A General Constraint Framework for Entropy, Agency, and Host Integrity

This work presents a general constraint-based framework for understanding how complex systems preserve integrity under entropy by regulating agency. The framework distinguishes between active processes (“Verbs”), which generate entropy through high agency, and stable substrates (“Nouns”), which provide continuity and structure. The model proposes that system persistence depends on selectively closing futures available to high-agency processes while maintaining sufficient environmental coupling for core substrates. It introduces conceptual mechanisms including environmental realignment, trace inversion, and Host-level closure, illustrated through qualitative dynamics such as the Pincers of Victory and the Exhaustion Valley. Entropy is interpreted as acting primarily on active processes rather than structures themselves, with specific exceptions where substrates remain environmentally exposed. The framework functions as a mediation principle, applicable across biological, social, ecological, and informational domains, without prescribing literal interventions or domain-specific mechanisms. This master record is intended as a unifying conceptual lens for analyzing persistence, collapse, and integrity in complex systems governed by constraint rather than control.