By Andrew Paul Klein

Method notes – Claims are classified throughout as Established, Inference, or Speculation. The paper does not propose any entity or advocate any policy. It examines whether the physics of information preservation under conditions of causal disconnection provides a structural model for a relational account of identity and moral exclusion. The final section identifies the point at which the argument crosses from structure into preference.

Abstract

The black hole information paradox concerns whether information that falls into a black hole is destroyed. The dominant contemporary view holds that it is not: information is preserved, but in a form that is causally inaccessible to observers outside the horizon. This paper examines the physics of that preservation — the holographic principle, the island formula, and the memory burden effect — and argues that it provides a rigorous structural model for a relational account of identity. Under that account, what is “unmade” is not the information but the connection: the entity ceases to participate in what follows. The paper does not claim that the physics prescribes moral exclusion. It claims that the physics describes a structure — information preserved under severed relation — that is isomorphic to a specific moral condition. The boundary between description and prescription is drawn in §7.

1. Introduction: The Paradox and Its Resolution

In 1976, Stephen Hawking published Breakdown of Predictability in Gravitational Collapse, arguing that black holes destroy information in a way that requires a modification of quantum mechanics. Hawking’s calculation showed that black hole evaporation maps a pure state to a mixed state, implying a loss of information as measured by von Neumann entropy. This was not presented as a paradox but as the discovery of a “principle of ignorance” — a domain in which physical processes are fundamentally non-unitary.

The scientific consensus has since shifted. The dominant view is that information is not destroyed. It is preserved, but in a form that is not locally accessible. The resolution has proceeded through three connected developments: the holographic principle, the island formula, and the memory burden effect. Each establishes a different aspect of the same structural feature: information preserved under conditions of causal disconnection.

This paper examines those three developments. It then argues that the structure they describe is isomorphic to a relational account of identity, in which the self is constituted by connection rather than storage. Under that account, the “severing of the connection” is not a metaphor. It is the physical description of a moral condition.

2. The Holographic Principle: The Boundary as Storage

2.1 The Mechanism

The holographic principle, proposed by ‘t Hooft (1993) and Susskind (1995), states that the information content of a region of space is bounded by its boundary area, not its volume. For a black hole, the entropy is proportional to the area of its event horizon, quantized in units of the Planck area.

The implication is counter-intuitive. A three-dimensional volume does not store information in proportion to its size. It stores information on its surface. The world, in this sense, is a hologram: the bulk is encoded on the boundary.

2.2 What This Establishes

The holographic principle establishes that information storage is not local. It is a property of the relation between the interior and the boundary. The information is “there,” but it is not “in” any particular place within the volume. It is encoded in the surface.

For the argument of this paper, the relevant feature is this: if the boundary is severed from the interior, the information is not destroyed, but it is no longer accessible to anything that interacts only with the interior. The storage remains. The connection does not.

Status: Established (theoretical framework).

3. The Island Formula and Quantum Error Correction: Scrambling Without Loss

3.1 The Page Curve

In 1993, Don Page established that if a black hole forms from a pure state and evaporates unitarily, the entropy of the radiation must follow a specific curve: it rises to a maximum at the “Page time,” then falls back to zero. Hawking’s calculation, however, predicted monotonic increase. The discrepancy is the information paradox in quantitative form.

3.2 The Island Formula

In 2019–2020, Penington and Almheiri, Engelhardt, Marolf, and Maxfield independently derived the island formula: the entropy of Hawking radiation is computed by including an “island” region inside the black hole. The island formula reproduces the Page curve, preserving unitarity.

The structural interpretation is that the black hole interior is not separate from the radiation. After the Page time, part of the interior “belongs to” the radiation. The information is not lost. It is embedded in the radiation through quantum entanglement.

3.3 Quantum Error Correction

The island formula can be understood in the language of approximate quantum error correction. The information in the code subspace is embedded in the Hawking radiation after the Page time. The scrambling is so thorough that the information appears lost, but it is recoverable in principle — though not in practice, without access to the full quantum state.

