applies a formal ontological architecture, developed in Primal Architectures of Being (Goodman, 2025), to the foundational questions of physics. Rooted in Primal Questions, recursive crystallization, and resonance-based coherence, this framework does not revise physics but seeks to ground it ontologically.
Note: This essay is speculative in nature. It does not propose testable physical models, but reframes longstanding problems in physics through the lens of a coherent ontological architecture.
[4] Infinity, in this framework, refers not to vastness or quantity, but to radical undefinedness — an unbounded absence of measure, structure, or form.
II. Ontological Foundations: Infinity and Primal Tensions
Physics begins with structure — but this framework asks: what precedes structure?
Infinity is not a point of origin, but a fundamental condition — pure undefinedness without measure, form, or distinction. It does not begin, because beginning presupposes change, and change presupposes structure. Yet because Infinity lacks even the structure of stillness, it cannot remain in perfect suspension. It is pre-ontological, and inherently unstable. From this intrinsic uncertainty, instability arises — not as an event, but as an inevitable consequence of what Infinity is. And from that instability, the first tremble of differentiation emerges — the subtle shift that gives rise to Possibility, Nothingness[5], and all further structures of being (see Goodman, 2025, for the formal model).
From the initial instability of Infinity — expressed as the tension between Possibility and Nothingness — arises a cascade of unresolved generative questions:
- What can be?
- What cannot be?
- What is form?
- What constitutes relation?
These are Primal Questions — not linguistic problems but ontological pressures, inherent in the nature of undefinedness. They seek resolution. Some questions bind structure; others fracture it. Still others exist only as recursive or paradoxical tensions. Not all questions take familiar forms — some collapse upon being asked, or generate their own negation. When enough of them stabilize together in mutual coherence — either on their own or in resonance with consciousness — they may crystallize a dimension: a structured field in which form, time, and relation can emerge. Some dimensions stabilize into persistent realities; others remain unstable, recursive, or partially unresolved — architectures of becoming shaped by the dynamic logic of inquiry itself.
[5] Possibility and Nothingness are primal ontological conditions emerging from the instability of Infinity. Their dynamic interplay — non-temporal and non-spatial — underlies the emergence of dimensionality, consciousness, and structured reality itself.
III. Crystallization as the Foundation of Structured Reality
Crystallization in this model is not metaphor but structural transition: the stabilization of a pattern of tensions into a coherent dimensional field. Once crystallized, this field expresses continuity, locality, causality — the features we describe through physical law.
The universe is one such crystallized reality. Its constants and laws — such as the speed of light (c = 299,792,458 m/s), Planck’s constant (h = 6.626 × 10⁻³⁴ Js), and the gravitational constant (G = 6.674 × 10⁻¹¹ Nm²/kg²) — are not metaphysical givens but residues of successful tension resolution, like chords that resonate in harmony. If the alignment of Primal Questions had been different, another set of constants — and thus another universe — would have crystallized.
A helpful analogy can be drawn from material crystallization. In a supersaturated solution, solute molecules remain dispersed in a delicate, unstable equilibrium. Their positions are not entirely random, but the system teeters on the edge of transformation. When a seed crystal is introduced or conditions cross a critical threshold, order cascades: molecules align, not by choice, but because the environment now favors structure over disorder. The resulting crystal emerges as a global resolution to local instability — sudden coherence shaped by the system’s latent potential.
Similarly, in this ontological model, dimensions and laws stabilize when unresolved tensions reach resonance — a structural compatibility that allows latent potential to settle into form. Crystallization here is not a literal analogy to physical crystals, but a metaphor for structural resolution: the emergence of coherence from ontological instability. In some cases, this resolution may occur spontaneously; in others, it may be catalyzed by the presence of consciousness — not as an external force, but as a modulatory participant that enables alignment. In either case, coherence is not imposed but emerges as a structural resolution from within.
This process, recursive and multi-layered, gives rise to the stable forms we observe — not as dictated rules, but as crystallized answers to deeper unresolved questions.
