Modern physics describes reality in terms of particles, fields, forces, and spacetime. Yet these concepts all share a hidden assumption: that the universe can be divided into separate systems which interact with one another. But what if this picture is not fundamental? What if the primary fabric of reality is not made of objects at all, but of correlations?
In the second paper of the Theory of Informational Selection (TSI), I explore a radically different starting point. Instead of assuming particles, fields, geometry, or even time, the theory begins with a deeper informational structure called the Informational Totality (IT): a representation-independent network of primary correlations underlying all physical phenomena. From this perspective, what we call physical systems emerge only when certain correlational patterns become sufficiently stable and coherent.
This approach leads to a new interpretation of some of the most puzzling phenomena in modern physics. Quantum entanglement, for example, is not treated as a mysterious exception to classical intuition, but as a natural consequence of global correlations that cannot be decomposed into independent parts. Likewise, the familiar notion that the universe can always be factorized into separate subsystems is shown to be only an approximation rather than a fundamental truth.
The paper also introduces the distinction between ontological partitions, which correspond to genuinely stable structures in reality, and epistemic partitions, which arise from the way observers choose to describe and measure the world. This perspective offers a new way of understanding why phenomena such as quantum nonlocality, decoherence, collective behavior, and emergent stability appear throughout physics.
Finally, the work proposes that particles, fields, and quantum excitations are not elementary entities. Instead, they emerge as stable correlational modes within the deeper informational substrate. In this sense, physics becomes the study not of fundamental objects, but of persistent patterns of organization arising from an underlying network of correlations.
This paper establishes the correlational foundations of the TSI program and prepares the ground for Paper 3, where operator algebras, modular time, informational geometry, and curvature emerge from the representation of these stable informational structures.
Paper 2-TSI: Foundations of Correlational Structure in the Informational Totality (IT)
Informational Selection Theory (TSI): Zenodo community containing the complete collection of papers and research articles dedicated to the theory.
Pablo Reyes, IPI Member
