Does Information Fix Newton's Constant? The κ-Seam Adjudication of the Entropic Area Density

Abstract

Informational derivations of gravity identify the entropic area density η with 1/(4Gℏ). Is that coefficient an independent microscopic datum, or the entropic reading of a coupling fixed elsewhere? This preprint — Paper IV of the RCD 3.0 program and the first public record of the κ-Seam cycle — reports a preregistered adversarial adjudication of that question over a frozen, hash-sealed corpus, executed by five independent AI voices under a contrafactual discrimination rule, with all adjudications and responsibility belonging to the author. Two positive results anchor the record. First, the operation that makes entropy well defined — type III₁ → type II₁ with a trace — can be executed with quantum field theory, a KMS condition, and a quantum reference frame, with no gravitational input among the premises: a neutral enabler. Second, the Strominger–Vafa microstate count is topological, protected, and expressed in integer charges alone, with no G on the microscopic side. Information defines and counts by its own means. What was never located is an independent microscopic determination of the absolute entropic area density that selects the gravitational coupling. Across the examined corpus, the step assigning the absolute per-area normalization is where the gravitational effective theory re-enters. The record adjudicates κ-DESCENT under a corpus-relative standard with explicit reopening conditions. The positive result is a division of labor: information defines and counts; the effective theory supplies the absolute currency; what mints that currency remains open.