Explainer

What this is

Projective Process Monism (PPM) is a candidate theory of everything. The phrase usually means: a single mathematical structure that derives all the constants and forces of physics from a small premise. Most attempts land in one of two camps. They are either extremely speculative (string theory, with its ~10⁵⁰⁰ possible solutions and few empirical predictions), or extremely partial (loop quantum gravity addresses gravity but says nothing about the Standard Model; integrated information theory addresses consciousness but says nothing about gravity).

PPM takes a different route. It identifies the smallest mathematical structure that can simultaneously contain the geometry of quantum possibility, the geometry of measurement, and the geometry of conscious experience — and shows that this single structure is enough. With one measured number from experiment, the rest of physics derives.

Where it starts

Two facts you might not have noticed are connected.

The first is from quantum mechanics. The space of possible states for any quantum system is a complex projective space. For a four-state system (the simplest one rich enough to support the Standard Model’s structure), this space is called CP³, complex projective 3-space. Wavefunctions live here. Every measurement we can in principle perform corresponds to a direction in this space.

The second is from perceptual phenomenology — the systematic study of the structure of conscious experience, treated as an empirical science. In 2017, David Rudrauf and colleagues published a model whose geometric structure is real projective 3-space, RP³. They derived this from properties of perception (depth, perspective, the relation between viewpoint and viewed) and validated it against psychophysical data on how humans perceive geometric scenes.

Here’s the connection. If you take CP³ — the complex space where quantum possibilities live — and ask which subset of it is “real” in the sense of being unchanged when you replace every complex number with its conjugate (the operation called complex conjugation), the answer is exactly RP³. The “real points” of CP³, fixed under conjugation, form RP³.

The same RP³.

The structural move

PPM treats this as a fact about the world, not a coincidence. The framework’s single axiom:

• Possibility space is CP³.
• Actuality space — the realm of facts — is RP³.
• The projection from one to the other (taking complex possibilities and selecting the real outcomes) is the operation we call “measurement.”
• Conscious experience is what it is like to be on the actuality side of that projection. Not a separate ingredient added by hand: the geometry of being-an-observer is precisely RP³.

This is one structural choice. Everything else in the framework is its consequence.

What comes out

With one measured number from experiment to set the dimensionful scales, the framework derives:

The Standard Model spectrum. Particle masses, coupling constants, mixing angles. The framework reproduces 19 measured Standard Model quantities to within ~3% mean error. None postulated; all derived from the geometric energy ladder the structure produces.

The Born rule. The quantum-mechanical rule that probability equals the squared amplitude of the wavefunction is forced as the unique probability law compatible with τ-projection. It is not a postulate; it is a uniqueness theorem about Z₂-invariant probability on the arena.

Newton’s gravitational constant and the cosmological constant. Both turn out to be topological invariants of the framework’s structure — quantities determined by the global shape of the arena, not by dynamics. Λ is static; the long-standing puzzle about why it is small evaporates.

The Hubble parameter and the JWST anomaly. The framework predicts that gravity weakens with cosmic time, with G(z) ∝ (1+z)^(3/2). This accounts for the impossibly massive early-universe galaxies the James Webb Space Telescope is finding — they formed faster because gravity was stronger then. H₀ comes out to 70.9 km/s/Mpc.

The strong-CP angle. The QCD parameter θ that should be measurable but stubbornly looks zero is forced to zero by the τ-symmetry of the arena. No axion required.

The quark CKM CP phase. δ_CP = π/φ² = π(1 − 1/φ) ≈ 1.200 rad, where φ is the golden ratio (the icosahedral A₅ character). The PDG 2024 CKM phase is 1.137 ± 0.022 rad — the geometry gives the right scale, to about 5.5%.

A consciousness window. The framework’s resolvability function — comparing per-event quantum information to ambient thermal noise — has a transition zone where individual quantum events are neither dominantly informative nor dominantly thermal. At biological temperature, this transition lands at exactly the energy scales where neural processes operate. The framework also predicts a binding-window timescale of ~60 ms for distributed neural content to integrate consciously, matching well-established psychophysical measurements.

Why this is unusual

Modern physics has gotten used to needing many inputs. The Standard Model alone requires 26 free parameters (νSM, Dirac convention) that have to be measured rather than predicted. Add cosmology — dark energy density, dark matter density, the matter / antimatter asymmetry — and the count grows. Each parameter is a place where the theory says: “I do not know; you have to tell me.”

PPM needs one. One geometric structure (CP³ with τ), one measured mass scale. Everything else derives. This minimal-input, high-output ratio is what the framework is staking its case on. A theory that asks for less and produces more is closer to being right; every required input is a potential failure point, and fewer inputs means fewer places the theory could be quietly wrong.

The framework also closes across regimes that other candidate theories typically do not. String theory is mostly silent about consciousness; loop quantum gravity is mostly silent about the Standard Model; integrated information theory is silent about gravity; nothing else closes on all of them. PPM’s structural completeness — closure across quantum measurement, the Standard Model, gravity, cosmology, and consciousness from the same arena — is the framework’s distinguishing feature.

What is testable

Several quantitative predictions are open to confirmation or falsification by experiment:

• The redshift dependence of gravity (CMB analysis, JWST follow-up)
• The 3.5 keV X-ray line as a sterile-neutrino dark-matter signature
• The Hubble rate (independent ladder measurements)
• Specific particle mass ratios (laboratory experiments)

The Predictions chapter has the full list with measured values, predicted values, and the experimental status of each.

Where to go from here

To watch the whole framework run as one process — the arena, the projection, the cascade, and the synchronization that emerges as it crosses the critical zone — open the Model.

For the framework’s account of reality and what its structures derive, read the ontology.

For the rigorous mathematical treatment — derivations, spectral calculations, proofs — read the technical reference.

For the mathematical vocabulary the framework uses (manifolds, projective spaces, fiber bundles, Kähler structure, and so on), the math primer has short, self-contained entries on each concept.

To verify the numerical claims yourself, run the notebooks. Every result is reproducible from open code.

To test or extend the framework, clone the Python package. A 42-check self-consistency suite runs in CI on every commit.

To ask questions in natural language, the NotebookLM workspace has the entire framework loaded.

The work is open. The math is open. The predictions are specific. What is asked of the reader is engagement on those terms.