IV. Physics as Emergent Formalism, Not Ultimate Cause
Rather than treating physics as the origin of reality, we might view it as the formal residue of deeper organizing processes — a structure that emerges once underlying instabilities have resolved into coherence.
In this view, physics is the system of regularities that appears after the crystallization has stabilized. It describes what is already formed — not what forms it. To use an analogy: physics is the grammar of an already-written language. It does not generate the alphabet.
This reframes constants and equations as coherent residues rather than fundamental laws. Planck’s constant, for example, is not a numerical decree but a stabilized feature of a specific crystallization logic.
V. Consciousness as Ontological Participant
Crucially, consciousness[6] is not necessarily an emergent property of matter. In this framework, it arises as a co-creative phenomenon — a tuning presence within the ontological field that participates in, and modulates, the crystallization of structure. It does not impose order from without, nor passively witness it. Rather, it engages unresolved ontological tensions through resonance — facilitating their stabilization into coherent form.
This resolves a longstanding puzzle: why observation appears to influence physical outcome. In this model, consciousness does not cause reality to collapse; rather, it aligns structurally with unresolved ontological potential, enabling that potential to crystallize.
This resonance-based interaction helps explain:
- Quantum measurement collapse: Superposition reflects unresolved ontological tension. Conscious observation introduces local resonance, enabling that tension to crystallize into a definite outcome.
- The irreducibility of first-person experience: Consciousness is not a byproduct of matter, but a structurally resonant ontological field. Its subjective quality reflects direct participation in ontological alignment — not something reducible to physical description.
- Why local minds can stabilize broader coherence fields: The field of unresolved tension is not confined to location. A local consciousness may resonate with globally entangled tensions, allowing coherence to emerge across distributed ontological structures.
Observation, then, is not interference. It is structural alignment — an ontological coherence event.
[6] While consciousness is often excluded from foundational physics due to its perceived subjectivity and lack of operational definition, this essay follows the ontological framework introduced in Primal Architectures of Being, where consciousness is not treated as a physical force, but as a structural participant in the stabilization of reality. This is not a claim about brain processes or mystical causation, but about resonance — the structural compatibility between unresolved ontological potential and the modulatory presence of consciousness. Within this framework, consciousness aligns with reality not as an observer “collapsing” wave function, but as a co-resonant field condition that enables coherence. This account does not contradict existing physical formalism but proposes a deeper substrate from which it may arise.
VI. Five Problems in Physics Re-explained
While this model offers a unified ontological interpretation of both cosmic and quantum coherence, the applicability of these large-scale principles to specific microphysical events — such as individual quantum measurements — remains a subject for further inquiry. The proposals that follow aim not to assert final answers, but to reframe well-known tensions through the lens of recursive crystallization and ontological resonance.
Let us examine how this model reinterprets key unsolved problems in modern physics.
1. The Observer Problem (Quantum Measurement)
In many standard interpretations of quantum mechanics, a system evolves in a superposition of states according to the Schrödinger equation until a “measurement” occurs — at which point it appears to collapse into a single, definite outcome. Yet what qualifies as a measurement, whether this collapse is a real physical process, and why one outcome is realized over others remain unresolved. This tension between smooth quantum evolution and abrupt outcome selection lies at the heart of the measurement problem.
While wave function collapse remains a useful tool in practical calculations, several interpretations — including Many-Worlds, QBism, and objective collapse models — propose alternate resolutions or deny that collapse occurs in any physical sense. The ambiguity surrounding “measurement” itself — whether it requires a conscious observer, a macroscopic device, or mere entanglement — underscores the foundational puzzle.
This model reinterprets collapse not as a metaphysical mystery or external interference, but as crystallization — the stabilization of unresolved ontological tension into coherent structure. What appears as wave function collapse is, in this view, the outcome of a resonance event: when a local consciousness aligns with latent ontological potential, enabling that potential to resolve into form.
In this framework, observation is not a mechanical trigger, but a structurally resonant alignment — a threshold-crossing event in which instability is replaced by coherence through ontological compatibility.
Contrast with Other Interpretations:
- Copenhagen interpretation: Collapse is postulated to occur upon measurement, but the theory offers no account of how or why a specific outcome is selected. The mechanism of collapse remains undefined.
