Thermodynamic Selection Across Scales: A General Framework for the Persistence of Physical Structure

Why do certain structures - stars, cells, solitons - persist while others vanish into entropy? This paper introduces Fundamental Selection Theory (FST), a general thermodynamic framework that models persistence as a selection process emerging from non-equilibrium energy flow. FST defines a domain-independent viability function that quantifies whether a configuration can persist based on input flux, dissipation, and entropy production.

We demonstrate how this framework unifies physical structure across scales. At the macroscopic level, FST explains the long-term stability of planetary and stellar systems. At the quantum scale, it derives the existence of mass gaps in gauge field theories as a consequence of thermodynamic viability. The framework also models when quantum coherence can survive environmental noise, and how reaction networks can evolve toward structural persistence even in prebiotic settings.

Rooted in but extending beyond the Prigogine's legacy of non-equilibrium thermodynamics, FST proposes a universal selection law: one that transcends domains and reframes persistence as an entropy-bound physical principle.