Modern physics has achieved remarkable success by describing reality in terms of particles, states, and information bits. Yet recent developments in quantum matter, unconventional superconductivity, and topological computation increasingly suggest that a purely particle-centric framework may not be the most natural organizing description, but rather a convenient approximation. This work proposes an ontological reframing—from It from Bit to It from Wave—in which physical reality is understood as persistent, collective wave processes characterized by phase continuity, nonlocal coherence, and history-bearing relations. Within this framework, quasiparticles—including magnons, phonons, plasmons, and anyons—are reinterpreted not as entities, but as stable collective excitation modes: enduring patterns of interacting waves sustained by a medium. Building on this shift, localization is reinterpreted as the breakdown of wave connectivity, while delocalization corresponds to the restoration of global phase coherence. Superconductivity is reformulated not as a special property of paired particles, but as a phase-continuous, delocalized regime in which dissipation is not eliminated but reorganized into collective phase dynamics—naturally suggesting disorder-tolerant and non-BCS-like superconducting behavior. Extending the same ontology to computation, we argue that quantum computation is fundamentally history-based rather than state-based. Information is encoded not primarily in localized bits or qubits, but in the topological and phase-coherent histories of wave evolution, where robustness arises from nonlocal distribution rather than active error suppression. Crucially, this framework motivates previously under-emphasized physical observables—such as phase continuity length, history coherence time, degree of nonlocality, and dissipation-reorganized coherence—as primary descriptors of relational persistence. Rather than introducing new equations, this work reorganizes interpretation across domains and specifies concrete experimental and theoretical directions by asking which wave relations persist, under what constraints, and for how long. This paper constitutes the ontological foundation of the “It from Wave” research program. A complementary interpretive study examines the historical and conceptual shift from particle transport to phase propagation in electrical conduction, while a minimal physical model demonstrates how information and conduction can arise from phase-coupled dynamics without particle motion. Together, these works articulate a unified framework in which phase relations, history, and nonlocal coherence are treated as physically primary. This paper forms part of a conceptual trilogy exploring the transition from a Machine OS to a Life OS through an It from Wave perspective. The trilogy consists of:(i) a foundational conceptual work reframing information, existence, and generation beyond the It from Bit paradigm;(ii) a minimal theoretical study addressing nonlinear generative time, resonance, and feedback dynamics; and(iii) an applied interpretation engaging recent cosmological observations, including extreme intracluster heating in the early universe. While each paper is self-contained, together they articulate a unified framework in which reality is understood as a resonant, generative process rather than a sequential, machine-like assembly.
Modern physics has achieved remarkable success by describing reality in terms of particles, states, and information bits. Yet recent developments in quantum matter, unconventional superconductivity, and topological computation increasingly suggest that a purely particle-centric framework may not be the most natural organizing description, but rather a convenient approximation. This work proposes an ontological reframing—from It from Bit to It from Wave—in which physical reality is understood as persistent, collective wave processes characterized by phase continuity, nonlocal coherence, and history-bearing relations. Within this framework, quasiparticles—including magnons, phonons, plasmons, and anyons—are reinterpreted not as entities, but as stable collective excitation modes: enduring patterns of interacting waves sustained by a medium. Building on this shift, localization is reinterpreted as the breakdown of wave connectivity, while delocalization corresponds to the restoration of global phase coherence. Superconductivity is reformulated not as a special property of paired particles, but as a phase-continuous, delocalized regime in which dissipation is not eliminated but reorganized into collective phase dynamics—naturally suggesting disorder-tolerant and non-BCS-like superconducting behavior. Extending the same ontology to computation, we argue that quantum computation is fundamentally history-based rather than state-based. Information is encoded not primarily in localized bits or qubits, but in the topological and phase-coherent histories of wave evolution, where robustness arises from nonlocal distribution rather than active error suppression. Crucially, this framework motivates previously under-emphasized physical observables—such as phase continuity length, history coherence time, degree of nonlocality, and dissipation-reorganized coherence—as primary descriptors of relational persistence. Rather than introducing new equations, this work reorganizes interpretation across domains and specifies concrete experimental and theoretical directions by asking which wave relations persist, under what constraints, and for how long. This paper constitutes the ontological foundation of the “It from Wave” research program. A complementary interpretive study examines the historical and conceptual shift from particle transport to phase propagation in electrical conduction, while a minimal physical model demonstrates how information and conduction can arise from phase-coupled dynamics without particle motion. Together, these works articulate a unified framework in which phase relations, history, and nonlocal coherence are treated as physically primary. This paper forms part of a conceptual trilogy exploring the transition from a Machine OS to a Life OS through an It from Wave perspective. The trilogy consists of:(i) a foundational conceptual work reframing information, existence, and generation beyond the It from Bit paradigm;(ii) a minimal theoretical study addressing nonlinear generative time, resonance, and feedback dynamics; and(iii) an applied interpretation engaging recent cosmological observations, including extreme intracluster heating in the early universe. While each paper is self-contained, together they articulate a unified framework in which reality is understood as a resonant, generative process rather than a sequential, machine-like assembly.
