Foundations

The living foundations document. v0.3 dissolved a conceptual conflation (Computation vs Protocol; the four-tier hierarchy is dropped). v0.4 gives Protocols a genealogy and breaks the alikeness circularity. v0.13 retires “Computation of the mark” in favour of Propagation — the mark is set by A and carried, never computed. v0.14 introduces the Source — the one agent at the A-pole of every Mass-interaction — and Form-categorization by Protocol-profile. Earlier versions are preserved in git history; changelogs live in 02_REORGANIZATION.md and 03_PROTOCOL_GENEALOGY.md in the project repo.

0. Thesis

Everything that exists is made of one substance — interaction — and can be explained by one phenomenon: the interaction script.

Reality is not made of things that occasionally interact. It is made of interactions, and "things" (agents, Forms, objects, selves) are derivative — they are stable patterns within the interaction substrate.

This is a single-primitive ontology. The remainder of the theory is the structural unfolding of what an interaction is and what follows from taking it as the only real thing.

1. The Interaction (the atom of reality)

An interaction is an atomic structure consisting of six items:

1. Pole A — the mark-leaver.
2. Pole B — the aware one.
3. Local space — intrinsic to this interaction. Not borrowed from any backdrop.
4. Local time — intrinsic to this interaction. Zero-duration from outside, full internal duration from inside.
5. Mark — a bit set by A and delivered to B. Moved, never copied.
6. Propagation — the internal process by which the mark is carried from A, through the substrate, to B (called Computation before v0.13). (See §3.)

The script

Inside every interaction, the same script runs:

Agent A leaves a Mark upon the local space; after some local time, Agent B becomes aware of the Mark.

Until B becomes aware, the interaction does not exist. There is no mark in limbo, no half-event waiting to be completed. The whole 6-tuple — A, B, local space, local time, mark, Propagation — comes into being only at the moment of awareness.

Awareness, not detection

The receiving pole's act is called awareness, not detection. "Detection" would imply that B interacts with the mark, which would launch an infinite regress (every detection would itself be an interaction needing its own detection). Awareness is primitive and non-interactional. It is constitutive of the interaction, not antecedent to it.

Awareness is transformative (v0.14). To become aware of a mark is to be changed by it — B is not a passive receiver; the interaction alters the aware agent. This is why a Form is ever-changing: every interaction it becomes aware of changes it, and that ceaseless being-changed is its self-maintenance. "Human senses the sun" is a local elementary interaction (an atom in the eye meets the photon) whose effect propagates up and changes the agent at each level until the change reaches the human's awareness.

Time is encapsulated

There is no external time. From the outside (if such a view existed), every interaction is a zero-duration atomic event. Time exists only inside an interaction, as the duration between A's mark-leaving and B's awareness — and only relative to that interaction's interior.

Two poles, exactly

Every interaction has exactly two poles. Axiomatic — and, as of v0.14, defended: every proposed n-agent counterexample (broadcasts, three-body collisions, contact vertices, field nonlinearity, tripartite entanglement) factors into dyadic interactions by one of two native mechanisms — timing-coincidence of separate dyadic interactions, or dyadic interaction with a Form that several agents constitute — conducted via the Form's substrate agents, each already changed by the parent Form's Action (the Dyadic Factorization Principle). A full derivation is a named target.

2. Agents

Agents do not exist as a separate primitive. They are derivative.

• Retrospectively, an agent is a bundle / sum of pole-positions across many interactions.
• Prospectively, an agent is a potential for further interactions.
• Intrinsically, the two-pole structure is a feature of each interaction, not a sign of two free-standing things existing prior to it.

Agent identity (across interactions)

Two pole-positions belong to the same agent iff there is one awareness that ties them together. Identity is structural — given by shared awareness threading through multiple interactions.

Two interactions belong to the same agent iff that agent is aware of both of them.

Self-action

An agent (Form) maintains itself through Action (§8). At level n, that self-maintenance is realized as a coordinated pattern of inter-component interactions at level n−1. The cell maintains itself because its organelles inter-act; organelles because their molecules do; molecules because their atoms do; atoms because their constituent Mass-interactions do.

3. Propagation

A Propagation is the internal process of an interaction. The HOW. (Revised in v0.13 — formerly "Computation"; retired because the mark is not computed.)

