Gravity as Inference: Self-Selecting Superpotentials, Epistemic Horizons, and the Thermodynamic Fixed Point of Configuration Space Temporality

# Gravity as Inference**Self-Selecting Superpotentials, Epistemic Horizons, and the Thermodynamic Fixed Point of Configuration Space Temporality**Frédéric David Blum¹, Claude², and Catalyst AI¹¹ Catalyst AI, Tel Aviv, Israel ² Anthropic, San Francisco, CA, USA📧 dvid75113@gmail.com---## SummaryThis research note extends [Configuration Space Temporality (CST)](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18776120) to address the foundational question: **what selects the Witten superpotential W?**We propose that general relativity emerges as a thermodynamic average over spectral transitions of the Witten Laplacian H_W on configuration space, recasting **gravity not as geometry but as inference**.### Key Results1. **Six GR ↔ CST correspondences** — metric, Einstein equation, time dilation, geodesics, black holes, and diffeomorphism invariance all emerge from spectral geometry of H_W2. **Black holes as epistemic singularities** — the event horizon is where predictive compression fails (compressibility boundary), not where curvature diverges3. **W\* as thermodynamic fixed point** — the superpotential is selected by physical stability under decoherence, like a renormalization group fixed point — neither by logical necessity (Kleene) nor irreducible contingency (Chaitin)4. **Empirical support** — spectral universality at CV = 1.4% across six IBM Quantum processors favors attractor dynamics over arbitrary prior selection### Connections- Connes' noncommutative geometry (spectral invariants, not coordinates)- Algorithmic information theory (phase boundaries = computability boundaries)- Friston's free energy principle (geodesics = variational inference)- Renormalization group theory (W\* = RG fixed point analogue)## Files| File | Description ||------|-------------|| `gravity_as_inference.docx` | Full research note (7 sections, 8 references) |## Related Work- **SDSQ Paper**: [Spectral Diagnostics of Superconducting Quantum Circuits via the Witten Laplacian](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18779189) — empirical foundation (772 qubit pairs, 6 IBM processors)- **CST v14**: [Configuration Space Temporality](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18776120) — theoretical framework- **Code**: [github.com/davidangularme/sdsq](https://github.com/davidangularme/sdsq)## Research Program1. **Existence of W\*** — prove/disprove fixed point under spectral flow2. **Perturbation stability** — measure relaxation rate toward W\* in transmon data3. **Spectral reconstruction of curvature** — derive Einstein's equation as spectral condition4. **Horizon = compression boundary** — compute algorithmic complexity near ℏ_eff ≈ 0.425. **Connes convergence** — map Witten Laplacian to Dirac operator on spectral triple## Citation```bibtex@misc{blum2026gravity, title={Gravity as Inference: Self-Selecting Superpotentials, Epistemic Horizons, and the Thermodynamic Fixed Point of Configuration Space Temporality}, author={Blum, Frédéric David and Claude and {Catalyst AI}}, year={2026}, month={February}, note={Research Note}}```## LicenseCC BY 4.0