Modern physics and information theory are grounded in a shared ontological assumption: that information is encoded in discrete states of localized entities. From classical bits to quantum qubits, physical reality has been modeled as a collection of state-bearing units whose configurations define information and meaning. In this paper, a fundamentally different premise is proposed: information is not a property of states, but a property of phase differences arising through interaction. Building on this premise, a minimal dynamical framework is introduced in which information, conduction, and coordination are unified as manifestations of phase propagation in relational networks. Using a simple phase-coupled model, we show that dissipationless propagation can occur without particle transport, and that thermal noise may function as a resource for global phase coherence rather than an obstacle. A macroscopic illustration—the stadium wave—is employed to demonstrate how coherent propagation emerges from local phase transitions under noisy conditions. This model reframes electrical conduction as phase-gradient propagation, generalizes the concept of superconductivity beyond low-temperature regimes, and provides a unifying physical language applicable across condensed matter, biological coordination, and collective social dynamics. The paper is conceptual and does not claim a microscopic mechanism for room-temperature superconductivity. This paper provides a minimal physical instantiation within the broader “It from Wave” research program. Its conceptual foundations are developed in a companion ontological work, while an interpretive study situates phase propagation within the scientific history of electrical conduction and superconductivity. Together, these works form a coherent framework in which phase relations, rather than localized particles or states, underlie physical transport and information. This paper forms part of a conceptual trilogy exploring the transition from a Machine OS to a Life OS through an It from Wave perspective. The trilogy consists of:(i) a foundational conceptual work reframing information, existence, and generation beyond the It from Bit paradigm;(ii) a minimal theoretical study addressing nonlinear generative time, resonance, and feedback dynamics; and(iii) an applied interpretation engaging recent cosmological observations, including extreme intracluster heating in the early universe. While each paper is self-contained, together they articulate a unified framework in which reality is understood as a resonant, generative process rather than a sequential, machine-like assembly.
This work confronts the enduring interpretive challenge of wave-particle duality by proposing a unified conceptual framework that reinterprets physical waves as self-similar fractal information processes and particles as stable, localized excitation patterns of an underlying field. Our framework provides an operational synthesis between Wheeler's "it from bit" and Bohm's implicate order, effecting an ontological shift to an information-theoretic process ontology. In the optical regime, light propagation is reconceptualized as coherent information reconstruction mediated by the polarization field, dissolving the paradox of photon identity. Prism dispersion is reinterpreted as spatial unfolding of frequency-domain fractal structures. In the quantum domain, the double-slit interference pattern is connected to the fractal geometry of Wiener paths, providing an intuitive geometric basis for probability amplitude superposition. The framework resolves wave-particle duality by recognizing both aspects as complementary manifestations of a deeper information-reconstructive substrate.
This work confronts the enduring interpretive challenge of wave-particle duality by proposing a unified conceptual framework that reinterprets physical waves as self-similar fractal information processes and particles as stable, localized excitation patterns of an underlying field. Our framework provides an operational synthesis between Wheeler's "it from bit" and Bohm's implicate order, effecting an ontological shift to an information-theoretic process ontology. In the optical regime, light propagation is reconceptualized as coherent information reconstruction mediated by the polarization field, dissolving the paradox of photon identity. Prism dispersion is reinterpreted as spatial unfolding of frequency-domain fractal structures. In the quantum domain, the double-slit interference pattern is connected to the fractal geometry of Wiener paths, providing an intuitive geometric basis for probability amplitude superposition. The framework resolves wave-particle duality by recognizing both aspects as complementary manifestations of a deeper information-reconstructive substrate.