• The mark is a bit set by the agent at pole A. The interaction does not compute it; it carries it: down through A's sub-agents to the most fundamental agents (Mass), across the floor — where the only elementary interactions happen — and up through B's sub-agents to the aware pole. Down, across, up: that path is the interior of the interaction.
• The mark-stack. A sub-interaction carries all its parent interactions' marks along with its own — a simple FILO stack: pushed on the way down, popped (fit to each shell's aware pole) on the way up. The interaction's own mark is set first, so it is delivered last, to the top awareness, when the delivery completes — and the completed delivery is the interaction's existence. The stack is always empty at that moment, so the actual world never contains one: it is structure of the in-flight potential only.
• The mark says only: "agent B — I, agent A, exist." It is proof of a tremendous amount of interaction, yet just a simple bit. Complexity arises not from any mark's content but from time-and-space variance — the pattern of when and where many existence-bits land. A Protocol is a regularity of that variance.
• Moved, never copied. The bit B becomes aware of is the bit A set, carried through the substrate, occupying one place at a time, leaving no copies.
• Carrying is not awareness. Sub-agents carry ancestral marks as opaque cargo; only the aware pole a layer is addressed to can read it. (This sharpens the epistemic horizon — it is the marks you carry that are not addressed to you.)
• A Propagation is internal to an interaction. It has no existence outside one. There is no free-floating Propagation, and it is not a Form, not a Protocol, not a tier.

Examples

• The internal physical process by which two protons exchange charge: the Propagation of a proton–proton interaction.
• The chain neuron→vocal cord→air→ear→neuron when one human speaks to another: the Propagation of a human-to-human interaction — the speaker's bit carried down to molecular collisions in the air and back up to the listener's awareness.
• The whole of cosmic history: the Propagation of the One Interaction (§5).

Physics, redefined

Physics is the science of Propagations. Each discipline reverse-engineers the propagation path of some class of interactions: electromagnetism the proton–proton path; neuroscience the neuron-chain path; cosmology the path of the One Interaction.

4. Mass

Mass is the atomic, leaf-level interaction. It is the origin of all interactions in the sense that every chain of nesting terminates downward in a Mass-interaction. All higher interactions are structured compositions of Mass.

• Mass-interactions have no sub-interactions (no Propagation below them — at the floor, the mark moves directly, Mass to Mass).
• A Mass-interaction lacks a local agent A — a leaf has nothing below it to constitute a mark-leaver. Its A-slot is filled globally: the Source is the agent A of every Mass-interaction (v0.14). One Source ⇒ the floor is one connected family, by shared agency — one world.
• The completion barrier (v0.14): a composite interaction's mark propagates only once all the sub-interactions of its Propagation have finished, and the ordering of those finished sub-marks is the composite's internal time. So existence is the last completion in a nested chain — each level finishing exactly when its parts finish.
• Their mark is primitive — a non-decomposable unit of information. The simplest fact of distinction: that which separates what is in existence from what is not.
• Mass is the substance out of which all higher structure is built.

This deliberately resonates with the physical concept of mass: that which has substance, weight, irreducible presence.

5. The One Interaction (the universe)

The universe is one interaction. It is the root of the tree of interactions.

• The Big Bang is the moment of A's mark-leaving — and (v0.14) this A is the Source: the same agent that sets every Mass-bit at the floor. Root and leaves share their mark-leaver.
• The end of the universe (whenever and however it happens) is B's becoming-aware.
• All of cosmic history is the internal time and Propagation of this single interaction.
• All space, time, and mass we observe were "introduced at the Big Bang" — they came into being as the interior of the One Interaction.

From outside (a view we do not have), the universe is a zero-duration event. From inside (the only view we have), it is everything we can observe.

This makes a serious metaphysical commitment: the mark of the One Interaction is forever hidden from us. We are inside the Propagation — indeed we carry its mark in every stack we propagate, unread, since carrying is not awareness. We cannot see the mark or the awareness that will receive it.

6. The structure: a rooted tree of interactions

The set of all interactions forms a rooted tree:

• Each interaction has exactly one parent — the interaction whose Propagation it is part of.
• An interaction's local spacetime is nested inside its parent's local spacetime.
• The root is the One Interaction.
• The leaves are Mass-interactions.

This tree is the Propagation dimension of the theory: it captures interactions-inside-interactions all the way from the One Interaction down to atomic Mass — the axis along which marks are pushed down and popped up.

There is no shared, universal spacetime. The reason our physics has a spacetime to work with is that everything we can observe is nested inside one common ancestor — the One Interaction — and we live in its interior. Two interactions have a spatial or temporal relation to each other only via a common ancestor's interior.

Sensed time is composite

We are sub-Forms of many parent interactions at once (human-level, cellular, molecular, atomic, ultimately the One). Each parent has its own local time. Our sensed time is a synthesis of all of them. This explains multiscale time-feel, subjective time dilation, and why time can feel continuous despite no universal time existing.

