# Thread report: arXiv:2609.07127 — Gisin on new-information creation at a limited rate vs. many-worlds

- Reader thread: T4 (Gisin finite information rate)
- Date: 2026-09-15
- Source: arXiv abstract page (https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.07127), full text via arXiv experimental HTML (https://arxiv.org/html/2609.07127v1), PDF header (metadata only)
- Status: **VERIFIED** — identifier is exactly what the requester believed; full text read, not just abstract.

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## 0. Verification (requester's first question)

**The identifier is what you thought it was.** arXiv:2609.07127 is "From Quantum Cryptography to Intuitionism and beyond: relativity, many-worlds and non-locality" by **Nicolas Gisin**, [quant-ph], v1 posted Mon 7 Sep 2026 07:20:02 UTC. It is not a different paper; no substitution or closest-match needed. Everything below is VERIFIED against the opened full text unless marked otherwise.

## 1. Bibliographic facts

- **Title:** "From Quantum Cryptography to Intuitionism and beyond: relativity, many-worlds and non-locality"
- **Author:** Nicolas Gisin — Group of Applied Physics, University of Geneva, 1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland; Constructor University, Bremen, Germany
- **arXiv:** 2609.07127v1 [quant-ph]; arXiv-issued DOI https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.07127
- **Date:** v1 Mon, 7 Sep 2026 (paper header: "September 7, 2026"); as of today (15 Sep 2026) it is 8 days old, no v2
- **Length/comments:** 8 pages, 3 figures
- **Journal reference:** none. It is a Festschrift-style contribution for Gilles Brassard's 70th birthday ("on the occasion of his 70th birthday I present, first, a new idea on creation of new information at a limited rate"). Unpublished-in-journal as of retrieval.
- License note: PDF metadata carries CC-BY-4.0.

## 2. Central claim — abstract, verbatim

> "After a recollection of some of my encounters with Gilles Brassard, on the occasion of his 70th birthday I present, first, a new idea on creation of new information at a limited rate. Next, I develop the idea that "indeterminacy is relative" [Entropy 23 1326 (2021)] and how this illuminates the compatibility between relativity and non-locality."

The paper is two separate proposals stitched together by one worldview: (a) Section III — nature can create genuinely new bits, but **only at a limited rate**; (b) Section IV — facts and propensities are relative to space-time location, which dissolves the relativity-vs-nonlocality tension without many-worlds.

His own framing of the deep claim (Section IV): a true random number generator creates bits, so "there is a time before the random number was produced and a time after. Hence, time 'created' one or several new bits of information. Here time does not merely pass, but is a real process." And: "quantum randomness is too often seen as a challenge, not as the fuel of time." (Section II). [Evidence class: serious speculation / his own inference — flagged by him as such.]

## 3. The rate — THE key question for us

**There is a rate, but it is a structural parameter with NO number attached.**

Section III, verbatim:

> "Assume that nature can produce/create new bits of information, as assumed during quantum measurements, and assumed in naturalised intuitionistic mathematics. But assume she can't produce arbitrarily large quantities of fresh information in a finite time. **Let's denote ḡ the maximum number of new bits per unit time and volume.**"

- **Form:** a bound, "maximum number of new bits per unit time and volume" (bits per time per volume). A named constant ḡ, nothing more.
- **No numerical value.** Not tied to Planck units, not tied to any measured quantity, not derived. There is no scale-setting anywhere in the paper.
- His own speculative aside on scale (footnote 7): "A consequence of this assumption is that, if the Universe is finite both in time and in space, there is a kind of largest 'number', ḡ times its age and its volume. Hum, not sure I take that too seriously. But why not?" — i.e., he flirts with a cosmic total count, explicitly not committing.
- He explicitly disclaims modelhood: "The above sketch is very vague, certainly not enough even to claim a model. But I believe it makes some sense and is worth developing."

**Physics role of ḡ:** in a classically-chaotic quantum system (example: kicked top of N=20 spins), unitarity rapidly generates entanglement requiring ~2^N parameters; finite-information initial conditions would force "nature to produce an enormous amount of information in a very short time." If she can't (rate ḡ), his suggestion is that she splits the system: "nature splits the 20 spins in two parts, each of about 10 spins (N/2). Now, it suffices to produce enough information for 2·2^{N/2} parameters… a way much smaller number, possibly a number of fresh bits that nature can produce in the given time." This is the entire quantitative content: exponential entanglement growth as a demand on a bit-creation budget, with one illustrative way of meeting it. There is no equation for ḡ, no bound on ḡ, no units beyond "bits per unit time and volume."