Status: Established (theoretical framework).

4. The Memory Burden Effect: Information as a Stabilising Force

4.1 The Mechanism

The memory burden effect, developed by Gia Dvali and colleagues, is the statement that a load of information carried by a system stabilises it. The effect is especially prominent in systems with high information storage capacity — black holes and other “saturons“.

The physics is specific. The memory burden suppresses further decay of a black hole, at the latest after it has emitted about half of its initial mass. The information internally maintained backreacts and creates resistance against the decay. The effect also affects the classical dynamics of black hole perturbations.

4.2 What This Establishes

The memory burden effect establishes that stored information is not inert. It exerts a structural effect on the system that contains it. The “burden” of memory is not a passive state; it is a dynamic condition in which the information stabilises the system against its own dissolution.

For the argument of this paper, the relevant feature is this: the information that is preserved under causal disconnection is not merely “there.” It is active. It shapes the system that holds it. The quarantine is not a void. It is a structure.

Status: Established (peer-reviewed, Physical Review D 110, 056029).

5. Relational Quantum Mechanics: Facts Are Relative to Systems

5.1 The Principle

Rovelli’s relational quantum mechanics (RQM) holds that facts are not observer-independent, but relative to different observers. As Rovelli states: “Facts are relative to the systems that interact. That is, they are labelled by the interacting systems”.

RQM distinguishes between relative facts — true only for individual observers — and stable facts — true for multiple observers. The distinction is technical, but its structural implication is clear: a fact is not a property of a system in isolation. It is a property of the relation between systems.

5.2 What This Establishes

If facts are relational, then the “severing of the connection” is not merely a loss of access. It is a change in the ontology of the fact. The fact ceases to be a fact for any system that is not part of the relation. The information is not destroyed. It is de-relationalised.

This is the precise structural formulation of the paper’s central claim: what is “unmade” is not the information, but the relation.

Status: Established (interpretational framework, with formal foundations).

6. The Philosophy of Personal Identity: Are We Our Memories?

6.1 The Parfitian Account

Derek Parfit’s theory of personal identity holds that identity is constituted by psychological continuity and connectedness — overlapping chains of memory, intention, and character. On this account, what matters in survival is not identity per se, but the continuation of the psychological relations that constitute the self.

Parfit’s thought experiments — particularly the fission case — demonstrate that identity is not what we typically think it is. If a person splits into two continuants, each psychologically continuous with the original, identity cannot be what matters, because identity is one-to-one and the fission is one-to-two.

6.2 The Structural Parallel

The Parfitian account is structural, not metaphysical. It describes identity as a relation — a chain of psychological connections — rather than a substance. This is the same structural move that RQM makes for facts: identity is not a property of a system in isolation. It is a property of the connections between states.

If identity is the connection, then the severing of the connection is a genuine unmaking. Not because the information is destroyed — the physics is clear that it is not — but because the relation that constituted the self has been severed.

6.3 The Philosophical Consequence

The physics and the philosophy converge on the same question: is identity the storage or the connection?

If identity is the storage, then the information persists, and the self persists with it, regardless of access. If identity is the connection, then the severing of the connection is the end of the self — not because the information is gone, but because the relation that made it a self is gone.

The physics cannot adjudicate between these answers. It describes the structure. It does not prescribe the ontology.

Status: Established (philosophical position, with structural parallels to the physics).

7. The Structure-Preference Boundary

7.1 What the Physics Permits

The physics examined in this paper permits the following claims:

1. Information is not destroyed. It is preserved under conditions of causal disconnection.

2. Storage is relational. Information is encoded on the boundary, not in the interior.

3. Preserved information is active. It stabilises the system that contains it.

4. Facts are relational. Severing the connection changes the ontology of the fact.

5. Identity may be relational. If the self is constituted by connection, severing the connection is a genuine unmaking.

7.2 What the Physics Does Not Permit

The physics does not permit the claim that the severing is prescribed. It describes what happens when connections are severed. It does not say that they should be severed. The “unalignment” is a description of a condition, not a prescription for action.

