Foundations, Canonical Realizations, Regimes, and Frames of Reference

Modern physics has historically relied on the assumption that reality is governed by a set of fundamental laws. These laws are typically postulated as exact, universal, and closed under their own logical structure. Classical mechanics, quantum field theory, and general relativity all exemplify this paradigm: physical reality is assumed to be fully describable by a fixed mathematical framework whose laws are valid at all scales within their domain of applicability.However, this law-based ontological approach faces persistent conceptual and empirical tensions. Fundamental laws are rarely observed directly; instead, they are inferred from effective regularities within restricted regimes. Moreover, different physical theories rely on mutually incompatible foundational assumptions, yet remain empirically successful within overlapping domains. This suggests that the universality attributed to fundamental laws may not reflect an ontological feature of reality, but rather a structural feature of how descriptions stabilize within limited observational contexts.