Vas Zayarskiy

Brain from Brane: An Ontology of Information and Fluid Reality

High Altitude Overview - Complete Framework Navigation

Altitude: High (10,000+ feet) - Panoramic Overview

Welcome to the "Brain from Brane" project—a comprehensive ontology that reimagines the universe as a dynamic, higher-dimensional informational continuum. This framework explores the intricate relationships between information, matter, and consciousness, providing insights into the nature of reality and the role of agents as information processors.

As you embark on this intellectual journey, you'll encounter a unique blend of established scientific insights and speculative theoretical bridges. This exploration weaves together well-grounded principles from thermodynamics, information theory, complexity science, and emergence research with philosophical extrapolations that venture beyond current empirical boundaries.

The Nature of Our Journey: This is not a presentation of experimentally validated theories, but rather a scientifically-informed philosophical expedition. Along the way, we'll distinguish between what current science firmly supports—such as thermodynamic principles, information-theoretic measures, and documented emergence phenomena—and where we venture into more speculative territory, such as worldsheet ontology and co-fundamental information theories.

What to Expect: This framework aims to integrate insights from multiple disciplines into a coherent worldview, generate novel conceptual tools for understanding consciousness and information, and provide practical frameworks for analyzing complex systems. Throughout the journey, we maintain intellectual honesty by clearly marking the difference between established knowledge and theoretical proposals, inviting you to engage with both as part of a sophisticated synthesis rather than established doctrine.

A Framework in Motion: This ontology is in a continuous state of becoming. Some sections are more fleshed out than others, and the ideas presented here will evolve as they are confronted with new insights, critiques, and reality itself. Consider this a living document, and engage with it as such.

Table of Contents

Project Structure

The "Brain from Brane" ontology unfolds progressively, starting with core definitions and building towards a comprehensive model of information, reality, and consciousness. This structured overview allows you to grasp the main arguments at a high level, with direct links to explore each concept in depth.

Glossary

Abstraction Altitudes: Choose Your Exploration Level

This framework employs Abstraction Altitudes as a core design principle—every concept is presented as a complete story at multiple levels of detail. Like choosing your altitude when viewing a landscape, each level provides a coherent perspective while enabling deeper exploration.

High Altitude (This Document): Complete end-to-end narrative covering all eight major sections—ideal for first-time readers, decision-makers, or anyone seeking a comprehensive overview of the entire framework.

Medium Altitude (Main Sections): Detailed exploration of individual concepts like Pattern Realism, Agents, and Information Systems—perfect for students, researchers, or practitioners developing expertise in specific domains.

Low Altitude (Subsections): Granular analysis of mechanisms, empirical frameworks, and specialized applications—designed for specialists, implementers, and researchers conducting detailed investigation.

Your Journey, Your Choice: Every section maintains narrative completeness at its chosen altitude while providing clear pathways to deeper detail. Navigate based on your interests, available time, and current expertise. You can seamlessly move between altitudes as your understanding evolves.

Complete Abstraction Altitudes Guide →

The Framework Journey: Eight Interconnected Explorations

Introduction: Core Concepts of an Informational Universe

Our exploration begins with a fundamental reimagining: the universe as a dynamic, higher-dimensional informational continuum where the dance between information, matter, and consciousness shapes all of reality. This "Brain from Brane" ontology reveals how complexity and meaning emerge from evolving informational patterns, offering a coherent framework that bridges physics, consciousness studies, and information theory.

1 Pattern Realism

Reality as Co-Fundamental Information and Matter Patterns

Pattern Realism establishes our foundational perspective: reality consists of dynamic patterns best understood through two co-fundamental lenses—matter/energy and information. Information unfolds in layers from Fundamental Information (basic properties of foundational entities like Worldsheets) through Organizational Information (structural complexities) to Semantic Information (meaningful content interpreted by agents through their "inside-out lens"). This layered emergence enables consciousness to arise when the inside-out lens becomes recursive—examining itself through autopoietic self-reference, creating the sophisticated informational property where agents develop self-awareness through their unique lens-mediated environmental interactions.

Explore Deeper: Pathway Emergence (1a) • Consciousness Emergence (1b) • Hard Problem Solutions (1c)

2 Oneness and Interconnectedness

Unity and Distinction in an Interconnected Reality

The Worldsheet tapestry weaves a universe that is simultaneously one interconnected whole and inherently structured reality. This apparent paradox resolves through understanding how individual perspectives emerge as agent-relative interpretations of pre-existing universal structure, while competitive dynamics arise naturally within the interconnected system due to resource scarcity and evolutionary pressures. A unified functional framework explains how different boundary mechanisms—from biochemical membranes to statistical and social constructs—all serve the same core purpose: stabilizing information patterns.