Phase Without Ontology is Part I of the Phase Ontology series (Parts I–VII). It argues that modern physics relies on phase everywhere—interference, the quantum wave function, gauge theory, the Aharonov–Bohm effect, superconductivity, and macroscopic coherence—yet typically treats phase as merely mathematical rather than ontologically primary. This “ontological restraint,” the paper claims, is not a neutral habit: it helps sustain persistent conceptual fragmentation around measurement, time, and the status of spacetime. Rather than proposing new equations or dynamics, the paper proposes an ontological re-ordering of already-successful formalism: phase coherence is treated as the fundamental organizing layer, with matter as stable phase-locked configurations, time as countable phase evolution, and spacetime as an emergent relational projection of stable phase relations. The framework is explicitly not an ether theory: it introduces no spatial medium, no preferred rest frame, and no “wind” effects—only relational coherence. The conclusion motivates the remainder of the series, which develops implications for emergent spacetime (Part II), measurement (Part III), entanglement (Part IV), time and entropy (Part V), mass and gravity (Part VI), and experimental falsifiability (Part VII).
This work presents a unified, realistic, and mechanically grounded interpretation of fundamental physics across all scales, from quarks and elementary particles to atoms, macroscopic bodies, planetary motion, and black holes. The proposed framework provides a single coherent physical description capable of reproducing and explaining, within a common dynamical structure, the full range of phenomena traditionally treated separately by general relativity, quantum mechanics, and quantum electrodynamics. Within this approach, long-standing conceptual problems such as wave–particle duality, quantum interference, entanglement, and wavefunction collapse are not postulated as fundamental features of nature, but emerge naturally as dynamical properties of a physically real medium. The apparent dual behavior of matter and radiation, as well as nonlocal quantum correlations, arise from coherent and topologically constrained excitations of this medium, without invoking probabilistic ontologies or nonphysical abstractions. The theory is based on a revised physical concept of space, treated as a real superfluid medium endowed with density, elasticity, viscosity, permittivity, permeability, and a very small but non-zero electrical conductivity. In this model, space is no longer a passive geometric background, but an active physical system capable of storing, transmitting, and dissipating energy.Mass is interpreted as an isotropic compression of the superfluid, electric charge as an oriented torsional configuration, and fields as elastic stress and vorticity distributions of the medium itself. Electromagnetic and gravitational waves are described as propagating perturbations of the superfluid, while particles correspond to stable solitonic configurations sustained by the medium dynamics.At the microscopic level, starting from classical fluid equations (continuity and Euler equations) and applying the Madelung transformation, the Schrödinger equation is shown to emerge as a compact complex representation of the underlying real fluid dynamics, rather than as a fundamental postulate. Quantum phenomena such as quantization, tunneling, spin, and exclusion principles follow from stability, coherence, and topological constraints of solitonic wave structures. On cosmological scales, the same framework provides a unified interpretation of redshift, large-scale expansion phenomena, and the cosmic microwave background as cumulative dynamical and dissipative effects of wave propagation within the superfluid medium, rather than as consequences of metric expansion alone. Effects commonly attributed to dark matter and dark energy are reinterpreted as emergent manifestations of spatial density gradients, elastic stresses, and dissipative properties of the superfluid, without introducing additional unknown components. A wide range of experimentally verified phenomena—including the photoelectric effect, Compton scattering, Zeeman–Stark effects, the Aharonov–Bohm effect, Casimir effect, Unruh radiation, and cosmological attenuation effects—are consistently described within this unified framework. The proposed model offers an alternative foundational paradigm for physics, in which space, matter, and interactions emerge from a single physically intelligible dynamical system, restoring a continuous and causal description of nature from microscopic to cosmological scales.
This paper proposes a conceptual reinterpretation of the wave–particle duality by introducing a relational and temporally emergent perspective on measurement and physical properties. Instead of treating waves and particles as competing ontological categories, the study argues that they represent different relational realizations of the same underlying process. Wave descriptions capture relational structures extending across time and space, while particle descriptions correspond to localized events generated through temporally fixing measurement interactions. By reframing measurement as a form of temporal coordination rather than passive observation, the article suggests that the apparent paradox of wave–particle duality emerges from classical assumptions about objects and time. The proposed framework situates quantum phenomena within a broader relational ontology in which time, events, and structures arise through interaction. This perspective aims to clarify conceptual foundations of quantum theory without modifying its formalism, while also highlighting parallels between coordination processes in physical, biological, and social systems.