The Universal Ledger Framework: Physics, Biology, and Reality as a Self-Auditing Economy

This work presents the Universal Ledger Framework, a unified ontology in which reality is modeled as a self-auditing economy. Events are treated as transactions that extract value from a closed continuum, while constraints are understood as the compulsory aftermath—non-negotiable overhead generated by those transactions. Physics is reinterpreted as the study of historical constraint records, describing standardized residues left by events rather than the events themselves. Conservation laws, field equations, and physical constants are thus framed as the invariant accounting rules of the universe. Within this framework, biological systems expose the same ledger in real time. Relationships are defined not by declared function or intent, but by their measurable consequence profiles, formalized as Consequence Vectors that encode signal, metabolic, and entropic resistance along with accumulation timescales. Health corresponds to systemic solvency—the ability of a host to finance these consequences within its resilience basis—while pathology emerges when consequence vectors fall outside that span, producing unpayable debt. By unifying physics and biology under a single consequence-based accounting model, the Universal Ledger Framework provides a scale-invariant, non-anthropomorphic foundation for understanding causation, constraint, failure, and intervention across physical, biological, and ecological systems.