Loco-genesis and the Bell Constraint: How Derived Locality Reopens the Question of Structure Beneath Quantum Mechanics

The fine-structure constant α is conventionally treated as a measured input to quantum electrodynamics. We present a parameter-free derivation yielding α−1 = 137.035999143, within 1.62σ of the CODATA 2022 value. The derivation identifies three “refractive” corrections to the base channel capacity of 137: radial projection, mnemonic drag, and loco-genesis. The third term, ζ(3)/(137 · 20), represents the projection cost of locality itself, the generation of spatial structure from a higher-dimensional algebraic substrate. We argue that this term has profound implications for the interpretation of Bell’s theorem. Bell’s inequality derivation assumes factorizability of probability distributions over independent spatial regions. If locality is not ontologically prior but is instead a projection artifact, this assumption fails to apply at the substrate level. Crucially, the projection nonetheless preserves relativistic no-signaling structure within the projected spacetime, reproducing all observed causal constraints. The loco-genesis term thus reopens the question that Bell supposedly closed: whether there exists structurebeneath quantum mechanics. Einstein’s objection to quantum completeness is not refuted by Bell, it is answered by a theory that derives locality rather than assuming it.