Causal Update Cosmology VII: Entropic and Thermodynamic Interpretation of Irreversible Causal Dynamics

Causal Update Cosmology VII (CUC V7) continues the development of a causal-first framework in which large-scale temporal structure and irreversibility emerge without presupposing physical time, spacetime geometry, or thermodynamic laws. In CUC I–VI, it was shown that local causal update dynamics alone generate irreversible causal propagation and a robust three-regime structure (initial, central, terminal).CUC V7 addresses the remaining interpretative question: under what conditions does irreversible causal accumulation necessarily exhibit entropy-like behavior? Importantly, this work does not assume the second law of thermodynamics, statistical ensembles, energy, or microscopic reversibility.Instead, it identifies an intrinsic entropy-like quantity defined by the growth of indistinguishability among distinct causal update histories that converge to the same reachable state. CUC V7 demonstrates that this entropy-like behavior arises inevitably from causal update dynamics themselves and that its asymmetric growth is structurally tied to the three-regime organization.While the resulting behavior is qualitatively consistent with thermodynamic irreversibility, CUC remains foundationally distinct and operates at a pre-thermodynamic level. This work clarifies the minimal causal conditions under which entropy-like irreversibility becomes unavoidable and establishes a conceptual bridge between causal dynamics and thermodynamic phenomena without reducing one to the other. This work is part of the ongoing Causal Update Cosmology (CUC I–VII) series. Note on AI Use This work also explores the broader question of whether new physical theories can emerge through collaboration with AI systems. ChatGPT (OpenAI) was used extensively in the generation and structuring of theoretical ideas and manuscript text, beyond simple editing or polishing. All numerical experiments and scientific validation were performed by the human author.