paper
active
2026
paper:there

There is no self-evidence: A physics of emptiness realisation

ByLars Sandved-Smithⓘ·Chris Fieldsⓘ·Thomas Doctorⓘ·Ruben Laukkonenⓘ·Jakob Hohwyⓘ84000: Unlocking the Tibetan Buddhist Canon for All, Allen Discovery Center, Tufts University + 10 more
DOI 10.31234/osf.io/m78z2_v1OpenAlex W7162239631
agent-environment boundarymodel of agent's own QRF dynamicsopacification of partition constraint via contemplative practicepartition as contingent modelling choicepost-dual agent with unconstrained QRF deploymentsprior eliminated by Bayesian model reductionprior removal as formal counterpart to emptinesspriors suppress inherent contextualityrelinquishing ontological commitment to bounded selfself-evidencing continues unimpeded after transitionseparability of agent and environmentstructural prior over QRF deployments for self/environment partition

TL;DR

No finite agent can measure the entanglement entropy across its own boundary — this is the load-bearing result, proven by Fields and Glazebrook (2023, Corollary 3.1), from which the paper derives a formal account of Buddhist emptiness realisation. Because all of an agent's measurement operators act exclusively on the N-bit holographic screen B and have no access to the bulk state |B⟩, the agent cannot determine whether entanglement entropy S(|AB⟩) is zero (separable) or nonzero, rendering the self/environment partition permanently unevidenceable from the inside. The paper introduces the construct of the separation prior σ — a structural prior over the agent's quantum reference frame (QRF) deployments that constrains every measurement frame to respect a fixed B_self ∪ B_env sectorisation — and formalises it within the quantum free energy principle (qFEP) of Fields et al. (2022). Contemplative practice is modelled as progressive opacification of σ: as the practitioner builds a metacognitive model of their own QRF dynamics (formalised via the parametric-depth architecture of Sandved-Smith et al., 2021), σ transitions from transparent architectural constraint to explicit state-space variable, at which point Bayesian model reduction prunes it because ΔComplexity < 0 while ΔAccuracy ≈ 0. The post-dual agent optimises over the full QRF space Q rather than the restricted subspace Q_σ, yielding strictly lower variational free energy. The paper argues this implies that Buddhist awakening is neither the acquisition of a new metaphysical belief nor the dissolution of selfhood, but the embodied removal of an unevidenced constraint on inference — one whose removal simultaneously grounds a formal account of compassion as unbounded VFE minimisation and predicts a measurable shift toward critical neural dynamics in agents with stable emptiness realisation.

What to take away

  1. 1. Fields and Glazebrook (2023, Corollary 3.1) prove that no finite system A can measure the entanglement entropy S(|AB⟩) across the boundary B separating it from its environment, because A's measurement operators act only on the N-bit boundary screen and have no access to the bulk state |B⟩.
  2. 2. The impossibility is symmetric: observations can neither confirm that the agent is separate from the environment nor that it is fully unified with it, making the question of boundary status formally unanswerable rather than answered in the negative.
  3. 3. The separation belief is formalised not as a propositional attitude but as a structural prior σ over the space of QRF deployments, constraining all admissible measurement frames to respect a fixed B_self ∪ B_env sectorisation (Equation 10), analogous to Metzinger's (2003) transparent self-model.
  4. 4. The separation prior σ is self-reinforcing under the habit dynamics of active inference (Friston et al., 2016): every dually sectorised QRF deployment provides further evidence for itself, increasing the prior's precision independently of whether the sectorisation remains contextually apt.
  5. 5. Contemplative practice (particularly vipassanā insight meditation) is modelled as progressive opacification — the systematic development of a metacognitive model of the agent's own low-level QRF dynamics using a hierarchical architecture with parametric depth (Sandved-Smith et al., 2021) — which converts σ from invisible architectural constraint to explicit representable hypothesis.
  6. 6. Bayesian model reduction then prunes σ because ΔComplexity < 0 (removing σ reduces the KL divergence between posterior and prior) while ΔAccuracy ≈ 0 (the flexible metacognitive model already provides the factored predictions σ once scaffolded), yielding a strictly lower-VFE reduced model m̃.
  7. 7. Recent empirical work converges on the paper's criticality prediction: Mago et al. (2025) show experienced meditators in jhāna exhibit a metastable near-critical regime with increased neural signal diversity and reduced chaoticity, and Vohryzek et al. (2025) demonstrate jhāna states approach criticality in whole-brain computational models — though direct tests in populations with stable selflessness (as opposed to transient meditative states) have not yet been conducted.
  8. 8. The impossibility result generalises beyond the self–world boundary to any boundary the agent posits (Fields and Glazebrook, 2023, Corollary 3.2): verifying that environment component B1 is separable from B2 requires measuring S(|B1B2⟩), which is equally forbidden, formally grounding the Buddhist teaching that all dharmas (phenomena) are empty.
  9. 9. An open question the paper raises is whether the expanded QRF solution space of the post-dual agent introduces additional local free-energy minima that could impede inference, and whether the metacognitive training of the contemplative path itself develops the navigational capacity needed to exploit the enlarged space rather than being destabilised by it.
  10. 10. As a replicable methodology, the developmental trajectory of σ — its emergence when a metacognitive particle first distinguishes action-contingent from action-independent boundary observations, its reinforcement via habit dynamics, and its eventual pruning via Bayesian model reduction — can be operationalised and tested in silico by simulating active inference agents with and without a separation factorisation under varying environmental pressures, as outlined in the paper's Section 6.4 future computational directions.

