Jonathan,
As always, you frame the physics in metaphysics, which is as appropriate for this specific topic as any we have seen. You also relate childhood learning to the topics (I believe you're the only one to do this.) I agree that the relevant perceptions occur before verbalization skills are acquired. You note that it is necessary to put aside preconceptions and see again with childlike eyes. Easier said than done, as this seems to be the purpose of Zen training and often takes years, when it succeeds. Other techniques include psychedelics and strokes as Jill Bolte Taylor relates. In my mind this distinction is between connectedness, or topology, and distance, or metric awareness, two entirely and fundamentally different ways of perceiving. I believe the Zen poem "an inch's difference and heaven and earth are separated" speaks to this reality. Either one has awareness of the unity or Oneness (Not-Two-ness) of the universe, or one perceives "objects" and "distances" between objects. You're the only essayist to focus is on these fundamental modes of awareness and how we begin with connectedness and evolve to separateness.
I like your metaphor of information, forces, and objects as a play. I also believe the day is already here when we can "learn by eating", as in Salvia and psilocybin, but there are both legal and mental risks associated with this and it is serious business. Alan Watts has written of "the Dance" for Westerners. As you note, this tends to be "built into" Eastern thinking. And as you so perceptively state:
"...there is a significant influence on our perceptions from habits of mind, apart from the nature of the universe itself."
Unfortunately these "habits of mind" are established over time as learned connections and "threshold settings", and are not easily "unlearned" or "reset", so the 'topological' view of the nature of the universe itself is truly a "hidden variable".
It's a very interesting question as to whether the "process languages" actually lead to a different perception of reality. I don't know the answer to that, although I suspect that all adults necessarily dwell in the 'metric' world, and have forgotten topological awareness as if it never existed. As related in my essay, I'm a realist and believe there is a single "substance" underlying reality, which, according to my theory, is most likely identified with gravity, a real field, not abstract geometry.
You note that "the part played by forces and energy in the universe is intermediate between information and objects." I tend to see the transfer of energy to an object as "informing" the object or local contextual structure when it crosses a threshold, becoming information at that point, (and simultaneously gaining semantic 'meaning' in terms of the context or codebook, which may be embedded in a hierarchically structured net of 'objects' such as dynamic neurons).
You also note that the hardware, software, necessary energy, of computers still require interactive direction of a human user; i.e. human consciousness.
As always, we agree on so much, yet still end up with different final interpretations. We'll simply have to agree that that's the nature of the Dance.
Best regards, good luck in the contest.
Edwin Eugene Klingman