SΔϕ-20 — Intuition as Irreversible Compression Trace: No-Exit Convergence across Human, Animal, and AI (v1.0)

This paper redefines intuition as a minimal, cross-substrate signal produced by irreversible compression. When any bounded system (human, animal, or AI) must map an effectively unbounded input stream into a bounded internal state, some mappings become non-invertible. The residual constraint left by this non-invertibility is treated as a trace, and the system-level marker of trace-dominant basins is formalized as intuition (I). Rather than assuming a shared semantic ontology, the paper proposes a stronger and more minimal claim: cross-system convergence arises from shared no-exit constraints, not from shared meaning. A minimal axiomatic set is provided (boundedness → irreversible locking → trace re-entry → intuition signal), along with a diagnostic triad of intuition regimes (under-locking/drift, over-locking/closure, and adaptive locking/editable intuition). The document positions intuition as an interface layer connecting Δϕ maintenance modes and openness/closure dynamics within the Sofience–Δϕ (SΔϕ) series. Scope: minimal axioms and diagnostic regimes only. The document is non-clinical and non-neuroscientific.