The full account of how time and space arise from this nesting — time as succession, space as coexistence, mass as ongoing interaction, and the apparent bridge to special relativity — is developed in Space, Time, and Mass.

7. Form, Crystallization, and the cross-level asymmetry

A Form is a constituted agent.

Form-constitution rule. Form_N is the agent that emerges when many alike Form_{N−1} interact according to a Protocol_N.

This is recursive. At the bottom (N = 1), the constituents are atomic Mass-interactions (which aren't themselves Forms but atomic interactions). At every level above, the constitution is the same: alike sub-Forms binding into a higher Form by following a Protocol specific to that level.

• A cell is constituted by molecules and organelles interacting via biochemical Protocols.
• A human is constituted by cells interacting via cellular signaling Protocols.
• A society is constituted by humans interacting via social Protocols.

A Form is not a manifestation of a Propagation. Propagations live inside individual interactions. A Form is something different: a pattern across many interactions, held together by a Protocol.

A Form is ever-changing, not fixed (v0.14). It is categorized — not strictly identified — by its Protocol-profile: the set of Protocols it is manifesting. Growth, shrinkage, and total substrate turnover leave it "the same Form" exactly insofar as the profile persists — equivalently, a Form is categorized by the variance-regularities it manifests.

Solidification and Crystallization

• Solidification — when a Form's autopoietic loop becomes self-reinforcing enough to resist the dissolution-tendency of the substrate. The Form becomes a stable attractor.
• Crystallization — the process by which the structurally-isomorphic lower-level interaction patterns of alike Forms stabilize into a regular medium, and by which the higher-order regularities (the Protocol) emerge over that medium. Two coupled aspects: substrate stabilization (the shared lower-level patterns become reliable as a medium for inter-Form interaction) and emergence of higher-order structure (Protocol-level regularities arise that are not in the substrate alone). Forms participating in the arrangement, by virtue of following the Protocol, constitute a higher-level Form.

The genealogy of a Protocol

A Protocol between alike Forms is established via the lower-complexity interactions those Forms share.

Two Forms each interact with various lower-complexity forms. When their lower-level interaction patterns are structurally isomorphic, the shared interactions can serve as a medium for the higher Forms to interact through. Crystallization stabilizes that medium and lets a higher-order regularity emerge over it. The stabilized higher-order regularity is the Protocol.

The Protocol is not identical to the shared lower-level pattern. It is emergent over its substrate: it uses the substrate as medium but carries structure of its own. Two humans speak through air molecules — both have ears that sense tiny air-molecule flows and vocal cords that generate them — but the language Protocol (grammar, semantics, pragmatics) is not in the air-molecule physics. Substrate is necessary, not sufficient.

The recursion bottoms out at Mass. Protocols above level 1 are genealogically built from below; Protocol_1 — the bare coupling between alike Mass-interactions — is primitive. It is the only Protocol the theory cannot derive.

Alikeness

Two Forms are alike iff their interactions with lower-complexity forms are structurally isomorphic.

Same kind of structure performing the same kind of role — not literally the same instance, not merely overlapping. Two humans are alike not because they share specific ear-cells, but because their ears are isomorphic Forms doing isomorphic work, their vocal cords are isomorphic Forms doing isomorphic work, and so on recursively down through their constituent Forms.

This definition is non-circular: alikeness at level N is grounded in structural isomorphism at level N−1. At level 1, alikeness — what makes two Mass-interactions alike — is primitive. The earlier statement (that two alike Forms can serve as poles in the same Protocol) still holds; it is now a consequence rather than the definition.

Cross-level interaction asymmetry

The picture is not sterile or symmetric. Three different relations hold across complexity levels:

Consequence: interactions with lower-complexity Forms are vastly more numerous than same-level interactions. A human conducts trillions of cell-level and molecule-level interactions per second; far fewer human-to-human interactions per day.

The asymmetry is two-axis: direction (down → interaction; up → constitution) and frequency (down ≫ same-level).

8. Action

Action is the way a Form maintains its own existence.

This is not a manifestation, an output, or a side-effect. Action is autopoiesis enacted. Without Action, the Form does not persist — it dissolves back into the interaction substrate.

Action is not evidence of the Form's existence. Action is the Form's existence.

Action as filter on interaction-potential

Actions are a filter over the interaction-potential.

The substrate (the "abyss of randomness") is the space of potential interactions. Without filtering, this potential diffuses toward maximum disorder. A Form's actions filter this potential — biasing which interactions occur, privileging the patterns that constitute the Form, in ways that reproduce the Form's existence.

