The Electron Dual-Role Principle: A Unified Physical Foundation for Information Processing

Information processing across atoms, computers, and brains involves a common physical mechanism: charged carriers (electrons in non-aqueous systems, ions in aqueous environments) alternating between functional regimes. When confined to stable configurations with rare transitions, they encode information through spatial arrangement. When actively transitioning between configurations, they mediate energy transfer and information transformation. We characterize this duality through observable transition rates, localization measures, and power dissipation. The framework provides quantitative predictions for storage lifetimes (τ ∝ exp(ΔE/kT)), minimum erasure costs (E ≥ kT ln 2), and efficiency limits. We validate predictions across atomic physics, semiconductor devices, and neuroscience, explaining why biological systems achieve ~10⁵× better energy efficiency than silicon computers. The framework reveals fundamental constraints on information technology and suggests paths toward thermodynamically optimal computation.