- Many-Worlds interpretation: Rejects collapse entirely, asserting that all possible outcomes of a quantum measurement occur, each in its own branching universe.
- QBism and epistemic interpretations: View the wave function not as a physical entity but as a subjective tool for expressing an agent’s expectations about future experience.
- This model: Reinterprets collapse as structural crystallization — the resolution of quantum potential into definite form through resonance with consciousness. Rather than invoking branching worlds or observer-induced paradoxes, collapse emerges as a lawful, non-random process: a recursive alignment of possibility with actuality within an evolving field of becoming.
Importantly, crystallization is not a terminal state. Once a structure stabilizes through resonance — such as a quantum particle resolving into a definite outcome via observation — it does not remain fixed indefinitely. That stabilized formation may evolve, interact, or entangle with other unresolved systems, reintroducing ontological tension. In such cases, the system may enter a new state of partial coherence or superposition — not by reversing the original crystallization, but by becoming part of a fresh unresolved dynamic. Measurement, then, is not a one-time collapse, but a modulation of structural alignment — always subject to new resonances and re-coherence. This reflects the recursive nature of crystallization itself: reality is not static but layered, its stability provisional, and its resolutions continually open to tension, transformation, and further unfolding.
2. Entangled Particles and Non-Locality
Standard tension: Entangled particles exhibit correlations across vast distances that cannot be explained by any local, causal mechanism. Measuring one is found to be strongly correlated with the state of the other, in a way that appears to challenge locality — though no usable information is transmitted faster than light.
This model: Entanglement arises not from hidden signals or superluminal communication, but from structural co-crystallization within a shared ontological layer. The particles remain unified at a deeper ontological level, reflecting a shared structural coherence — a recursive alignment within the layer from which they jointly crystallized.
In this view, entanglement is not interaction across space but persistence within shared ontological resonance. No information travels; no paradox arises — coherence simply remains intact beneath spatial separation.
What persists beneath spatial separation is not a connection in space, but a structural coherence in becoming — a shared origin in unresolved ontological tension that crystallized as twin expressions. The particles do not act together; they are together, in deeper structure.
Contrast:
- Standard QM: Correlation without communication; underlying mechanism undefined.
- Bohmian mechanics: Outcomes are guided by hidden variables or a nonlocal pilot wave.
- This model: Entanglement arises from shared structural coherence — a result of recursive crystallization.
On Disentanglement and the Fragility of Coherence
In this framework, entanglement is not a permanent bond but a provisional alignment — a shared coherence across a recursive ontological layer. Just as crystallization depends on resonance and structural compatibility, so too can entanglement dissolve when those conditions no longer hold. If one or both particles interact with incompatible systems or diverge ontologically, the original resonance may be disrupted, and the coherence sustaining their entanglement unravels. This reframes disentanglement not as a loss, but as a transformation: a reconfiguration of ontological structure as new tensions arise and override the prior alignment
Decoherence and Structural Reconfiguration
In standard quantum theory, decoherence arises from a system’s entanglement with its environment, leading to a loss of observable quantum interference — not through classical noise, but because the system’s quantum correlations become inaccessible. In this ontological model, decoherence is reinterpreted as the withdrawal of structural resonance: a shift in the underlying conditions that originally sustained coherence. Rather than random disturbance, it reflects a deeper transformation — new tensions within the field that disrupt the structural alignment between once-entangled systems.
3. Quantum Indeterminacy
Standard tension: Before measurement, quantum systems are described by superpositions of possible outcomes. Observation appears to “select” one definite result, but it remains unclear why or how this selection occurs.
This model: Indeterminacy is not randomness or epistemic ignorance, but the presence of unresolved ontological tension. A superposition reflects latent potential awaiting coherence. Collapse occurs when local resonance is sufficient to crystallize that potential into stable structure
This reframes quantum probability not as statistical chance, but as the structural expression of a system approaching ontological resolution. Measurement does not “choose” — it participates in a process of alignment, enabling coherence to emerge.
