Informational Ontology: A Structural Framework for Organizational Regimes

This work presents the Informational Ontology as a scope-disciplined ontological framework describing a sequence of organizational regimes: Difference, Relation, Information, Awareness, Value, Meaning, and Purpose (Δ → R → I → A → V → M → P). The framework is not offered as an axiom-only derivation of all possible being. Instead, it specifies structural constraints that become unavoidable under explicit conditions: differentiation, ordering, and selection under perturbation. The ontology is structural rather than empirical. It does not propose physical models, cognitive mechanisms, or normative prescriptions. It articulates the conditions under which systems capable of registration, differential constraint, coherent organization, and self-influencing trajectories can arise, without assuming any particular implementation. The core derivation is presented without reliance on metaphor, intuition pumps, or application-specific examples. Exploratory material and boundary analyses are separated into appendices. The framework is intended to be evaluated on internal coherence, clarity of scope, and the adequacy of its stated premises and regime transitions. This document constitutes Informational Ontology (IO), Rev. 5k, and serves as the foundational reference for the broader corpus. The formal construction workflow for the corpus is specified in Iterative Constraint Construction. Rev. 5k: Added standardized front-matter methodological disclosure and formal cross-reference to Iterative Constraint Construction; introduced macro-level part headings for document organization; and made minor wording, formatting, and typesetting corrections. No substantive changes to primitives, definitions, or regime transitions.