Not-knowing always carries more meaning than knowing.
This document traces a single line of reasoning from an everyday observation to its logical terminus: a measurable physical constant as the answer to the most abstract question in epistemology.
The derivation begins with the observation that explaining a phenomenon reduces its felt significance. It proceeds through the identification of meaning as a thermodynamic gradient, the inversion of the Vienna Circle's verification principle, the structural identity of religion and astrophysics, the energy balance of cognition, and the question of whether reality is finite or infinite. It arrives at a concrete answer: the speed of light (c = 299,792,458 m/s) creates a permanent cosmological horizon that guarantees the structural persistence of meaning. The simulation proof then demonstrates that this is not a subjective cognitive response but an objective physical quantity — the irreducible error term between any finite simulation and the reality it models.
The argument is self-demonstrating: a complete explanation of meaning must itself feel trivial upon comprehension, because meaning depends on the presence of unexplained remainder. The proof is enacted by reading it.
The limitation is the meaning. Without finite propagation speed, every region of spacetime would eventually be causally connected, every gradient would equilibrate, and significance would reach thermodynamic death alongside energy.
Space may be infinite. Dark energy appears to increase with expansion. Time moves forward without known limit. But nothing propagates faster than c. The universe contains regions that are permanently causally disconnected. Beyond the cosmological horizon, information can never reach us.
This permanent, irresolvable gradient between accessible and inaccessible information is the structural foundation of meaning. A measurable physical constant as the answer to the most abstract question in epistemology.
The entire derivation compresses to six words: digression is uncompressed meaning. Every explanation longer than necessary distributes significance across surface area that requires none. This document is itself an act of compression. Its content, fully understood, should feel trivial. That feeling is the proof.