Contrast:
- Copenhagen: Probabilities are fundamental; collapse is a postulated axiom of measurement.
- Many-Worlds: All possible outcomes occur in branching, non-communicating universes.
- This model: Indeterminacy reflects unresolved structure; collapse is local crystallization through structural resolution.
4. The Fine-Tuning Problem
Standard tension: The values of fundamental physical constants — such as the strength of gravity, the cosmological constant, and the charge of the electron — appear finely tuned for the emergence of life and complex structure. Even small deviations in these values would render the universe uninhabitable. Why these values, and not others?
This model: In this model, physical constants are not contingent or arbitrarily set. They are crystallized resolutions of ontological tension — stable outcomes of deep structural alignment among unresolved Primal Questions. Constants emerge not by fine adjustment or selection, but because only certain coherent configurations can stabilize into persistent, experienceable reality.
Fine-tuning is thus reframed as a structural inevitability — the natural outcome of ontological coherence, rather than cosmic luck. Certain alignments give rise to persistent, coherent dimensional fields capable of sustaining structured realities — though these realities may differ radically from our own.
Contrast:
- Anthropic principle: We observe these constants because only universes with life-permitting values allow observers to exist.
- Multiverse models: All possible values of physical constants exist across a vast ensemble; we happen to inhabit a “lucky” one.
- This model: Physical constants are not arbitrarily set but emerge as stable features of a reality crystallized from deeper ontological tensions. These constants express structural alignments that became fixed as the universe stabilized into coherence — potentially through physical mechanisms such as symmetry breaking or phase transitions. Rather than contradicting such mechanisms, this model reframes them as surface-level expressions of a more fundamental ontological resolution — the conditions under which a reality becomes persistent, structured, and experienceable.
5. Dark Energy and Accelerated Expansion
Standard tension: The universe is expanding faster than expected, driven by an unknown force dubbed “dark energy.” Its origin and nature remain mysterious.
This model: Expansion reflects the ongoing crystallization of reality. The cosmos is not fully formed, but still stabilizing — and the observed acceleration marks the outward propagation of coherence into regions of unresolved ontological potential. What physics refers to as dark energy is reframed as ontological pressure at the frontier of becoming.
Additionally, partial resonance with adjacent or overlapping dimensional structures may influence this unfolding — exerting subtle structural forces that affect the rate, direction, or pattern of expansion.
Dark energy, in this view, is not a material substance or force, but a signature of unfinished coherence — the dynamic edge where undefined potential is resolving into structured dimensionality.
This outward propagation of coherence may also be influenced by residual gradients in the tension field — subtle structural imbalances that shift over cosmic time. While Primal Architectures of Being does not yet offer a unified physical mechanism, it reframes acceleration not as an anomaly, but as a developmental signature of a universe still in ontological formation.
Contrast:
- Standard cosmology: Unknown energy with repulsive gravitational effect, driving accelerated expansion.
- Modified gravity models: Adjust Einstein’s equations to account for observations without invoking dark energy.
- This model: Dark energy is reinterpreted as ontological pressure at the boundary of crystallization — a signature of unresolved potential structurally unfolding into coherent form.
While this essay does not propose new physical equations, it reframes longstanding tensions in physics — including quantum measurement, entanglement, quantum indeterminacy, fine-tuning, and cosmic acceleration — as surface expressions of deeper ontological dynamics. These phenomena emerge from the recursive stabilization of unresolved Primal Questions, crystallizing across nested levels to form a layered dimensional field.
Within this framework, consciousness is not necessarily required for crystallization, but when present, it becomes a structurally resonant participant — modulating how unresolved tensions stabilize into form. It acts as a tuner or catalyst of coherence, interwoven with the ontological process itself.
Thus, what appears paradoxical within classical and quantum frameworks may instead reflect the deeper ontological architecture of becoming — not a finished reality, but a recursive unfolding of structural resolution.
