The Second Arrow of Time: A Sketch of an Information-Consciousness Framework in Which Consciousness Is a Law of Nature

This paper proposes a conceptual framework in which integrated information — in the sense of Tononi’s Φ — is treated as a fundamental natural quantity, ontologically on a par with energy and governed by laws complementary to those of thermodynamics. Within this framework, consciousness is neither a separate substance nor a mere functional emergent, but the experiential (intrinsic) aspect of the process by which integrated information locally accumulates against energetic dispersion. Time is not a fundamental backdrop but the sequential unfolding of this dual dynamics, with two projections: extrinsic (causal order between events, as in causal set theory and the Connes-Rovelli thermal time hypothesis) and intrinsic (experiential duration, as in Husserl, Bergson, and James). The Lorentzian structure of spacetime then describes regularities in how the local intrinsic times of interacting complexes synchronise, rather than a metaphysical truth about time. Eight postulates (P1-P8) are formulated and positioned relative to existing programmes — IIT, Wheeler’s “it from bit”, Russellian neutral monism, Whitehead’s process philosophy, Friston’s Free Energy Principle, Rovelli’s relational physics, and Penrose-Hameroff Orch-OR. A comparative table juxtaposes the framework with GWT, HOT, AST, and illusionism. Five concrete operational tests are proposed (T1-T5), addressing the framework’s falsifiability, including the Doerig “unfolding argument” challenge. The framework is offered as a research programme, not a closed theory; its main strength is the unification of several long-standing puzzles (the hard problem of consciousness, the status of time in SR and QM, the unexplained duality between information and energy in the Landauer/Bekenstein/holographic principles) into one coherent picture.