The Nested Cosmic Organization Hypothesis (NCOH): A Refined Research Framework for Multiscale Causal Emergence, Astrophysical Thermodynamics, Information Integration, and Cosmopsychism

Abstract

The Nested Cosmic Organization Hypothesis (NCOH) proposes that physical reality exhibits a hierarchy of organizational scales — from quantum and molecular systems through cells, organisms, ecosystems, planetary systems, galaxies, and the cosmic web — at which qualitatively distinct macroscopic causal and informational properties can emerge. The refined NCOH makes no claim that larger astrophysical structures are alive or conscious. It advances a narrower, testable proposition: physical systems may show recurrent, scale-dependent regimes in which coarse-grained variables carry greater causal informativeness, predictive autonomy, or synergistic information than descriptions at neighboring microscopic scales. The central question is whether measurable invariants of causal organization recur across physically unrelated substrates. Galactic gas regulation is not biological homeostasis. Network similarity between the brain and the cosmic web does not demonstrate shared cognition. Thermodynamic self-organization does not imply agency. Causal emergence does not establish subjective experience. Integrated Information Theory (IIT) remains a contested theory of consciousness, and its extension to astrophysical systems is mathematically and philosophically unresolved. NCOH separates three layers: established physical and astrophysical phenomena, a falsifiable research program on multiscale causal organization, and higher-order philosophical interpretations such as cosmopsychism. The scientific core stands independently of the consciousness hypothesis. Only reproducible, substrate-independent patterns of causal emergence and information integration would justify extending the framework toward theories of consciousness.