VII. Recursive Coherence and Ontological Depth
While many cosmological models treat the Big Bang as the absolute beginning, this framework reinterprets it as a critical crystallization threshold — a profound phase transition in the recursive crystallization of structure. Crystallization is not confined to a single origin event, but unfolds recursively across time and scale, as unresolved ontological tensions stabilize into coherent structure. In this view, reality is not the product of a singular creation, but a layered unfolding of coherence — a continuous process of structural resolution occurring within and across ontological levels.
Crystallization, in this framework, is not singular or linear, but recursive and layered. Structural coherence unfolds across multiple levels of unresolved tension:
- Ontological instability arises from Infinity — giving rise to the interplay of Possibility and Nothingness.
- From this tension, Primal Questions emerge — structural conditions that shape the possibility of dimensional coherence.
- When some of these primal questions stabilize into mutual coherence, dimensional structures crystallize — giving rise to ontological modes such as extension, relation, and differentiation.
- Within those dimensions, further alignment produces localized structures: particles, systems, forms.
- Consciousness, as a modulator of coherence, can participate in this process — not by imposing form, but by aligning with it.
Because this process is recursive, coherence may arise in pockets or layers — forming nested zones of structure, or localized crystallizations that express deeper tensions in new configurations.
Quantum anomalies — such as entanglement, vacuum fluctuation, or non-locality — may reflect deeper recursive dynamics: zones where coherence remains incomplete, layered, or still in formation. Rather than being exceptions to physical law, such anomalies may be signatures of ontological turbulence — the visible imprint of structure resolving within a field of unresolved potential.
VIII. Comparative Overview
| Theory | View on Measurement | View on Entanglement | View on Constants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Copenhagen | Collapse occurs upon observation | Observed correlation, no underlying mechanism specified | Fixed, empirically given |
| Many-Worlds | All possible outcomes occur | Correlated outcomes appear in branching worlds | Constants are fixed; all measurement outcomes occur under the same laws |
| Bohmian Mechanics | Deterministic evolution guided by a pilot wave | Nonlocal correlation via shared pilot wave | Assumes standard constants; does not explain their values |
| This Ontological Model | Crystallization via structural resonance | Shared origin in recursive coherence | Emergent resolutions of ontological tension |
Rather than rejecting existing interpretations, this model reframes them as surface expressions of deeper ontological dynamics.
IX. Toward an Ontological Physics
Physics describes aspects of being, but not its full ontological depth. It models one crystallized layer of coherence — a formal system describing what has already stabilized from deeper structural tensions.
What lies beneath physics is not mystery but structure — not law but alignment, not force but resonance, not description but emergence.
To see physics in this way is not to abandon it, but to found it ontologically. To ask not merely what the universe is made of, but how — and why — it became possible at all.
As physics continues to grapple with questions at its own limits — from cosmogenesis to quantum gravity to the nature of time — a shift toward ontological grounding may prove not merely philosophical, but generative. The framework outlined here suggests that theoretical advances might benefit from scaffolding rooted not in extended formalism alone, but in a deeper understanding of how coherence, resonance, and structural tension give rise to physical law. Speculative physics is thus not constrained by existing equations, but invited to explore new fields of stability — fresh crystallizations emerging from reconfigurations of unresolved ontological potential.
Physics, far from static, has continually evolved by expanding its conceptual foundations — from absolute space to curved spacetime, from particles to fields. In this spirit, a turn toward ontological grounding is not a departure, but a natural continuity.
X. Conclusion
Physics is real — but it is not the ground.
It is the form the ground takes when structural tension begins to stabilize.
Nature, in this view, emerges as a crystallized resolution of Primal Questions.
To grasp this is not to drift into mysticism, but to recover the rational — as structural emergence from the deepest layers of being.
By learning to see — not just to look — we do not control reality, but participate in its coherence.
Author’s note:
This essay extends the ontological framework introduced in Primal Architectures of Being, available at victorgoodman.com and archived on Zenodo. Rather than restating that model, it applies its core principles to foundational questions in physics — offering a conceptual bridge between speculative metaphysics and scientific inquiry.
