We propose that the event horizon of a black hole is a phase transition in the discrete walk operator W= S·Cgoverning particle propagation on the 8,4,4 error-correcting oc- tahedral lattice. In the normal vacuum, the coin operator C(the CNOT gate, governing temporal evolution) and the shift operator S(bridge propagation, governing spatial move- ment) alternate freely. At a critical frustration density, the Boltzmann cost of the coin exceeds the energy budget of the shift, forcing a structural reorganisation: the coin freezes and its energy redirects into the shift. This produces the space-time swap of general rel- ativity — the radial direction becomes timelike (obligatory infall) while internal evolution becomes spacelike (driven by bridge rotations rather than clock ticks). Hawking radiation arises when virtual excursions through the 208-state invalid subspace are split by this phase transition, orphaning real particles on the exterior. The thermal spectrum follows from the Boltzmann mass formula M = exp(F/2φ). Information is preserved because the walk operator is unitary — the lattice resolves the information paradox by construction. The singularity is replaced by a finite maximum frustration (F = 12), yielding a maximum mass density of exp(12/2φ) ≈16,000 lattice units per void.
David Elliman (Thu,) studied this question.