Time as Observation-Limited Entropy Conversion: Emergent Temporality, Relativistic Time Dilation, and Dark Matter from Information Thermodynamics

We propose that time, mass, gravity, and dark matter are facets of a single underlying process: the irreversible thermodynamic cost of resolving unobserved quantum possibilities. Time is the conversion of informational entropy—formally defined as the von Neumann entropy of unobserved degrees of freedom—into thermodynamic entropy through observation, with each bit committed to record incurring the Landauer cost of k_B T ln 2. The present moment is a local "now-horizon" whose advance rate depends on local observation cost; applying the Tolman–Ehrenfest relation to this rate reproduces gravitational and velocity-based time dilation as thermodynamic consequences rather than geometric postulates. Mass is identified with the informational complexity of a region's unresolved possibility space, and gravity emerges as the spatial gradient of observation cost—the path of maximum entropy production through the informational landscape. This identification has a specific empirical consequence: informational complexity must exist wherever coherent quantum correlations exist, including in space surrounding visible matter. We test this prediction against four independent datasets. Convolving a Hernquist baryonic profile with a quantum-field-theory-motivated correlation kernel reproduces the Navarro–Frenk–White dark matter halo with R² = 0.993 at a scaling dimension Δ = 1.09, close to the free scalar field value. The coupling constant α relating baryonic density to informational complexity is not fitted but derived from a steady-state balance between correlation generation and observational destruction; the resulting prediction α ∝ M^(−0.491) agrees with the SPARC database measurement α ∝ M^(−0.594 ± 0.052) to 2σ across 171 galaxies. Applied to KiDS-1000 weak gravitational lensing data, the framework outperforms NFW dark matter fits in all four stellar mass bins (χ²_r = 5.65 vs 8.93) using two global parameters versus eight. The correlation kernel exhibits scale-dependent running, consistent in 12 of 12 independent tests (p < 0.02%), with the outer kernel converging on the theoretical bare value consistent with QFT propagator dressing in a baryonic medium. The framework's extension to galaxy cluster mergers requires distinguishing coherent baryonic matter (cold stars, equilibrium gas) from thermalised baryonic matter (shocked intracluster plasma) through a coherence fraction η that weights the kernel's source. With this refinement—introduced in response to the Bullet Cluster test and openly flagged as post-hoc—the framework reproduces the observed 200 kpc offset between gas and lensing peaks within 13 kpc, succeeding where MOND and emergent gravity fail. The paper concludes with a transparent accounting of which framework quantities are derived, fit, or phenomenological, an honest assessment that cosmological-scale predictions remain undeveloped despite quantitative tests against Pantheon+ and DESI BAO data, and ten distinguished predictions organised by empirical status. The framework's strongest single result is the steady-state α–M scaling exponent prediction confirmed by SPARC; the broader programme is the consistency of these results across kiloparsec to megaparsec scales using a unified theoretical machinery.