Draft Conditional Unlocking Fields: A Necessity-Based Framework for Identity Persistence

This deposit contains the definitive presentation of the Conditional Unlocking Fields (CUF) framework an ontologically minimal, necessity based law intended to explain why identities persist across change. The paper formulates NUA (Necessitated Update Activity) as the sole primitive dynamic, derives a generic update equation that governs identity persistence under constraints, introduces a viability functional and a universal identity locking threshold k∗k^*k∗, and states falsification conditions and non claims. It then demonstrates how CUF generates both the “classical partition” and cross domain identity invariants without invoking particles, fields, spacetime, observers, or measurement axioms. The framework is supplemented with a classification extension (the Necessity Tower) and derived results connecting the same k∗k^*k∗ constant to electron mass and protein folding providing computational verification without additional assumptions. This full framework supersedes and unifies several earlier preprints. Where earlier papers introduced NUA alone, or proposed individual derivations like Kearon’s Identity Locking Threshold (KILT) and the Necessity Tower, this consolidation integrates those components into a single coherent law level exposition. It provides clarified definitions of the ledger operator, weighted viability functional, and meta law interpretation of NUA; adds explicit entropy and free energy interpretations; resolves the quantum measurement problem via constraint escalation; replaces placeholder citations with primary sources; and includes detailed diagrams illustrating update recursion, viability landscapes, and cross‑domain identity locking. Readers familiar with the NUA, KILT, or Necessity Tower preprints will recognise the core ideas here, but will find them refined, rigorously defined, and arranged into a unified structure with clear boundaries between law, classification, and derivations. Because CUF is a law level framework rather than an application, numerical predictions and domain specific constants are deferred to separate derivation papers (e.g., those covering electron mass or protein folding), which should be read alongside this work for empirical context. This deposit is released prior to journal submission to establish priority and to give the community an authoritative reference that distinguishes it from earlier, partial drafts.