Recursion, Constraint, and Persistence: A Structural Ontology Prior to Computation, Information, and Agency

Recursion, Constraint, and Persistence presents a foundational structural ontology derived from the minimal conditions required for anything to persist under transformation. Rather than assuming time, space, computation, information, observers, agency, or teleology as primitives, the framework begins with identity as the first evaluable condition and derives recursion, constraint, admissibility, irreversibility, and collapse as necessary structural consequences. Within this framework, computation and information processing are shown to be contingent representational specializations of constrained recursion rather than fundamental substrates. Collapse is formalized not as destruction or failure, but as reintegration when expressive capacity is exceeded. Intelligence is characterized structurally as the preservation of admissible continuation under increasing constraint, independent of goals, optimization, or agency. The framework is intentionally non-teleological, observer-independent, and falsifiable at the level of structural persistence. It is not proposed as a competing physical theory, but as a minimal ontological substrate within which physical, computational, and cognitive theories may be situated as effective descriptions. All claims are structural and conditional. No metaphysical truth, predictive completeness, or empirical finality is asserted.