FINITE-SPEED LOCAL EXCHANGE AS A NECESSARY BOUND ON OBJECTHOOD AND SCALE

This paper identifies and formalizes a hidden physical assumption underlying many uses of scale in physics: that a system can remain a single coherent object under arbitrary increase in size. By enforcing a mechanism-only framework in which physical action is restricted to local energy–momentum exchange between physically connected regions, the paper shows that whole-system coherence cannot be maintained beyond a necessary physical bound. Scale and infinity are demonstrated to be descriptive measurements rather than physically acting causes, while objecthood itself is shown to depend on the ability of finite-speed local exchange to coordinate a system as a whole. The result is a general physical constraint: infinite or unbounded scale cannot correspond to physically admissible objecthood, not by interpretation or mathematics, but by enforced locality alone.