Physical Meaning as a Property of Reconstruction

DESCRIPTION This work develops a structural criterion for determining when distinctions represented within physical models carry independent physical meaning. It identifies reconstruction as the relevant relation between theoretical description and physical content and proposes a minimal pair of necessary conditions: reconstructibility and non-eliminability. A theoretical distinction is physically meaningful when it induces a difference under admissible physical reconstruction and when that distinction cannot be eliminated without changing the reconstructed physical content. The criterion is applied to models, representational structure, states, time, dynamics, and physical explanation. It does not eliminate state-based descriptions, dynamical formulations, or model-based physics. Rather, it restricts their physical attribution: formal structure acquires independent physical meaning only where its distinctions survive admissible reconstruction. The work does not propose a new physical theory, modify existing dynamical laws, or introduce new empirical evidence. Its contribution is methodological and structural: it formulates a general boundary between physical content and representational structure.