Capacity-Limited Accessibility as a Unifying Structural Principle

This manuscript develops the Capacity-Limited Accessibility (CLA) framework: a phenomenological synthesis proposing that emergent macroscopic order often arises through restriction of dynamically accessible alternatives under finite constraints. The framework introduces a pairwise accessibility formalism based on divergence-like distinguishability measures rather than metric geometry, emphasizing that emergence concerns suppression of distinctions between alternatives rather than isolated state properties. CLA is not presented as a completed microscopic theory. Instead, it functions as a structural research program connecting threshold restructuring, accessibility saturation, metastability, and sector selection across multiple classes of finite-resource systems. The manuscript combines: operational accessibility observables, divergence-like accessibility axioms, falsification protocols, class-specific universality concepts, and comparative cross-domain phenomenology. Its primary scientific aim is to provide a transferable language for analyzing accessibility-limited transitions across diverse domains while remaining agnostic about underlying microphysics.