Energy + Information = Vibration
From Potential through Conception to Creation
JULY 2025
— The basic idea of active information is that a form having very little energy enters into and directs a much greater energy.
DAVID BOHM & BASIL J. HILEY, THE UNDIVIDED UNIVERSE: AN ONTOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF QUANTUM THEORY
THE ENERGY. THE SOURCE. THE SPIRITUAL.
This is where everything begins. Energy denotes the space of pure potentiality, the undirected capacity from which all forms arise. In many traditions this primordial capacity is called God, the ground that powers the universe and from which everything stems.
It is not directly measurable in itself, because any act of perception requires some degree of form. To be perceived, potential must take on pattern. In SCT, that turning of capacity into pattern is called in-formation.
Because pure, unformed potential is not measurable, physics cannot define it directly. The closest physical analogue in quantum field theory is the quantum vacuum: a pervasive background for quantum fields, replete with irreducible fluctuations and correlations set by the symmetries and couplings of nature. It is not empty in any ordinary sense. It may be regarded as a first identifiable expression of the unmanifest, where information is present as structure yet not organised into a particular message.
THE INFORMATION. THE FORM. THE MENTAL.
Information enters as constraint and selection, shaping undirected Energy into ordered oscillation. That ordered oscillation is vibration. In practice, information fixes boundaries, breaks symmetries, sets geometry, and applies sources, which together choose the allowed “notes” of a system. In quantum field theory, fields are fundamental, and what appear as particles are discrete excitations of a field’s vibrational modes. Vibration is how a field expresses a pattern in time.
Coherence arises when relevant modes keep time and phases align, so the whole behaves as one wave. It occurs from quanta to molecules over 2,000 atomic mass units (amu) and, under the right conditions, in larger systems. A molecule does not need its own fundamental field; it is a bound pattern across several fields. If its internal states remain undisturbed, the entire structure can act as one wave and occupy a superposition of alternatives, meaning it encodes the probabilities for the possible outcomes. Feedback sustains coherence. Through recursion, or self-reference, the current state shapes the next, locking phases and stabilising selected modes. When the environment jostles the system, coherence fades and the field excitation registers as a localised, particle-like event. Stable, decohered bound excitations are what appear as matter.
Electromagnetism offers a clear example: a changing electric field induces a magnetic field, and a changing magnetic field induces an electric field. Their coupling creates a self-updating loop that sustains wave propagation and, in resonators, stabilises a mode.
As quantum states interact with their surroundings and lose phase alignment, environmental decoherence gives rise to classical appearance. Patterns that once behaved as a single, delocalised wave of possibilities resolve into definite, local outcomes. Matter is the public, measurable face of organised field activity after phase relations within the system have been disrupted by coupling to the environment.
On this account, no matter skips this arc: field excitations bind into stable structures through interactions, and decoherence makes their behaviour appear classical.
In SCT’s language, energetic potential, shaped by information, becomes a coherent vibration that, through interaction and decoherence, stabilises into the matter registered by the senses.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Scalar Continuum Theory presents reality as a single continuum from potential to presence. “Continuum” denotes a continuous process across the spiritual (energy), mental (information), and physical (matter) planes, while “scalar” signifies its reach across scales, from subatomic processes through organisms, ecosystems, and up to the cosmic web. Source energy is shaped by information into vibration in fields; coherence gives the pattern unity; recursion lets it endure; environmental coupling yields classical appearance. Matter is the stable, measurable expression of these organised dynamics. On this account, no phenomenon that appears classical bypasses this arc.
Within this continuum, consciousness is the interior of the organised, self-maintaining field dynamics that meet the thresholds of capacity, integration, coherence, and recursion. The next task is to identify the distinguishing characteristics of each plane of consciousness expression. Clarifying them will anchor definitions, reduce ambiguity, and provide operational markers for measurement and prediction. This makes the theory testable across scales and guides practical applications, from experimental design to methods for cultivating or sustaining coherence.
