Civilization LeapResearch for the AGI era
CL-ACA-016 · Physics, information and spacetime research

Which inferences are warranted among physical events, recorded information, irreversibility, copying or migration, and a life experienced by a subject?

Disciplinary inquiry | Boundaries between physical time, informational irreversibility and experienced time

All disciplines Cross-disciplinary scrutiny

Full manuscripts and versions

Author-authorized full-text publication. Downloads below are separately verified files; website summaries are not manuscript translations. Publication restrictions printed in older source manuscripts are superseded by the author’s release decision of 16 October 2026; the academic text itself is unchanged.

The available Chinese independent-publication edition is V1.3. The earlier registered Canonical version V1.1 remains a historical identity, not the version of this new PDF. The professional web explanation retains its own source version.

No full English translation of the new Chinese edition has been verified. English pages remain English reading and continuation entries.

Current submission or peer-review status is not established by these publication files. Historical preparation and routing records do not establish an active review.

DISCIPLINE-INTERNAL CHAIN

First pursue the question within this discipline

Physical spacetime, measurement and causality → distinguish forms of irreversibility → four levels: information, semantics, experience and meaning → distinguish occurrence, traces, records, reconstruction and lived experience → different continuities in backup, copying and migration → deep-space delays and relays of responsibility

THIS PAPER CAN ESTABLISH

What this work can establish

  • Use precise results in relativity, measurement, information theory, the thermodynamics of computation and quantum no-cloning only within their applicable scope
THIS PAPER CANNOT ESTABLISH

What this work cannot establish on its own

  • Does not derive moral, political or meaning-related conclusions from physics
  • Does not equate copying information with copying a subject
BOUNDARY BREAK

Where the discipline reaches its limit

Thermodynamics, informational irreversibility, path dependence, backup restoration and quantum no-cloning cannot overstep their scope to explain personhood, meaning or first-person continuity.

NEXT DISCIPLINES

Who must take up the next responsibility for evidence

Philosophy; cognitive science; life sciences; AI and computer science; deep-space governance

CIVILIZATIONAL ASCENT

What the wider view reveals

Technology can preserve states and extend reach, but restoring a state is not restoring the world that already occurred, nor can technology fabricate lived experience.

M1—M8 · S/L/I/R

How this changes the Civilization Leap causal map

S = professional support; L = limits; I = interfaces; R = refutation or revision triggers. This is not a “list of proofs.”

M1 · I IM2 · S/L Capabilities remain subject to physical, spacetime and resource conditionsM3 · S/L Six forms of irreversibility must be distinguished, directly constraining M3’s conceptsM4 · I IM5 · L Physical metaphors cannot replace engineering reversibility or exitM6 · S/L Validation must specify the levels of occurrence, recording and restorationM7 · S/L Remote presence, real life and relays of responsibilityM8 · S/L Spacetime boundaries on the meaning of finite life; physics does not monopolize meaning
COMPETING EXPLANATIONS · REVISION

What alternative explanations remain? What findings would change this judgment?

An academic page does not endorse Civilization Leap. Professional evidence can support it, limit it, refute it or require upstream theory to be rewritten.

Alternative explanations

Some theories of informational continuity may offer new explanations of subject continuity, but must still specify testable intermediaries from physical or informational processes to psychological or first-person continuity.

What to revise first if evidence does not support the account

Reopen the interface if new physical or informational theories establish testable, reproducible intermediary mechanisms linking them to subject continuity. Otherwise retain the current stopping point.

What is still needed before practical application

Physical and informational facts do not automatically yield conclusions about identity, personhood, meaning or rights. Practical use requires cognitive science, philosophy and law to carry the inquiry further.

REVISION GATE

What would change this work

Reliable evidence of future subjects’ spacetime experience would require updates to conditional judgments such as “current AI primarily processes spacetime.”

Return to the real world

Bring this discipline’s conclusions back into organizations, institutions, resources and consequences across domains.

CL-ACA-022

Civilizational direction

Discuss direction, methods and goals openly after establishing the facts.

CL-ACA-023
Historical publication and routing record (superseded publication policy)

Historical baseline only; it does not describe current submission status or restrict this authorized release.

Publication and version information · not evidence of academic correctness

A submission route exists | review status has not been established

Historically evidenced state: ROUTED / NO_ACTIVE_SUBMISSION_EVIDENCED

Portal action: NO PORTAL SUBMISSION EVIDENCED

Website publication mode: KEEP_EXISTING_PUBLIC_HISTORY + ABSTRACT_PLUS_CAUSAL_ROLE

Publication and submission boundaries: Recheck publication history, first-publication requirements, preprint rules and AI policies for each target journal. Do not newly publish submission-derived full texts.

Evidence date: 2026-08-27 governance baseline Confidence in publication-state evidence: MEDIUM

Current version: V1.1

Exact state: DIRECT CURRENT｜V1.1

View the nineteen-work Canonical Register

Translation scope

This is a translation of the existing public web page. A description of a work is not its full manuscript. Source publication and version labels describe the Chinese work; they do not claim an English full-text edition is available. Unavailable English texts and downloads are marked explicitly.