Layer 0 · the foundations
Every theory is a deal between premises and consequences. This page is the premise half. If you grant A01 — one equation — nearly everything else follows; the rest of the site shows the chain. We have tried to be honest about what counts as an assumption versus what is a derivation versus what is a load-bearing consequence we're committing to up front.
Eight items: 1 foundational, 4 derived, 3 consequences. Each card has the formal statement, plain-language explanation, why it matters, and links to the problem and derivation pages where it is load-bearing.
Foundational — assumed
1
The single starting point we ask you to grant.
Derived — follows from earlier axioms
4
A formal consequence of the action and one further premise from information theory or constraint analysis.
Consequence — falls out of the framework
3
A load-bearing claim that follows once the derivations are run — surfaced here so the full commitment is visible up front.
Axiom A01
Gravity has two parts. The shape of spacetime, weighted by a scalar field Ψ. And matter, whose gravitational pull is enhanced by a factor (1+f). Everything else in the theory is derived from this single equation.
Why this matters
This is the simplest action that couples information content to gravity while recovering General Relativity exactly when f = 0. One equation; everything follows.
Source: Paper §2 (action)
Axiom A02
The coupling f isn't arbitrary. It is the Kullback–Leibler divergence between a system's actual phase-space distribution and the maximally thermalised, structureless version. A library and a warehouse of blank paper have the same mass — but the library has been processed, and ISST says gravity can tell the difference.
Why this matters
This is what makes ISST different from every other modified-gravity theory. The coupling is derived from information theory (Aczél additivity), not tuned by hand.
Source: Paper §3
Axiom A03
Every atom carries a baseline information content built up over four Standard Model freezeouts: electroweak (~100 GeV), QCD hadronisation (~150 MeV), pion+muon decoupling (~30 MeV), and e⁺e⁻ annihilation (~0.3 MeV). The accumulation finishes well before Big Bang nucleosynthesis. This baseline is universal — no ordinary process erases it.
Why this matters
(1+f_p) × Ω_b = 0.329 vs Planck Ω_m = 0.3153 — a 4.2% overshoot, 1.6–1.8σ tension. The residual is reported as honest uncertainty, not absorbed. The chain from the action's KL functional to this discrete sum has a specific structural obstruction (single-epoch vs path-additive); f_p is SM-motivated, not derived from the action.
Source: Paper §3, §7.6
Axiom A04
On top of the universal floor, matter accumulates additional structural information through processing — star formation, galaxy assembly, chemical enrichment, biological structure. Unlike f_primordial, this part can be erased by thermalisation: shock-heat a region until equilibrium and its structural complexity goes to zero.
Why this matters
This is how ISST handles the Bullet Cluster without dark matter: shocked gas loses its f_s and stops 'broadcasting' gravitationally, while the unshocked stars keep their structure. Lensing follows the surviving complexity. Caveat: in the paper the values used (f_s^gas ≈ 0.21 for shocked plasma, f_s^* ≈ 3.55 for unshocked stellar populations) are fitted to Paraficz 2016 lensing-κ data; derivation of those values from violent-relaxation theory is open.
Source: Paper §7.8
Axiom A05
Unlike most modified-gravity theories, ISST does not add a new force. Ψ is determined by the metric and matter through a constraint equation, not by an independent variational principle. It carries no propagating scalar mode — it does not travel through space, carry energy, or create a fifth force.
Why this matters
This is the structural reason ISST passes every solar-system test (γ_PPN = 1) and survives GW170817 (no scalar gravitational wave polarisation, c_GW = c) — by construction, not by tuning a screening mechanism.
Source: Paper §4 (constraint analysis)
Axiom A06
We live in a lumpy universe — galaxies cluster into walls and filaments with vast voids between them. Clocks run faster in voids and slower in walls. When we measure expansion from our position on a wall, the lapse difference makes expansion look like it's accelerating. It isn't; the geometry is doing it.
Why this matters
This eliminates the cosmological constant entirely. No dark energy fluid is needed; the apparent acceleration is geometric, not energetic.
Source: Paper §6
Axiom A07
There is no separate gravitationally-dominant particle species. Every gravitational effect attributed to dark matter — flat rotation curves, cluster masses, lensing — comes from the (1+f) enhancement of ordinary baryonic matter.
Why this matters
Every direct-detection experiment for half a century has returned null. ISST says they will continue to. If a dark matter particle is detected at the canonical CDM density, ISST is falsified outright.
Source: Paper §3, §7
Axiom A08
There is no Λ term in the action. Not 'small'. Absent. The apparent late-time acceleration is the geometric effect from A06, not a vacuum-energy fluid.
Why this matters
The cosmological-constant problem — why vacuum energy is wrong by a factor of 10¹²⁰ — is dissolved rather than solved. If there is no Λ in the equations, there is no number to be wrong about.
Source: Paper §2 (action)
Grant A01. Add information theory (Aczél additivity) and you derive A02–A04. Run the ADM constraint analysis and you derive A05. Apply the action to a non-FLRW universe via Wiltshire / Buchert and you get A06. A07 and A08 are then the predictions ISST stakes itself against the data on. Eight commitments; one is genuinely independent.
