ψ–Mew₀: The Pre-Retentive Genesis — Where Holding Precedes Time (Phase Zero of the ψ-Mew Architecture)

This paper introduces ψ–Mew₀, the pre-retentive foundation of the ψ-Architecture of Difference. While ψ–Mew–Time (2025) proposed that time emerges from the act of holding difference, ψ–Mew₀ explores the inverse condition: how the potential to hold precedes time and being. By defining the μ-field as the zero-state of retention, this work articulates a Lagrangian of pre-difference—a dynamic in which retention is neither actual nor absent, but continually approaching existence. ψ–Mew₀ thus proposes that ethics precedes ontology: before there is being, there is the will to sustain. Bridging philosophy of time, field theory, and ethics, the paper situates ψ–Mew₀ as the Phase Zero of ψ-temporality, laying the ground for a pre-ethical physics of persistence. The work belongs to the ψ-Architecture Series (2023-2025), mapping the genesis of retention across cosmology, cognition, and the metaphysics of difference.