**Verdict for the requester's framing:** this is a claim about a substrate's throughput in name only — "creation capacity," not throughput of an implemented computation. It is closer to your circling concept than anyone else's published work I know, but Gisin has **not** done the rigorous version. He supplies no rate, no scale, and no mechanism, and says so himself. Relevant distinction he does make (Section II, via Brassard & colleagues, refs [15],[16]): *new bits ≠ new digits* — a freshly revealed digit of an existing real number is not new information. He credits Turing with the same confusion (Berthelette, Brassard, Coiteux-Roy, "On computable numbers, with an application to the Druckproblem," Theoret. Comput. Sci. 1002, 114573 (2024); Turing 1937). [Evidence class: serious speculation; his own disclaimer quoted.]

## 4. The argument against many-worlds

Two distinct strands, and it matters which is which:

**(a) The ḡ-based argument (Section III) — physical-formal, but conditional.** If nature's fresh-information rate is finite, an endlessly-splitting, endlessly-entangling universe is unaffordable; "why should one extrapolate our small laboratory experiments to the entire cosmos, personally I do not believe in concepts like 'the state-vector of the universe'." Verbatim: "**If my very sketchy proposal turns out productive, then the many-worlds interpretation would be falsified.**" Note the conditional: it is falsification of MWI conditioned on the sketch becoming a model — which he admits it is not yet.

**(b) The relativity-of-indeterminacy argument (Section IV) — conceptual/philosophical, with physical furniture.** His "main argument is simple: measurements have outcomes, one and only one outcome per measurement; and Bell non-locality is an empirical fact." Against MWI he contrasts: MWI says the world locally splits and recombines at light-cone merges "with weights"; his alternative says single outcomes occur locally, become facts inside their future light cones only, and distant correlated outcomes are one "global random event" / "de-localized event" whose joint probability does not factorize: p(a,b) ≠ p(a)·p(b). No spooky action: "nothing changes at the distant location"; the conditional propensity p(b|a) "is valid inside [the first light-cone] and p(b) outside." Facts are relative — but "not relative to some agent or observer, in contrast to [Brukner; Wiseman-Cavalcanti-Rieffel; Di Biagio-Rovelli], but is relative to space-time location." He also carries a free-will objection from 2013 (refs [37],[38]: "Are There Quantum Effects Coming from Outside Space-Time? Nonlocality, Free Will and 'No Many-Worlds'", 2013; "The Multiverse Pandemic", arXiv:2210.05377 (2022)).

**Classification:** strand (a) is a physics-flavored argument but currently mathematical/formal only (no model); strand (b) is a philosophical-conceptual argument dressed in a space-time diagram. Not an empirical argument. He explicitly notes the picture "is incompatible with classical logic" and calls for "more work on suitable logics for indeterministic physics" (ref [18], in preparation). [Evidence class: serious speculation / his own inference.]

## 5. Falsifiability — the single thing you care about most

**Answer: No. The paper proposes no experiment and no observation that could distinguish its claims from standard quantum mechanics, and it makes no quantitative prediction.** State that plainly: *not falsifiable as presented* — and that is Gisin's own assessment in effect ("not enough even to claim a model").

What it *does* gesture at, so you have every crumb:
- **Quantum-computational signature (the closest thing to a prediction).** Verbatim (Section III): "what would be the implication for quantum computers in case nature is really limited in her capacity to produce enormous amount of entanglement in a short time? I believe the consequences could be serious. **If it requires lengthy time to produce the kind of entanglement needed for efficient quantum computations, then decoherence might be even more damaging than usually thought.** Of course, error correction may help to mitigate this, but that means even more entanglement, hence longer times. At the end, it is not clear who would win, the devil hides in the details." — Qualitative, hedged three ways, no threshold, no number. It is a *kind* of prediction (entanglement-generation slowdown in chaotic quantum systems) but with no falsifiable magnitude.
- **Aspirational criterion, not a prediction:** "the solution(s) [to the measurement problem] will lead to new physics, with new predictions and new technologies. I do not know the solution." Conclusion: privileged-frame and observer-dependent-fact programs "may be a valid research program, but only if it leads to new physics, to new predictions."
- **References he waves at** for "new predictions," none of which test ḡ: Salart-Baas-Branciard-Gisin-Zbinden _Nature_ 454, 861 (2008); Yin et al. PRL 110, 260407 (2013); Cocciaro et al. Phys. Lett. A 375, 379 (2011); Bancal et al. Nat. Phys. 8, 867 (2012); Papatryfonos & Vervoort "Proposed experiments for detecting contextual hidden variables," arXiv:2506.02637. These probe privileged-frame/contextual-hidden-variable ideas, which are *his other, older* research lines — not the rate claim.
- **One pointer worth chasing for you:** ref [29], T. Palmer, "Rational quantum mechanics: Testing quantum theory with quantum computers," PNAS 123, e2523350123 (2026) — cited precisely at the "less than 1 bit per parameter" moment, i.e., where finite-information limits meet testable quantum-computation consequences. Palmer's invariant-set program is the one place in this family that actually *does* propose QC-based tests of QM. If you want a falsifiable cousin of Gisin's idea, Palmer is the reference. (UNVERIFIED-SNIPPET for Palmer's paper itself — I have not opened it; identifier as cited by Gisin.)

