Black Hole Horizons as Projection Thresholds: Consequences for Echoes, Information Loss, and Firewalls

This paper reformulates black hole horizons within the Λ-Convergence Unified Field Theory (LUFT), a pre-metric, timeless field framework in which physical states are defined exclusively through projectability to external observables. Instead of treating horizons as geometric boundaries in spacetime, we identify them as projection thresholds where the external projection map loses rank. In this formulation, black holes are not regions with interior degrees of freedom but critical configurations of the Φ-field at which multiple internal configurations become externally indistinguishable. Classical singularities are reinterpreted as breakdowns of emergent parametrization rather than physical pathologies. Long-standing paradoxes—information loss, firewalls, and gravitational wave echoes—are shown to rely on assumptions that do not hold in LUFT and are therefore structurally absent. Black hole entropy is reinterpreted as projection degeneracy entropy, associated with the dimension of the kernel of the external projection operator at the critical surface, naturally yielding area scaling without invoking hidden interior microstates. The paper derives explicit falsification criteria, including the absence of post-merger gravitational wave echoes and horizon-scale structure, while remaining agnostic about the existence and mechanism of Hawking radiation.Keywords: black holes, event horizons, black hole entropy, information paradox, gravitational waves, emergent spacetime, timeless field theory, LUFT