A Structural Framework for Emergent Physics: The Thermodynamic Imperative of Order

This work presents a structural framework for emergent physics based on minimal statistical, locality, and typicality assumptions. Rather than proposing a specific microscopic model, it identifies general constraints that any viable theory of spacetime must satisfy if macroscopic regularities are to arise. Central to the framework is the Thermodynamic Imperative of Order (TIO), formulated as a measure-theoretic result: in large constrained systems, fully disordered macrostates form sets of vanishing measure once exact symmetries are perturbed. This implies the necessity of an effective order-parameter description and leads generically to Ginzburg–Landau–type coarse-grained dynamics. Spacetime geometry and gravitational response are interpreted as emergent, macroscopic descriptions of stresses associated with vacuum ordering. The framework explicitly states its assumptions, conditions of validity, and failure modes, and includes a mathematical appendix detailing the underlying concentration-of-measure arguments. The work is intended as a foundational classification of unavoidable emergent behavior, not as a complete microscopic theory.