Finite-Action Reconstructive Histories and the Fisher Structure of the Quantum Potential

This paper extends the causal reconstruction programme from static optimal states to finite-action dynamical histories. A reconstructive history is modelled as a curve of probability measures in the mass-scaled Wasserstein space (P(M), W2,m), and admissible histories are selected by a reconstructive action combining a Wasserstein kinetic term, a Fisher information term, and a causal constraint. In the revised architecture of the programme, the continuous histories studied in this paper are not taken as primitive. They are understood as the effective continuum limit of discrete causal chains introduced in Article 17, where elementary succession is defined by an action quantum a0. Article 18 then shows, under explicit regularity assumptions, that such discrete chains converge variationally to the continuous reconstructive action used here. The resulting Euler–Lagrange equations form a coupled system: a continuity equation for the evolving density and a generalized Hamilton–Jacobi equation for the velocity potential. The central result is the Fisher–Bohm identity. For any sufficiently regular positive density ρ, the functional derivative of Fisher information satisfies δI / δρ(x) = -4 Δ√ρ / √ρ, so that the Bohm–Madelung quantum potential is exactly Q(x) = (ℏ2 / 8m) · δI / δρ(x). Thus the quantum potential is the Fisher information gradient of the probability density, scaled by ℏ2/8m. When the Fisher coupling in the reconstructive action is set to λ = ℏ2/8m, the Euler–Lagrange equations coincide with the Madelung equations and are therefore equivalent to the Schrödinger equation, under the standard assumptions of positive density and irrotational flow. This establishes a structural correspondence between reconstructive dynamics and non-relativistic quantum mechanics. The result is not presented as a derivation of quantum mechanics: the coupling λ = ℏ2/8m is matched through the Madelung Hamiltonian rather than derived from the reconstruction hypotheses. In the later architecture of the programme, the uniqueness of this coupling is addressed in Article 11, while the action quantum and its cosmological calibration are addressed in Articles 12–18.