Peer brief — for seminar discussion

Sandved-Smith et al. (2026) construct a formal account of Buddhist emptiness realisation grounded in the quantum-information-theoretic free energy principle (qFEP) of Fields, Friston, Glazebrook and Levin (2022). The central move is to import Fields and Glazebrook's (2023, Corollary 3.1) proof that no finite system can measure the entanglement entropy across its own boundary — because its measurement operators are confined to the N-bit holographic screen and cannot access the bulk state — and derive from this a principled account of why the belief in a bounded self is permanently unevidenceable from within subjective experience. The paper introduces the separation prior σ as the formal vehicle: a structural prior over the space of quantum reference frame (QRF) deployments that constrains every admissible measurement frame to respect a fixed self/environment sectorisation B_self ∪ B_env. Under normal developmental conditions, σ operates as a transparent architectural constraint in the sense of Metzinger (2003) — the agent perceives through it without representing it — and is self-reinforcing because every dually sectorised QRF deployment constitutes a habitual policy selection that increases σ's precision independently of contextual aptness. The load-bearing finding is that this prior can be eliminated via Bayesian model reduction (BMR) once contemplative practice has converted it from invisible constraint to explicit state-space variable through progressive opacification — the systematic construction of a metacognitive model of one's own low-level QRF dynamics using a hierarchically deep generative model with parametric depth (Sandved-Smith et al., 2021). At that point, σ contributes only complexity cost (ΔComplexity < 0) while its accuracy contribution approaches zero because the metacognitive model already supplies the context-sensitive factored predictions σ once scaffolded (ΔAccuracy ≈ 0). The reduced model m̃ has strictly lower variational free energy; the post-dual agent now optimises over the full QRF space Q rather than the restricted subspace Q_σ. The paper argues this is the formal counterpart of emptiness realisation: not a new metaphysical belief but the agent's fluent, unconstrained operation within the inherently contextual structure of its own boundary, corresponding to what the qFEP identifies as asymptotically optimal inference. Five implications follow. Self-evidencing continues unimpaired and is actually improved. The result generalises to all posited boundaries, grounding the Buddhist claim that all phenomena are empty (Fields and Glazebrook, 2023, Corollary 3.2). Emptiness maps formally onto quantum contextuality — σ suppresses the inherent context-dependence of QRF deployments, and avijjā is reframed as enforcement of non-contextuality on an intrinsically contextual boundary. Compassion arises naturally as unbounded VFE minimisation once the preferential scoping to B_self dissolves. Finally, the VFE reduction predicts a shift toward critical neural dynamics (Friston et al., 2012); Mago et al. (2025) and Vohryzek et al. (2025) provide partial convergent evidence from jhāna meditators, though stable selflessness in non-meditating populations remains untested. An alternative modelling approach the paper could have used is classical (non-quantum) active inference with a hierarchical Markov blanket formalism, which would have preserved the BMR machinery without requiring quantum information theory; the choice of qFEP is explicitly motivated by the desire to avoid baking in background spacetime assumptions that the contemplative path itself questions. The most substantive thing a critical reader would push back on is the explanatory gap between the formal result — that σ's removal is licensed by BMR once the metacognitive model is in place — and the phenomenological reality of awakening: the paper does not demonstrate, and arguably cannot demonstrate without empirical data from agents reporting stable emptiness realisation, that the specific transition formalised here actually corresponds to what contemplatives describe, rather than being one formally coherent model among several possible ones. The identification of the 'post-dual agent' with Buddhist awakening rests on conceptual translation work that, however carefully executed, inherits all the difficulties of cross-tradition interpretation and remains contestable on both the philosophical and empirical flanks.

Findings (8)

Claims (25)

Hypotheses (4)

Questions (4)

Original abstract (expand)

Any system that persists must minimise surprisal, thereby gathering evidence for its own generative model, a process known as self-evidencing. However, one dimension of self-evidencing is provably impossible: evidencing the boundary that would constitute the agent as an entity separate from their environment. Recent results in quantum information theory demonstrate that no finite system can measure the entanglement entropy across its own boundary, rendering the separability of agent from environment permanently unevidenceable. Subjectively therefore, there can be no evidence for a self separate from the world. We propose that the Buddhist notion of awakening, in the sense of stable realisation of emptiness, can be understood as the embodied recognition of this impossibility. We formalise the belief in separation as a structural prior over an agent's quantum reference frame (QRF) deployments, constraining all measurement frames to respect a self/environment partition. We describe how contemplative practice progressively opacifies this constraint by developing a model of the agent's own QRF dynamics, revealing the partition as a contingent modelling choice rather than a given feature of reality. Once visible, the prior is eliminated via Bayesian model reduction resulting in a post-dual agent with unconstrained QRF deployments. We argue that such priors suppress the inherent contextuality of the boundary and that their removal constitutes a formal counterpart to the Buddhist notion of emptiness realisation. Self-evidencing may continue unimpeded after this transition, grounded in structural realism about causal regularities, while the ontological commitment to a bounded self is relinquished. We discuss empirical predictions, including altered dynamical regimes in neural systems, and the formal relationship between emptiness realisation and compassion.

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