Photons, Entanglement, and Null Updating in Modal Triplet Theory

We present a unified structural account of photons within Modal Triplet Theory (MTT). In MTT, physical description arises from admissible coherent configurations on a higher-dimensional modal space that are projected into an effective four-dimensional encoding. Within this framework, photons are identified as massless gauge-coherence modes whose preferred physical encoding is global and non-factorizing. Null propagation at the speed of light arises as the unique admissible updating of such coherence under stability and boundedness constraints, rather than as a kinematic postulate. Localization, particle-like behavior, and discrete detection events emerge only when interaction or measurement enforces a partition of the coherent encoding. Gravitational lensing and redshift are described as continuous re-encodings of the same coherence constraint under varying admissibility geometry. Horizons are identified as admissibility barriers across which global encoding fails, forcing exterior re-encoding and yielding thermality consistent with Hawking radiation. Time is treated as an encoding-dependent construct associated with coherence rebalancing and record formation, with massless gauge modes admitting atemporal encodings along null updating directions. The framework does not modify quantum electrodynamics or general relativity, but clarifies their structural origin within MTT.