Beyond the Qubit: Constructive Paradigms for Post-Particle Computation

Abstract

Companion paper to "The Qubit Delusion" (v1.1, 10.5281/zenodo.21254143). If the qubit-gate-circuit model is an epistemic failure — a projection of particle ontology onto relational, field-theoretic reality — what comes next? We strip quantum mechanics to its minimal ontological commitments, survey alternative paradigms (MBQC, CV-QC, TQC, field-theoretic, analog) for ontological fidelity, assess commercial manufacturability of each physical platform, and ask whether "quantum computing" is even the right frame. The deeper lesson — that computation IS a physical process and the substrate IS the algorithm — points toward thermodynamic, neuromorphic, and optical architectures where physics does the computing directly.