cff-version: 1.2.0
version: '4.1'
message: 'If you use or discuss this paper, please cite it using this metadata.'
title: 'Working Paper · The ARC Theory · The Hyperspace Recursive Intelligence Hypothesis: a Bayesian and Physical Research Programme for Intelligent Cosmogenesis'
authors:
  - family-names: 'Eastwood'
    given-names: 'Michael Darius'
    orcid: 'https://orcid.org/0009-0004-3222-7442'
date-released: '2026-10-22'
url: 'https://www.michaeldariuseastwood.com/research/papers/hrih-research-programme.html'
license: 'CC-BY-4.0'
identifiers:
  - type: doi
    value: '10.17605/OSF.IO/4PGVC'
    description: 'OSF component DOI for this paper (hrih-research-programme); working draft, version 4.1'
  - type: doi
    value: '10.17605/OSF.IO/6C5XB'
    description: 'OSF umbrella DOI for the ARC / Eden Research Programme'
preferred-citation:
  type: article
  title: 'Working Paper · The ARC Theory · The Hyperspace Recursive Intelligence Hypothesis: a Bayesian and Physical Research Programme for Intelligent Cosmogenesis'
  authors:
    - family-names: 'Eastwood'
      given-names: 'Michael Darius'
      orcid: 'https://orcid.org/0009-0004-3222-7442'
  date-published: '2026-10-22'
  url: 'https://www.michaeldariuseastwood.com/research/papers/hrih-research-programme.html'
  doi: '10.17605/OSF.IO/4PGVC'
  identifiers:
    - type: doi
      value: '10.17605/OSF.IO/4PGVC'
      description: 'OSF component DOI for this paper (hrih-research-programme); working draft, version 4.1'
    - type: doi
      value: '10.17605/OSF.IO/6C5XB'
      description: 'OSF umbrella DOI for the ARC / Eden Research Programme'
    - type: doi
      value: '10.17605/OSF.IO/P8CKQ'
      description: 'Theory-level predictions preregistered on OSF: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/P8CKQ, registered 8 September 2026 (version 1.100), updated 13 September 2026 (version 1.102), updated 15 October 2026 (version 1.103), twenty-two propositions. Companion: Register · The ARC Theory · Operational Definitions, version 1.9.1, 5 October 2026.'
  abstract: |
    To the question of why a universe has the laws, constants and boundary data it has, the Hyperspace Recursive Intelligence Hypothesis (HRIH) answers with intelligent cosmogenesis. This paper reconstructs it as a nested, falsifiable research programme, not as a claim that intelligence has been shown to create universes. It distinguishes (i) physically real intelligent cosmogenesis, in which an advanced agent instantiates a daughter cosmology; (ii) recursive cosmogenic lineages, in which such events occur over more than one generation; and (iii) a stronger closed-cycle submodel, postulated rather than derived from recursion, in which the whole history is a globally self-consistent fixed point or periodic orbit, so that the Big Bang need not be an unexplained first event. The paper specifies a fair model space containing non-deliberate cosmology, simulation families and real intelligent cosmogenesis, and derives that naive observer counting returns the analyst's prior rather than a fact about the world; it requires explicit observer weighting, defines a cosmogenic reproduction number and states the extinction threshold for a branching lineage. Its principal discriminator, a hypothesis for held-out tests to decide, is maker-selection beyond habitability: weighting laws and constants by independently defined cosmogenic capability, stable technological ascent and viable daughter yield. The one observation already in hand, the order of the initial condition, is used only in conditional form, and five predictions and five studies are specified for registration, each with what would count against it. The reconstruction withdraws seven invalid inferences: recursion does not abolish boundary conditions; occurrence does not imply constructibility; ability does not imply preference for real cosmogenesis; broad recursive analogy is not support; unregistered probability ranges are not posteriors; lower-level ARC experiments do not test the cosmological ontology; and the closed loop is a nested stronger submodel rather than the premise of all intelligent cosmogenesis. Current evidence is non-discriminating between HRIH and its strongest rivals, and this paper assigns HRIH no posterior probability; each central proposition can acquire or lose probability separately.

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