Complementarity-First: Relational Unity and the Genesis of Physical Structure

The Complementarity-First program asks whether physical structure can be recon-

structed from completed relations before independently complete objects, states, fields, or spacetime

points are assumed. This conceptual-formal foundations article states the program’s primitive se-

mantic proposal and its control discipline. The primitive datum is a completed relation C; symbols

such as a and b identify distinguishable role-positions internal to that completion, not indepen-

dently complete objects supplied in advance. Four criteria classify a primitive candidate: role dis-

tinguishability, relational constraint, target-relative non-exhaustiveness, and nontrivial completion.

Generative adequacy is a separate requirement on an enriched theory: it must specify controlled

composition, iteration, transformation, or network formation. Elementary independence models

show that the primitive proposal does not determine symmetry, unique complement, continuity,

probability, scalar field, geometry, dynamics, or standard complex quantum theory. Gravity and

quantum theory are therefore organized as parallel reconstruction tests with explicit selector and

evidence ledgers, while a later paired-incidence/twistor reunion remains an outlook target. The mo-

tivating sequence from the Tao Te Ching, the Taichi Diagram, and the complementary architecture

of DNA is kept behind a strict motivation–derivation firewall. The present formalism begins with

a post-differentiation relational seed: it supplies neither a theorem from One to Two nor a com-

position theorem from Three to the many. Accordingly, “genesis” names the research target and

explanatory architecture, not an achieved derivation of physics. The result provides a disciplined

basis for later technical reconstruction rather than a completed physical theory.