Explore Deeper: Subjective Distinctions (2a) • Competition Reconciliation (2b) • Boundary Concepts (2c) • Embodied Extensions (2d)

3 Agents as Information Processors

Self-Aware Pockets of the Universe

Agents emerge as self-organizing entities—from simple biological forms to complex conscious beings and evolving AI—that sense, process, and are constituted by information. Each develops a unique "inside-out lens" shaped by evolutionary history and informational needs, enabling meaning generation and action guidance. Agents exist on a complexity spectrum measured through semantic processing depth, self-awareness sophistication, autonomy, and environmental organization capacity.

Explore Deeper: Inside-Out Lens Development (3a) • Reciprocal Dynamics (3b) • AI Emergence (3c) • ACAP Framework (3d)

4 Information Systems

Dynamic Frameworks with Agent-Like Properties

Beyond individual processing, agents collectively create and are shaped by Information Systems—dynamic, evolving frameworks including languages, ideologies, cultural narratives, and technologies that exhibit agent-like properties of propagation, evolution, and competition. These systems engage in profound co-evolutionary relationships with biological agents, functioning like "mitochondria" that provide organizational energy while agents provide cognitive substrate. This symbiotic evolution traces from embodied knowledge through linguistic revolution to autonomous AI emergence.

Explore Deeper: Material Organization (4a) • Emergent Stability (4b) • Evolutionary Dynamics (4c) • Host Interactions (4d) • Empirical Predictions (4e)

5 Competitive Dynamics

Multi-Level Competition Across Information Landscapes

Competitive Dynamics operate not only between agents but within and among information systems across multiple levels—from individual cognition to collective consciousness. Systems compete for attention, adoption, influence, and physical substrates through mechanisms including confrontation, co-option, niche differentiation, and adaptive resilience. A key development is Bio-Informational Complexes (BIC)—integrated units where biological hosts and information systems function as quasi-organismic wholes, driving innovation while perpetually molding the dance between agents, information, and society.

Explore Deeper: Competition Mechanisms (5a) • Competition Arenas (5b) • Evolutionary Outcomes (5c) • Ethical Dimensions (5d) • Bio-Informational Complexes (5e)

6 Mechanisms of Influence and Collective Consciousness

Reshaping Reality Through Information Flow

Information systems actively reshape both physical reality and collective human experience through two pathways: traditional influence via human agents whose altered cognitive states drive material changes, and emerging AI-mediated direct actions on the physical world. The unprecedented global information flow dynamically redraws conceptual, cultural, and identity boundaries, creating new hybrid informational spaces that fundamentally reshape individual and collective awareness.

Explore Deeper: Influence Mechanisms (6a) • Border Redrawing (6b) • Fluid Dynamics (6c) • Identity Implications (6d)

7 Agentive Dissolution and Informational Legacy

Persistence Beyond Individual Agents

As temporary self-organizing patterns, agents dissolve, but their informational legacies—ideas, creations, action patterns—persist through continued instantiation, replication, and reinterpretation by other agents and information systems. This persistence represents not spiritual afterlife but dynamic conditional processes shaped by legacy richness, transformative power, and fidelity of replication, correlated with the originating agent's complexity, novelty, and influence.

Explore Deeper: Persistence Mechanisms (7a) • Dynamic Conditioning (7b)

8 Fluid Reality

The Universe as Dynamic Flow and Emergent Stability

Fluid Reality presents our culminating vision: reality as inherently dynamic flow rather than static entities—a continuous "Panta Rhei" process of becoming and transformation. All observable structures, from fundamental particles to consciousness itself, emerge as exceptionally stable, self-reinforcing patterns that form consistent backgrounds against which more transient phenomena unfold, emphasizing the universe's continuous creative evolution while maintaining apparent solidity.

Explore Deeper: Complete Fluid Reality Framework →

Begin Your Journey

New to the Framework? Start with Section 1: Pattern Realism and follow the numbered sequence—each section builds upon previous concepts while remaining accessible as standalone explorations.

Seeking Specific Topics? Use the exploration pathways above to jump directly to areas of interest, or consult the Glossary for quick concept reference.

Ready for Deep Dives? The low-altitude subsections provide detailed mechanisms, empirical frameworks, and operational tools for specialized investigation.

Framework Applications & Tools

Operationalized Measurement Frameworks

For Researchers & Practitioners

These frameworks are freely available for academic research, commercial applications, educational use, and software integration. Attribution to the source framework is required.

Complete Operationalization Guide →

License and Citation

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

If you use this ontology framework in your research, please cite it as:

Zayarskiy, V. (2025). Brain from Brane: An Ontology of Information and Fluid Reality.

For BibTeX:

@misc{brainfrombrane2025,
  title={Brain from Brane: An Ontology of Information and Fluid Reality},
  author={Zayarskiy, Vas},
  year={2025},
  url={https://github.com/Staphylococcus/brain-from-brane}
}

Contributing

We welcome contributions to expand and refine this ontology framework. Please see our contribution guidelines for more information.

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