Particlehood as a Retrodicted Persistence Threshold Under Irreversible Constraint Pruning

Stanley Everett Sambey

Published Apr 19, 2026• 0 citations

Abstract

We propose that particle-like entities are not best treated as fundamental primitives, but as persis-tent, distinguishable branches that emerge when admissible alternatives are irreversibly pruned. Weargue that the transition into particlehood cannot be directly observed at its own instant, because allmeasurement presupposes already-persistent records. Particlehood must therefore be inferred retro-dictively from downstream observables that witness the prior loss of admissible alternatives. Weformalize this inference problem and define a downstream witness framework based on persistence,distinguishability, and recoverable record structure. We then connect this program to a selection-only simulation architecture in which irreversible tagging alters admissible identity histories withoutmodifying local field dynamics. Early first-pass data are included as a control-regime illustration.Across the completed subset examined so far, survival remains saturated across tagging strengths,indicating that the present run occupies a dynamics-dominated persistent regime rather than a near-threshold formation regime. The resulting framework remains falsifiable: if future runs in marginalregimes show systematic gamma-dependent changes in persistence without direct field intervention,that would support the claim that irreversible distinguishability can influence particle-like stabilitydownstream of realization. Keywords: particle emergence, irreversible constraint pruning, persistence threshold, distin-guishability, retrodictive inference, vortex dynamics, selection-only simulation, re-merging suppres-sion, downstream observables

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19651138

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