Time, Space, Matter, Observer & Energy
The classical five — reality without the informational lens
Missing dimension: Information
Overview
This is the original five-dimensional taxonomy: time, space, matter, observer, and energy, considered together without the informational dimension. It is the complete classical description of reality — the world of physics, philosophy, and theology before the informational turn. Every school of thought in the taxonomy takes a stance on these five dimensions simultaneously; their combination is what any philosophy ultimately claims about the nature of things. The missing sixth dimension, information, asks whether this picture is truly complete or whether it omits something essential about the structure of reality.
Central Tension
The tension is between the classical sufficiency of the five-dimensional picture and the modern recognition that information may be a fundamental feature of reality irreducible to any combination of time, space, matter, observer, and energy. Quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, and computer science all suggest that information plays a constitutive role that the classical five cannot capture. Whether adding information to the taxonomy genuinely enlarges it or merely re-describes what was already there is the defining question this quintuplet raises.
Key Philosophical Questions
- Is the five-dimensional picture (time, space, matter, observer, energy) a complete description of reality, or does it miss something essential?
- Can information be reduced to configurations of matter-energy in spacetime observed by a conscious being, or is it a genuinely new category?
- Does the informational turn in physics (Wheeler, Zeilinger, Verlinde) reveal a gap in the classical taxonomy, or is it a change of perspective?
- Would a civilization that had never formulated the concept of information still have a complete metaphysics with only these five dimensions?
Schools of Thought
The five physical dimensions plus the observer are sufficient; information is a high-level description of matter-energy configurations in spacetime, not a fundamental addition.
The five-dimensional picture is incomplete without information; information is the missing substrate that unifies and underlies all five.
Without information, the five dimensions are the simulation without its code — the rendered output missing the programming that generates it.
Quantum mechanics cannot be fully stated without information: superposition, entanglement, and measurement are fundamentally informational concepts that the classical five do not capture.
God's Word (Logos) — the divine information that structures and sustains all creation — is not captured by time, space, matter, observer, or energy alone. The five-dimensional picture, while rich, omits the informational ground of all being.
Synthesis
The five-dimensional quintuplet is the classical philosophical taxonomy of reality, complete and powerful in its own terms. The question it raises by the absence of information is whether the classical picture is genuinely sufficient or whether the informational turn of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has revealed a dimension that was always there but never named.
Related Dimension Quadruplets