The autopoietic loop

The Form's persistence is a closed loop:

A Form persists iff this loop closes on itself — its actions filter the potential in just the way needed to produce the very interactions whose Protocol-following constitutes the Form.

This is autopoiesis generalized to all of reality.

Three primary concepts, two structural relations

The earlier four-tier hierarchy Interaction → Protocol → Form → Action was wrong: it conflated the inside of an interaction (the Propagation, then called Computation) with the constitution of a Form (Protocol). v0.3 replaces it with:

• Three primary concepts: Interaction (substance), Form (constituted agent), Action (the agent's self-maintenance).
• Two structural relations: Propagation (internal to every interaction), Protocol (between alike Forms).

There is no single ladder. Propagations are inside Interactions; Protocols are between Forms; Action is the Form's autopoietic activity. Different kinds of structure, not steps on a chain.

9. The two opposing tendencies

Every Form lives in the balance between two real tendencies built into the substrate:

1. Decay — disorder, data loss, dissolution. The default. Marks degrade, patterns dissipate, Forms collapse if not actively sustained.
2. Emergence — patterns spontaneously crystallize from large numbers of chaotic interactions. Order rises by itself when interaction-density is high enough.

A Form is a local stable balance between these two: its autopoietic loop generates new structure (emergence) faster than dissolution erodes it (decay).

A first-pass dynamic equation:

Forms exist at stable fixed points where E = D. Solidification = entering such a basin. Crystallization = many alike fixed points coupling and producing a higher-level fixed point. Death/dissolution = trajectory escaping the basin.

Formalizing this balance is the central mathematical task of the theory.

10. Existence criteria

The theory has two complementary criteria of existence, at two levels:

Descartes had cogito ergo sum. The Interaction Theory's parallel is ago ergo sum — I act, therefore I am. v0.3 sharpens this further: Action is not evidence of existence; Action is the existence. Stop acting, and the Form dissolves back into the abyss of potential.

11. Open questions / next directions

The skeleton above is conceptually complete enough to begin formalizing. The live mathematical/conceptual questions:

1. The primitive mark alphabet M₀. What does a Mass-interaction's mark consist of? One bit? A two-valued tag? A complex unit vector? An element of some algebra? The choice determines whether the theory is classical-informational, quantum-like, or continuous.
2. The aggregation rule φ — dissolved in v0.13. There is no aggregation of children's marks; the mark is set by A and propagated. The question that inherits this slot: the path-weighting rule — on the actual stratum the mark's trajectory is a single carried chain; on the potential stratum many candidate floor-paths coexist. What weights the candidates? (If complex amplitudes summed over paths, the theory is quantum-flavored — this is where superposition, the one irreducible posit, lives.)
3. The geometry of nested local spacetimes. Region, point, interval? Constraints on packing? Determines whether the theory reproduces Lorentzian-like causal structure.
4. Why exactly two poles? Currently axiomatic. A derivation would be stronger than a stipulation.
5. The top of the tree. What supplies the One Interaction's spacetime? Self-supplied? Parent-less by exception?
6. Formalizing the decay/emergence balance. Master equation? Stochastic process? Field theory on the tree?
7. The interaction-potential as a mathematical object. Distribution, measure, possibility-space?
8. The Protocol as a mathematical object. v0.4 narrows this: a Protocol_N is a constraint or grammar over the space of lower-level interaction patterns that two alike Form_{N−1} can engage in with their shared substrate. The type-of-object is now clear; the specific algebraic structure (formal grammar, constraint surface, category-theoretic structure, probabilistic regularity?) is still open. (New in v0.3, narrowed in v0.4.)
9. The "alikeness" relation, formally. v0.4 conceptually resolves: alikeness = structural isomorphism of lower-level interaction patterns. Remaining work: choosing the right notion of structural isomorphism (category-theoretic, graph-theoretic, dynamical?). (Sharpened in v0.3, conceptually resolved in v0.4.)
10. The primitive Protocol_1. The bottom of the recursion. The bare coupling between alike Mass-interactions cannot be genealogically derived; it must be specified directly. What kind of object is it? How many distinct primitive Protocols_1 are there? Currently unspecified. (New in v0.4.)
11. Cross-references with established frameworks — Whitehead's actual occasions, Rovelli's relational QM, Sorkin's causal sets, Wheeler's "it from bit," Maturana–Varela's autopoiesis, Prigogine's dissipative structures, Peirce's semiotics.

Foundations document — current v0.4. Continues in Epistemic Asymmetry. Changelogs in 02_REORGANIZATION.md (v0.3) and 03_PROTOCOL_GENEALOGY.md (v0.4), both in the project repo.