Why Does Ice Float?

This essay extends the Chaos/Coherence framework by clarifying how our concepts of pre-physics, physical law, and branching histories can be nested into a coherent hierarchy. The prompt was the simple physical fact that ice floats, and the deeper question: when, in the unfolding of reality, was this property set?

1. Chaos Reservoir

At the foundation lies Chaos: the undifferentiated reservoir of all possible informational patterns. This is not physics, not even law-space—just raw potential. In our model, everything begins as chaos awaiting interpretation.

Coherence filters act on this reservoir to carve out patterns, producing interpretable structures. Every layer of reality can be seen as such a filtration: extracting islands of order from seas of chaos.

2. Pre-Physical Filtering: The Ruliad Space

The first great filter across the chaos reservoir is the extraction of consistent rule-sets. In Wolfram’s language, this is the Ruliad: the totality of all possible generative rules. In our terms, this defines the space of Root Pattern Identifiers (Root PIs).

• Each Root PI corresponds to a possible set of physical laws: particle spectra, coupling constants, dimensionality.

• Our universe is one slice through this space.

• Properties like “ice floats” are fixed globally here. They are consequences of quantum-electronic structure, which itself is a consequence of the chosen constants.

Thus, “pre-physical branching” is not quantum decoherence but modal partitioning within the Ruliad: different possible law-sets generated by different filters over chaos.

3. Law-Slice Fixation: Our Physics

Within the Ruliad, coherence produces stable law-slices. Our slice is defined by:

• The Standard Model parameters,

• Gravitation,

• Electron–proton mass ratio,

• Fine-structure constant, etc.

From these emerge Structural PIs: atoms, molecules, chemistry. The property —the density anomaly of water—is a structural consequence of this slice. Once set, it is invariant across all branches in our universe.

Conditionalism reframes this as: If our constants, then ice floats.

4. Physics-Level Filtering: Everettian/QBU Branching

Now, within a fixed law-slice, physics runs. Quantum amplitudes decohere into Everettian branches. This is the familiar QBU structure:

• Different outcomes of measurements,

• Different ecological histories,

• Different choices of agents.

These are Event PIs. Here, ice always floats, but whether this particular lake freezes this winter is contingent on branching histories.

5. Nested Hierarchy

The Chaos/Coherence + Ruliad + QBU model yields a clear three-tier hierarchy:

1. Chaos Reservoir — raw potential patterns.

2. Ruliad Space (Root PIs) — all possible law-sets, pre-physical partitioning.

3. Law-Slice (Structural PIs) — our physics, fixed constants and derived structures.

4. Everett/QBU (Event PIs) — contingent decoherent histories.

Each layer is a filter applied to chaos, yielding coherence appropriate to its scope.

6. Philosophical Payoff

• Anthropic reasoning clarified: “Ice floats” is not a contingent fact of branching but a law-slice invariant. It is a Root PI consequence.

• Conditionalism applied: All truths are conditionals relative to their background filters. At root: If this rule-set, then this physics. At event level: If this state, then this outcome.

• Chaos/Coherence extended: We now explicitly separate pre-physics coherence (Ruliad-level) from physics-level coherence (Everett/QBU).

7. Conclusion

We are not adding new machinery to the Chaos/Coherence framework so much as clarifying its architecture. By distinguishing Root PIs, Structural PIs, and Event PIs, we can locate each kind of “truth” in its proper tier. The density anomaly of water is thus not just a quirky fact about lakes, but a vivid example of how Root-level constants shape the entire downstream branching ecology of our universe.