A Constraint-Based Physical Theory of Cancer as Correlation-Damping Dysregulation in Living Matter

This theory proposes that cancer is best understood as a physical problem of persistence, not solely a genetic or molecular disease. Using only established classical physics—non-equilibrium thermodynamics, stochastic dynamics, and energy–information constraints—it argues that healthy tissue actively suppresses long-range correlations through correlation damping, keeping cellular behavior localized and unstable to runaway coordination. Cancer emerges when this damping weakens, allowing collective, system-level coordination to persist at lower energetic cost, producing robustness, resistance, and relapse. In this framework, genetic mutations may initiate malignancy, but physical constraints determine whether malignant states stabilize and survive. The theory is conservative, non-quantum, and falsifiable, with predictions based on measurable correlation times, noise spectra, and entropy production.