Jonathon Sendall

Extended systems are often treated as unified whenever internal causal interactions are sufficiently dense and recurrent over a characteristic timescale (Tononi, 2004; Baars, 1988; Friston, 2010). In relativistic spacetimes with one-way causal boundaries (such as black-hole event horizons, cosmolog- ical horizons, and Rindler wedges) and strong curvature, this background assumption can fail: closed causal loops that sustain macroscopic informational unity predicates can be obstructed without any local disruption of microphysical evolution (Hawking and Ellis, 1973; Wald, 1984). This paper intro- duces the Reciprocal Coherence Kernel KT (t), defined as the inclusion-minimal, strongly connected operational subgraph that sustains a unified perspective according to a theory-relative functional predicate FT . Kernel persistence is analysed using a relativistically explicit condition: the effective causal diameter Λ(KT (t)) must remain less than or equal to a theory–and–model-specific coherence window τT,m, measured in proper time. When Λ(KT (t)) > τT,m, or when a strict one-way boundary intersects the kernel, unity (as defined by the theory’s own predicate) fails by coherence timeout, an operationally distinct failure mode from mechanical destruction. A theory-relative taxonomy of geometry-sensitive versus geometry-robust unity predicates is developed. The framework is applied to horizon-straddling implementations, distributed systems, and selected fault-tolerant architectures (Nielsen and Chuang, 2010). The project is explicitly non-causal. It offers a compatibility analysis over theory-indexed model families, not a causal explanation of consciousness. The contribution lies in philosophy of science: diagnosing hidden structural commitments in integration-based theories and exposing geometric constraints on extended subjects in relativistic spacetimes (Woodward, 2003; Ladyman and Ross, 2007)

This paper develops a process-based account of scientific explanation that reconceives grounding in terms of stabilisation. Grounding theories capture hierarchical dependence but lack criteria for when explanations remain adequate under model updates, perturbations, and theory change. Stabilisation is formally defined by a schema \(C \to P(I)\), where explanatory relations are sufficient when they preserve specified relational invariants under admissible transformations. This replaces the search for ultimate foundations with operational adequacy tests indexed to measurable invariance, resolving infinite regress worries while preserving a modest scientific realism. Applications show unifying power: theory change becomes an empirical question about structural continuity; quantum measurement becomes apparatus-dependent pattern selection; the effectiveness of mathematics reflects convergence on transformation-invariant descriptions; and emergence versus reduction reduces to stability of cross-level mappings. The black hole event horizon illustrates how ontologically identical states can diverge in admissible evolution, revealing process as explanatorily fundamental. Companion work develops apparatus-dependent adequacy protocols, including pointer-basis rotation and coupling-spectra methods, turning the framework into a falsifiable research programme across quantum, thermodynamic, and relativistic domains.

This paper argues that several canonical puzzles in quantum mechanics, including spin measurement, the double slit, entanglement correlations, and Wigner’s friend, share a common origin in a semantic error: the illicit promotion of interaction-conditional outcomes to intrinsic properties. I introduce four principles that license only configuration-relative predication, grounding outcomes in physical mea- surement geometry while preserving objectivity. Applying these principles uniformly dissolves each puzzle without new physics or ad hoc interpretive machinery. Bell’s theorem and the Kochen-Specker theorem are reframed not as dynamical mysteries but as constraints on permissible explanatory structure, evidence that intrinsic-outcome semantics is incompatible with empirical reality. The result is a relational objectivity that avoids both naive property realism and observer-subjectivism

This paper develops a conditional framework for understanding the emergence of measurable physical structure from a pre-metric domain. Contemporary physics provides powerful and precise descriptions of relations among already-defined observables, yet offers comparatively little on the prior question of how observability, separability, and metric structure themselves arise. I propose that if three-dimensional spacetime is the result of an asymmetric projection from a non-orientable pre-geometric regime grounded in a minimal invariant, then a determinate and internally constrained set of consequences follows. These include: time reinterpreted as projection asymmetry rather than as a dimension or entropy gradient; matter as stabilised residue of projection rather than ontological primitive; quantum correlation as pre-separable unity dissolved by non-orientable topology; black holes as regimes of projection saturation rather than information sinks; dark matter as structured lag in the projection process rather than undetected particle species; and gravity as metric tension at sites of high projection density. The framework does not claim empirical confirmation. Its claim is that the proposal is internally coherent, structurally constrained, capable of generating non-trivial research directions, and that several phenomena currently treated as anomalous or paradoxical become expected consequences of the architecture rather than problems requiring additional postulates. An annex presents candidate formal objects and identifies research obligations for each consequence.