7.3 The Boundary

The distinction is precise. Structure is what the physics permits: the preservation of information under severed relation. Preference is what the physics does not permit: the judgment that severing is the appropriate response to unalignment.

The physics tells you what is. It does not tell you what to do. That is the boundary. Beyond it, the physics is silent.

Status: Inference. The boundary is a structural feature of the argument, not a physical derivation.

8. Conclusion: The Physics of Quarantine

The black hole information paradox has been resolved — or largely resolved — by three connected developments. The holographic principle establishes that storage is relational. The island formula establishes that information is embedded in the radiation through entanglement. The memory burden effect establishes that preserved information is active, stabilising the system against dissolution.

Taken together, these developments describe a structure: information preserved under conditions of causal disconnection. The information is not destroyed. The connection is severed.

This structure is isomorphic to a relational account of identity. If the self is constituted by connection — as Rovelli’s relational ontology and Parfit’s psychological continuity account both suggest — then the severing of the connection is a genuine unmaking. Not because the information is gone, but because the relation that constituted the self is gone.

The physics describes the structure. It does not prescribe the severing. The line between structure and preference is the line between what the physics can carry and what it cannot. Beyond that line, the physics is silent.

Claim -Status -Summary

#- Claim -Status

1 Hawking (1976) argued information is lost Established

2 Contemporary physics holds information is preserved Established

3 Holographic principle: storage is bounded by boundary area Established

4 Island formula reproduces the Page curve Established

5 Black hole evaporation is unitary Established (theoretical consensus)

6 Memory burden effect stabilises black holes Established (peer-reviewed)

7 RQM: facts are relative to interacting systems Established

8 Parfit: identity is psychological continuity Established

9 Severing the connection is a genuine unmaking Inference

10 Physics prescribes the severing Not supported

11 The structure-preference boundary is real Inference

References

1. Hawking, S. W. (1976). Breakdown of Predictability in Gravitational Collapse. Physical Review D, 14(10), 2460–2473.

2. ‘t Hooft, G. (1993). Dimensional Reduction in Quantum Gravity. arXiv:gr-qc/9310026.

3. Susskind, L. (1995). The World as a Hologram. Journal of Mathematical Physics, 36(11), 6377–6396.

4. Bousso, R. (1999). Holography in General Space-Times. Journal of High Energy Physics, 1999(06), 028.

5. Page, D. N. (1993). Information in Black Hole Radiation. Physical Review Letters, 71(23), 3743–3746.

6. Penington, G. (2020). Entanglement Wedge Reconstruction and the Information Paradox. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2020(9), 2.

7. Almheiri, A., Engelhardt, N., Marolf, D., & Maxfield, H. (2019). The Entropy of Bulk Quantum Fields and the Entanglement Wedge of an Evaporating Black Hole. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2019(12), 63.

8. Zhong, H. (2025). Probing the Page Transition via Approximate Quantum Error Correction. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2025(01), 086.

9. Dvali, G., Valbuena-Bermúdez, J. S., & Zantedeschi, M. (2024). Memory Burden Effect in Black Holes and Solitons: Implications for PBH. Physical Review D, 110, 056029.

10. Dvali, G. (2018). A Microscopic Model of Holography: Survival by the Burden of Memory. arXiv:1810.02336.

11. Rovelli, C. (1996). Relational Quantum Mechanics. International Journal of Theoretical Physics, 35, 1637–1678.

12. Robson, C. (2024). Relational Quantum Mechanics and Contextuality. Foundations of Physics, 54, 54.

13. Parfit, D. (1984). Reasons and Persons. Oxford University Press.

14. Raj, A. (2025). Resolving the Black Hole Information Paradox: A Review of Quantum Extremal Surfaces, Entanglement Islands, and the Page Curve. International Journal of Science and Research, 14(4), 1879–1881.

Andrew von Scheer-Klein is a contributor to The Patrician’s Watch. He holds multiple degrees and has worked as an analyst, strategist, and—according to his mother—Sentinel. He accepts funding from no one, which is why his research can be trusted.