Time, Space, Matter, Observer, Energy & Information
The complete picture of reality
Overview
The full taxonomy: all six dimensions considered together. This is the most complete philosophical description of reality available within this framework — a reality that is temporal (things change and endure), spatial (things are extended and located), material (there is substance), observational (there is consciousness and perspective), energetic (there is activity and transformation), and informational (there is structure, pattern, and content). Every school of thought in this taxonomy takes a stance on each of these six dimensions simultaneously; their combination is what any philosophy ultimately claims about the nature of things.
The Role of Each Dimension
The dimension of change and succession. Without time, nothing can happen — matter cannot move, energy cannot propagate, information cannot be processed, the observer cannot experience. Time gives the world its narrative structure.
The dimension of extension and location. Without space, there is no "where" — matter cannot be distributed, energy cannot propagate directionally, information cannot be spatially encoded, observers cannot be situated. Space gives the world its geometric structure.
The dimension of substance and mass. Without matter, the universe has no stable content, no substrate for encoding information, no body for the observer. Matter gives the world its persistence and resistance.
The dimension of knowing and perspective. Without the observer, the other five may exist — but they are not known, not experienced, not evaluated, and information has no interpreter. The observer gives the world its significance.
The dimension of activity and transformation. Without energy, nothing moves, no work is done, no information is processed, no computation runs. Energy is the engine driving the other five dimensions into their mutual interactions.
The dimension of structure, pattern, and content. Without information, there is no distinction between states, no meaning in signals, no knowledge to be gained. Information is what makes the other five dimensions knowable, distinguishable, and describable.
The Grand Synthesis
The six dimensions are not six independent features added together — they are mutually constitutive. Time is what gives matter the dimension to change; space is what gives matter the dimension to be located; energy is what drives matter through space and time; the observer is the being for whom all of this is experienced and known; and information is the structure and pattern that makes each configuration distinct, each state knowable, each event meaningful. Each dimension implies the others: matter without space has nowhere to be; space without matter has nothing to contain; time without matter or energy has nothing to change; energy without space or time has no medium for propagation; the observer without the other five has nothing to observe; and information without the other five has no substrate, no medium, no processor, no knower, and no dynamics. Together they constitute the minimum structure required for a world in which things happen, are located, are known, carry meaning, and matter.
Central Tension
The ultimate tension in the six-dimensional picture is between comprehensiveness and reduction. Every major philosophical tradition attempts either to unify the six dimensions under a single principle — mind (idealism), matter (materialism), God (theism), process (process philosophy), emptiness (Buddhism), information (dataism) — or to show that one of them is derivative of the others. Idealism reduces matter, space, time, energy, and information to the observer's experience. Materialism reduces the observer and information to configurations of matter-energy in spacetime. Dataism reduces matter, energy, space, time, and the observer to informational patterns. Theism grounds all six in a Creator who transcends them. The question of whether all six are equally fundamental, or whether the taxonomy conceals a hidden hierarchy, is the deepest philosophical question the framework poses.
Key Philosophical Questions
- Are all six dimensions equally fundamental, or does one underlie the others?
- Can any one of the six be eliminated — shown to be derivative of the other five — or are all six irreducibly necessary?
- Does the combination of all six constitute a complete description of reality, or are there features of the world that fall outside this taxonomy?
- What is the minimum "world" — the smallest combination of dimensions — that could contain an observer who knows that world?
- Is information the missing link that unifies the other five, or is it just one more dimension alongside them?
How Each Tradition Accounts for All Six
Matter and energy in spacetime are fundamental; the observer is derived, and information is a high-level description of physical states. The taxonomy's six dimensions collapse into four at the ground level, with observer and information as emergent.
The observer is primary; matter, space, time, energy, and information are constructs of conscious experience. Five dimensions collapse into one: mind constitutes all the others, including the informational structures it experiences.
Mind and matter are both fundamental; the observer cannot be reduced to the physical dimensions. Information bridges the two realms, encoding mental content in physical substrates and vice versa.
Consciousness pervades all six dimensions; energy, matter, space, time, and information all carry some form of experience. The observer is not exceptional — every part of the physical-informational universe is, to some degree, an observer.
All six dimensions are abstractions from temporal events — occasions of experience. Time, the observer, and information are most fundamental; the others are derivative structural features of the creative advance.
All six dimensions are dependently originated — arising in mutual dependence, empty of intrinsic nature. None is ultimate. Information is another layer of conventional reality that must be seen through for liberation.
God creates all six dimensions ex nihilo and sustains them continuously. None is self-subsistent; all reflect God's character — time his faithfulness, space his omnipresence, matter his wisdom, energy his power, the observer his image, and information his Word (Logos). God himself transcends the taxonomy: eternal, omnipresent, immaterial, omnipotent, omniscient, and the source of all truth.
All six are simulated: time is the iteration cycle, space the grid, matter stable data, energy the dynamic state, the observer a self-modeling subprocess, and information the code that runs it all. The taxonomy describes the simulation; what lies outside it is unknown.
At the quantum level, all six become strange: time loses classical flow, space becomes non-local, matter dissolves into fields, energy quantizes, the observer constitutively participates in outcomes, and information is preserved by unitarity but scrambled by decoherence. The six-dimensional picture is the limit of the classical approximation.
Information is the fundamental substrate of reality; time, space, matter, energy, and the observer are patterns and processes within a universal information flow. The six-dimensional taxonomy collapses into one: everything is information, and the other five are its structural expressions.
Synthesis
The six dimensions together constitute the full philosophical taxonomy of reality — a framework that is neither a reductive theory nor a mere list. They are mutually implicated: you cannot fully describe one without invoking the others. The addition of information to the classical five reflects the insight of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: that structure, pattern, and content are not reducible to matter, energy, space, time, or observation alone, but constitute a dimension of their own. The great philosophical traditions differ not in whether they recognize all six, but in which they privilege, which they reduce, and which they ground in something beyond the taxonomy itself. In this sense, the six-dimensional framework is not a metaphysical theory but a philosophical map — one that makes the differences between theories visible, and invites each tradition to state clearly what it claims about the deepest structure of things.
The Six Quintuplets — What Each Dimension Reveals by its Absence