## 6. Programme context — key prior papers, exact identifiers

The 2609.07127 reference list plus verification of arXiv identifiers:
- **Gisin, "Indeterminism in Physics, Classical Chaos and Bohmian Mechanics. Are Real Numbers Really Real?," Erkenntnis 86, 1469 (2019)** — arXiv:**1803.06824**. THE origin paper of the programme ("This was the start for me of an entirely new research program"). VERIFIED identifier.
- **Del Santo & Gisin, "Physics without Determinism: Alternative Interpretations of Classical Physics," Phys. Rev. A 100, 062107 (2019)** — arXiv:**1909.03697**. Introduces "Finite Information Quantities" (FIQs). VERIFIED identifier. (Follow-up Comment/Reply: Callegaro et al. PRA 102, 036201; reply arXiv:**2009.12284**.)
- **Gisin, "Mathematical languages shape our understanding of time in physics," Nature Physics 16, 114-119 (2020)** — arXiv:**2002.01653** ("Classical and intuitionistic mathematical languages shape our understanding of time in physics"). The intuitionism turn. VERIFIED identifier.
- **Gisin, "Indeterminism in physics and intuitionistic mathematics," Synthese 199, 13345 (2021)** — no arXiv number given in refs; I did not chase it. The other philosophy-journal piece.
- **Del Santo & Gisin, "The relativity of indeterminacy," Entropy 23, 1326 (2021)** — arXiv:**2101.04134**. The view Section IV of 2609.07127 builds on. VERIFIED identifier.
- **Del Santo & Gisin, "Potentiality realism: a realistic and indeterministic physics based on propensities," Eur. Jnl Phil Sci 13, 58 (2023)**. No arXiv number in refs; unchased.
- **Bentzen, Del Santo & Gisin, "Naturalistic intuitionism for physics"** — arXiv:**2509.22528** (2025). His realism-vs-Brouwer-idealism correction.
- **Gisin, "The Multiverse Pandemic"** — arXiv:**2210.05377** (2022). His standalone anti-MWI piece.
- Also cited: Del Santo & Gisin, "Creative and geometric times in physics, mathematics, logic, and philosophy," arXiv:**2404.06566** (2024) — "time 'created' bits" paper.

## 7. Responses / citations / rebuttals to 2609.07127

**None found.** Two targeted web searches on 2026-09-15 (exact-title search; "creation of new information limited rate many-worlds response criticism") returned only the arXiv listing and a Pith aggregator page. At 8 days old, that is expected. Nothing to report — no citations, no critiques, no v2. Acknowledgment line of note (provenance, since you care about how this material is produced): "No AI has seen this paper, nor any previous version of it." — worth preserving for the record.

## Bottom line for Argus's simulation-signature research

- Confirmed: Gisin has, in the last week, published the closest published thing to a "universe as finite-throughput creator of bits" claim, and he links it to MWI falsification.
- BUT: it is a named-but-unquantified bound (ḡ, bits per time per volume), openly non-model ("very vague"), making **no prediction** and offering **no experiment**; standard QM is untouched ("there is no way back," QM "is a better theory"). The many-worlds argument is conditional-on-future-work plus a pre-existing philosophical objection.
- The single most falsifiable item in the paper's orbit is its ref [29]: Palmer 2026 (PNAS), "Testing quantum theory with quantum computers" — where finite-information constraints are tied to actual QC tests. That is the thread worth pulling next, not the ḡ sketch itself.
- He also draws the new-bits-vs-new-digits distinction (with Turing as an ancestor of the error) — a useful precision tool for any "finite information" argument: information is created only when a bit that had *no truth value* acquires one; re-reading digits of an existing number creates nothing.

## Retrieval honesty

- Opened and read in full (VERIFIED): arXiv abstract page; arXiv HTML v1 full text (all 5 sections + footnotes 1-11 + all 52 references). PDF was fetched but returned as raw compressed bytes (metadata only: author=Gisin, title confirmed); the HTML version carries the same v1 content, so nothing in items 1-6 is from an unopened source except where marked UNVERIFIED-SNIPPET (Palmer 2026; two arXiv-less journal articles noted as unchased).