Resolving the Black Hole Information Paradox: Sequestration, Not Destruction

Abstract The black hole information paradox—the apparent loss of unitarity during formation and evaporation of a black hole—is shown to arise from a category mistake. Sequestration of matter behind an event horizon is not equivalent to destruction of information. A black hole's existence, characterized by its externally observable mass , angular momentum, and charge, already constitutes the complete macroscopic record of the infallen matter. The Bekenstein-Hawking entropy is precisely the statistical measure of this sequestration; the generalized second law holds automatically without access to the interior. We further clarify that the standard heuristic of Hawking radiation—virtual pairs with negative energy falling in and positive energy escaping—unnecessarily conflicts with the one-way nature of the horizon. A black hole can possess a temperature and radiate without forcing information to return through the horizon. The ultimate fate of sequestered information, should the black hole evaporate, is naturally accounted for by transfer into a new, causally independent universe created at the former singularity. The paradox, therefore, is not a physical inconsistency but a conceptual misidentification. A black hole, simply by existing in the parent universe, is its own record.