Thank you for providing the "42 Theses on the Nature of a Pattern-Based Reality" by Rowan Brad Quni. This document clearly articulates the philosophical and foundational claims of Autaxys. Based on these theses, I can now understand why you assert that electrons and photons are "just patterns of information." Let's break down how the Autaxys framework, as presented in these theses, supports your view, and why it diverges from conventional physics: Core Argument from Autaxys for "Patterns of Information": The foundational premise of Autaxys, particularly from Theses I, III, IV, X, and XXXV, is that reality's ultimate constituents are not irreducible physical entities, but dynamic, self-organizing patterns of information. * Thesis I: "The ultimate constituents of reality are not irreducible physical entities, but are instead dynamic, self-organizing patterns of information whose stability and persistence alone grant them the appearance of substance." * Thesis III: "The essential nature of any physical phenomenon is defined by its informational pattern, which is primary, and not by the specific material substrate in which it is merely instantiated." * Thesis IV: "The identity of a fundamental particle is not defined by intrinsic, localized properties, but is instead a manifestation of an enduring, self-consistent relational pattern that persists within the universal network." * Thesis X: "Information is not an emergent property of physical systems, but is the primary and formative substance of reality itself, from which matter, energy, and spacetime are but secondary manifestations." * Thesis XXXV: "The universe does not merely contain patterns; the universe is a pattern—a single, vast, self-generating, and self-observing computational process." From this perspective: * Electrons and Photons as Patterns: In Autaxys, neither electrons nor photons are considered fundamental "particles" in the traditional sense of discrete, pre-existing physical entities. Instead, they are specific, stable, and persistent patterns of information within a grand, self-generating computational process (Theses I, IV, XXXV). * "Appearance of Substance": The "physicality" we perceive them to have is an emergent property based on the stability and coherence of these informational patterns and how they interact with our own sensory patterns (Thesis V). * "Secondary Manifestations": Mass and energy, typically associated with electrons (mass) and photons (energy), are re-interpreted. Mass is "a pattern’s inertia against transformation," and energy is "the computational cost required to alter or sustain that pattern" (Thesis XI). This moves away from intrinsic properties of "stuff" to computational properties of patterns. * No Fundamental Difference in "Being": If everything is fundamentally an informational pattern, then the distinction between an electron pattern and a photon pattern is one of pattern type and properties derived from their computational rules, rather than a distinction between "matter" and "force carrier" as distinct ontological categories. They are both expressions of the same underlying informational substrate. Why Conventional Physics Diverges and Why Autaxys Rejects It: The preamble and several theses (e.g., XLII, XLI, Preamble) explicitly state that physical materialism (the basis of conventional physics) is "incomplete and derivative" and has "reached the limits of its explanatory power." * Fundamental Constituents: Conventional physics asserts that electrons are fundamental fermions with mass and charge, and photons are fundamental bosons with no rest mass or charge. They are distinct types of elementary particles. Autaxys directly challenges this by saying "the ultimate constituents of reality are not irreducible physical entities" (Thesis I). * Origin of Laws/Constants: Autaxys offers a generative explanation for physical laws and constants (Theses VI, VII, IX, XII, XIII), seeing them as "prescriptive, algorithm-like rules" of the underlying computational process, rather than "brute-fact description" as it claims physics does. * Quantum Phenomena: Autaxys reinterprets quantum mechanics phenomena (non-locality, indeterminacy, superposition, wave function collapse) not as strange behaviors of particles, but as direct evidence of the underlying relational/computational fabric (Theses XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX). In essence, your statement "They're just patterns of information" is a direct and concise summary of the Autaxys framework's approach to the nature of reality, and by extension, the nature of what conventional physics calls electrons and photons. Within this framework, the distinctions that conventional physics makes (like mass, charge, spin, fermion/boson) are not rejected entirely, but are re-interpreted as emergent properties or manifestations of these underlying informational patterns and the computational rules governing them, rather than as fundamental, intrinsic properties of distinct "things." So, from the perspective of Autaxys, the traditional physics explanation is "wrong" in its foundational assertion of physical materialism and irreducible physical entities, because it misses the more fundamental informational and computational substrate from which everything, including electrons and photons, is derived. To address your earlier point about explaining it without jargon: Autaxys itself introduces a new vocabulary ("ontological closure," "relational network," "computational process," "informational pattern"). However, the core idea you articulated – that everything is just a pattern of information – is indeed the central tenet that helps to unify various phenomena under this new paradigm, including what we traditionally call electrons and photons.