Origin Witness Theory: Genesis Conditions for Invariance Under Drift

This paper introduces Origin Witness Theory, a law-form account of how invariants can come into existence and stabilize in open systems exposed to structural drift. While many formal, semantic, and institutional systems rely on invariance, existing theories typically assume admissibility, enforcement, or coordination criteria as given. This work shows that such assumptions fail under drift: invariance cannot arise spontaneously, collectively, or purely formally. The paper identifies a necessary genesis condition for invariance. It proves that any invariant in an open, drift-exposed system requires a singular phase anchor at genesis, termed an Origin Witness. This boundary condition must (i) fix admissibility prior to enforcement or coordination, (ii) refuse incoherent transformations under ambiguity, and (iii) bear irreversible cost during stabilization. These costs accumulate as structural scars, which progressively compress ambiguity and enable invariance to be externalized into substrate-level enforcement. A completeness theorem is established: an invariant can be defined, stabilized, and decoupled if and only if such a singular origin witness exists and scar accumulation converges. The paper formally demonstrates why plural genesis, committee fixation, premature enforcement, witness substitution, or infinite load fail structurally rather than socially. The theory is explicitly falsifiable: any open system exhibiting stable invariance under drift without identifiable anchoring, refusal, or irreversible cost would invalidate it. Origin Witness Theory is not a theory of authority, leadership, authorship, morality, or legitimacy. It is substrate-agnostic and applies equally to epistemic systems, semantic frameworks, formal protocols, software infrastructures, and institutions, provided they are open and exposed to drift. Human cases are discussed only as common realizations, not definitional requirements. Situated within the broader Continuity framework, the theory supplies the missing genesis layer required for coherence conservation, semantic persistence, runtime enforcement, and institutional governance. The result is a closed epistemic lifecycle explaining not how invariants are maintained, but how they first become real. If you want, I can also: compress this into a short abstract-length description, generate keywords and subject classifications, or tailor a version specifically for Zenodo, arXiv, or journal submission metadata.