Preface

You maintain yourself against decay. You make choices under constraint. You navigate a space of possibilities that narrows with every irreversible step. You have a budget that depletes. You face drift that never stops.

This paper formalises what you already know.

Not as advice. Not as prescription. Not as morality. As physics. Agency is a control problem. Conduct is constrained optimisation. Exit is optimal stopping.

Every claim is derived from six axioms that you cannot argue with — because they are the axioms you live under.

(A1) Energy is conserved.

(A2) Time is irreversible. Drift is the default.

(A3) Substrates are finite. You run out.

(A4) All structure decays without maintenance. Stop maintaining, start dying.

(A5) Observation is noisy. You cannot see perfectly.

(A6) Some failure states are absorbing. Ruin is real and permanent.

No claim depends on intention, narrative, identity, or belief. Where a proposition cannot be formalised, it is excluded. Where it cannot be falsified, it is out of scope.

The system is closed. If any derivation fails, the system is false. No revision saves it.