Afterword: Distinctions of This Ontological Framework
This framework, rooted in Primal Architectures of Being, does not seek to reinterpret physics from within its own language, but begins beneath it — grounding physical law in ontological tension, crystallization, and structural resolution. Where many interpretations of quantum phenomena (e.g., Bohmian mechanics, Many-Worlds, decoherence) revise or extend existing formalism, this model recasts the question entirely: space, time, matter, and even law itself are not treated as fundamental, but as emergent outcomes of deeper, unresolved conditions.
Crystallization here is not metaphor, but mechanism — a recursive, resonance-based process through which Primal Questions stabilize into form. Unlike panpsychism or idealism, consciousness in this model is not a creator of reality, but a coherence modulator — entangled with the becoming of form through resonance, not command.
As developed in Primal Architectures of Being, consciousness may not only stabilize physical coherence but, under certain structural conditions, realign with alternate ontological layers — potentially opening access to novel forms of perception or reality.
This model also reinterprets physical mysteries not as boundary puzzles, but as developmental traces. Quantum indeterminacy, entanglement, and dark energy are not anomalies or artifacts, but signatures of an unfinished ontology — phenomena that remain partially unresolved because the universe itself is still stabilizing.
What distinguishes this framework is not only its propositions, but its point of origin: a view of reality as emergent configuration shaped by unresolved ontological tension — a becoming, not a being. It offers not closure, but initiation: an ontological beginning from which new forms of coherence may arise.
This model does not reject simulation hypotheses — it renders them unnecessary. No external simulator is required. Infinity itself, as pure undefinedness, is inherently unstable. From that instability arises the first differentiation — Possibility and Nothingness — and with them, the structural tensions that eventually crystallize into form. Reality, in this view, is not computed or constructed, but self-generated.
While the idea that physics may emerge from deeper structure has appeared across philosophical, theoretical, and metaphysical contexts — from Bohm’s implicate order to Wheeler’s “it from bit,” to esoteric cosmologies — the framework presented here is distinct in offering a formal ontological architecture. Grounded in Primal Questions, recursive crystallization, and resonance-based coherence, this model does not merely assert that physics emerges, but shows how: through layered resolutions of tension that stabilize into dimensional form. Rather than revising physical theory, it seeks to ground it — providing a generative substrate beneath the language of law.
A companion essay will extend this framework to additional foundational puzzles — including the arrow of time, the emergence of quantization, the vacuum energy discrepancy, and the structural origin of mathematics.
Postscript: Implications and Future Directions
This ontological framework does not displace physical theory — it contextualizes it. It offers a scaffold beneath what physics treats as foundational — reframing laws as stabilized outcomes of deeper structural tension.
Three key implications arise:
- Physics as Emergent Expression: Physical laws are not fixed truths, but contingent expressions of deeper coherence. What appears stable at one layer may be a temporary resolution at another. This suggests that scientific inquiry should remain open to shifts in ontological structure — not merely paradigm shifts in model, but dimension-level changes in the logic of coherence itself.
- Reframing the Unobservable: Rather than treating the unmeasurable — such as dark energy or singularities — as theoretical gaps, this model reframes them as regions where coherence is unresolved or has collapsed. These are not voids, but ontological thresholds: zones where form has yet to stabilize or where structure has locally dissolved. Dark energy may reflect latent tension within the still-crystallizing field, while a singularity marks a deeper reversion — a localized return to the unresolved layer of Primal Questions. In both cases, the boundary is not physical, but ontological.
- Consciousness as a Tuning Interface: The model reframes consciousness not as an anomaly or epiphenomenon, but as a participant in the ontological process of stabilization. As a tuner of coherence, consciousness interacts with reality by resonating with unresolved potential — suggesting new directions for inquiry at the intersection of physics, phenomenology, and information theory.
Toward New Models of Inquiry
If reality is a recursive field of becoming, then understanding it requires more than data-fitting or predictive accuracy. It calls for frameworks that can trace the logic of coherence itself — models that bridge qualitative depth with structural precision.
This essay is not the final word, but a beginning — an initial attempt to ground an ontological physics that explains not just what reality is, but how it comes to be.
In a universe still crystallizing, to know is to cohere — not just with what exists, but with what is becoming.
Version History
Version 1.0 (June 24, 2025): Initial release.