TOPOLOGICAL CONTROL THEORY: Deriving Time and Agency from Recursive Feedback Loops

Contemporary physics struggles to reconcile the timeless block universe of General Relativity with the subjective experience of flowing time and agency. The Topological Control Theory proposes a unified ontological framework in which matter, time, and consciousness emerge from a minimal set of topological axioms, without invoking fundamental physical laws or dualistic substrates. Reality is modeled as a discrete, deterministic, self-referential Relational Graph (Substrate G), where Poincaré Recurrence stabilizes causal chains into Recursive Loops that constitute matter, and forces arise as computational costs of constraint density. Subjective Time is derived from control theory: biological and complex systems act as PID controllers, with the Integral term mapping directly to experienced duration. Qualia are defined as the metric geometry of this internal reference frame, subject to temporal aliasing. Agency emerges as the self—a Narrative Loop within the swarm of autonomous control modules—creating a closed epistemic interface that simulates a temporal world within a timeless static block.