The Qualia-Exclusive Simulation Thesis (QEST): A Unified Model for Quantum Reality and Consciousness

The Qualia-Exclusive Simulation Thesis (QEST) proposes that physical reality is rendered only at the point of conscious observation, while all unobserved systems persist as compressed informational states within a Probability Grid (PG). QEST introduces a Two-Stage Collapse mechanism—Mathematical Registration and Experiential Rendering—to resolve the measurement problem and distinguish conscious instantiation from sensor-only detection. This updated version includes the Inert-State Dynamics extension, which explains how unobserved systems evolve through PG-level predictive updating, allowing classical motion and time evolution without continuous physical instantiation. It further develops the Last-Observer Telescope argument as an efficiency proof and presents a new interpretation of black holes as Informational Compression Nodes, where collapsing matter transitions into PG-state storage and re-emerges via Hawking radiation, preserving unitarity. QEST unifies quantum mechanics, relativity, computation, and consciousness into a single information-centric ontology with philosophical and empirical coherence, offering a candidate framework for a comprehensive Theory of Everything