Result

Actualisation is the fundamental state.

It expresses as symmetry (S), as symmetry breaking (B), as awareness — coupling capacity, the first real coupling opportunity — as record (R), as probability constrained by the record algebra, and as now.

Awareness is the stage of actualisation at which coupling becomes possible. It expresses the capacity of energy:

E ≡ κ(B)AS

Energy equals coupling capacity of the break at the actualisation state. Without coupling capacity, no coupling. Without coupling, no energy.

The Big Bang is the first actualisation event — the smallest possible break opening the largest possible possibility space. Dark matter is the un-actualised portion of that space.

Energy conservation is the measurable face of the fact that coupling capacity cannot be created or destroyed, only redistributed. Noether’s time-translation invariance is derived from B’s permanence, not assumed.

The dependency chain runs: actualisation → awareness (coupling capacity) → observation → consciousness → self-consciousness. Each requires the prior category. None of them ground actualisation. Actualisation grounds all of them.

The hard problem of consciousness is a question asked from three floors above the foundation. Correcting the floor does not close the question — it relocates it to where it might be closeable.

E=mc² tells you how much. E ≡ κ(B)AS — a structural identity, not a computational law — tells you what and why.