Research into Fundamentality
A Study of Levels of Fundamental Laws and the Conditions of Their Emergence
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Why This Research Cycle Was Developed
Modern science has achieved extraordinary success in describing processes within individual disciplines. Physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics operate with high precision, powerful formal tools, and vast empirical support. Yet beneath this success lies a rarely articulated problem: science lacks a clear account of how its fundamental laws are structured, related, and grounded across levels of description.

This research cycle was developed to address precisely this gap.

Across contemporary science, laws of radically different scope and status are routinely treated as if they belonged to the same conceptual category. Local interaction laws, universal structural constraints, and principles that govern the very possibility of lawfulness are often discussed using the same criteria of fundamentality, verification, and explanation. As a result, scientific debates repeatedly encounter false conflicts, methodological confusion, and misplaced demands for proof.

The cycle A Study of the Structure of Fundamental Laws of Science was developed to restore architectural clarity to scientific knowledge.

Its central aim is to distinguish levels of fundamentality rather than to propose another universal law. The research demonstrates that not all fundamental laws play the same role: some govern interactions within an already given structure, others impose global constraints on processes, and still others determine the conditions under which laws, formalisms, and reproducible descriptions become possible at all.

Without this distinction, science risks applying inappropriate criteria of verification, misinterpreting the status of foundational principles, and conflating explanatory power with architectural necessity.

This cycle is therefore not a new theory of nature, nor a philosophical abstraction detached from science. It is a methodological reconstruction of the architecture of scientific lawfulness itself. It shows why certain questions persist unresolved, why some principles appear “unverifiable” when judged by the wrong standards, and why the absence of architectural criteria leads to systematic errors in evaluating fundamentality.

By introducing a coherent hierarchy of generative levels and corresponding criteria of scientific testability, the cycle provides science with tools to:

  • clearly locate different kinds of laws,
  • avoid false reductions and false universalisms,
  • and conduct foundational research without slipping into metaphysics or arbitrariness.
In this sense, the cycle is not optional. It addresses a structural necessity of science itself: the need to understand not only what laws govern reality, but how lawfulness becomes possible in the first place.
Cycle 0. A Study of the Structure of Fundamental
Laws of Science
Cycle 0 is a coherent research cycle devoted to the analysis of how scientific laws are structured, generated, and related across different levels of description.
The cycle investigates the distinction between local fundamental laws, universal structural laws, and architectural principles that define the conditions under which lawfulness itself becomes possible. Rather than proposing a new physical theory, the series develops a methodological and architectural framework for understanding fundamentality in science.

0. The Prologue. The Methodological Gap and the Taxonomy of Fundamental Laws: Levels I, II, and III as the Basis for Scientific Classification


DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18056957

This article addresses a structural methodological problem in contemporary science: the absence of a unified classificatory framework capable of distinguishing between mechanistic laws (Level I), architectural fundamental laws (Level II), and primary generative structures (Level III). It demonstrates that the historical fragmentation of inquiry into “what exists,” “how it behaves,” and “why its laws take their observed form” has made the identification of first principles methodologically impossible within the classical scientific paradigm. The paper develops a three-level taxonomy of laws and introduces rigorous criteria enabling scientific analysis of Level III structures without relying on experimental falsifiability, thereby eliminating long-standing category errors. By examining the limitations of current methodologies and proposing a coherent system of architectural, generative, and retrospective validation, the article establishes a formal framework in which the search for a first cause becomes scientifically definable, methodologically tractable, and epistemologically legitimate.

1. The Limit Question of Science: On the Origin of Stable Levels of Description and the Boundaries of Disciplinary Explanation


DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18142632

This article formulates the limit question of science as a question about the origin and stability of levels of scientific description. It demonstrates that disciplinary explanations presuppose structural conditions that they cannot justify internally. The paper identifies the methodological boundary at which scientific explanation requires an architectural level of analysis and establishes the problem space for investigating the conditions of possibility of scientific knowledge.

2. From Laws to Their Conditions of Possibility: A Hypothesis of an Architectural Principle of Levels of Scientific Description


DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18143340

This article introduces the hypothesis of an architectural principle that precedes disciplinary laws and determines the conditions under which levels of scientific description can emerge and coexist coherently. It argues that laws alone cannot account for their own stability and that an architectural level is required to explain the formation of explanatory regimes without reducing them to metaphysical assumptions.

3. Formalizing a Pre-disciplinary Principle: Architectural Foundations of Levels of Scientific Description


DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18143391

The paper develops a minimal formal articulation of a pre-disciplinary architectural principle. It introduces invariants, stability conditions, and transition operators as structural elements necessary for maintaining coherent levels of scientific description. The formalization is explicitly non-axiomatic and avoids introducing ontological commitments, focusing instead on architectural necessity.

4. The Necessity of an Architectural Principle in Science: Stability of Levels of Description and Minimal Formalization


DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18142825

This article demonstrates that an architectural principle is not a methodological option but a necessary condition for the stability of scientific knowledge as a whole. It shows that without such a principle, science retains local explanatory power while losing global structural coherence. The paper clarifies the limits of interpretation and distinguishes architectural necessity from ontological claims.

5. Architectural Testability of Science: Criteria for Identifying and Falsifying a Generative Principle


DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18142888

The article develops a rigorous methodology for detecting, testing, and falsifying an architectural generative principle. It introduces the concept of architectural testability and formulates strict positive and negative criteria, including binary validity, full retrospective reproducibility, and architectural falsifiability. The work establishes a controlled scientific procedure for evaluating pre-disciplinary principles.

6. Architectural Classification of Scientific Laws: Levels of Generation and the Structure of Fundamentality


DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18142948

This final article completes the series by introducing a three-level architectural classification of scientific laws: local fundamental laws, universal structural laws, and an architectural generative principle. It demonstrates that these levels form a hierarchy of generation rather than reduction or explanatory competition. The classification restores methodological clarity and provides a coherent architectural model of scientific knowledge.


7. Architectural Generativity as a Criterion of a Fundamental Principle of Science (Level-III Principle)


DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18143594

The paper introduces architectural generativity as a necessary criterion for the scientific validity of a pre-disciplinary Level-III principle. Generativity is shown to be structural rather than causal and to manifest as the inevitable emergence of levels of description, domains of applicability, laws, and fundamental parameters. A system of six architectural tests is proposed to rigorously distinguish a fundamental principle from methodological hypotheses and philosophical frameworks.

Series Outcome
Taken together, the six articles form a logically coherent cycle that:
  • localizes the limit question of science,
  • articulates the necessity of an architectural level of analysis,
  • develops formal and methodological criteria for its investigation,
  • and reconstructs scientific lawfulness as a structured hierarchy of generation.
The series establishes a stable foundation for further research into the architectural conditions of scientific knowledge, without collapsing into speculative metaphysics or discipline-specific reductions.
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