Physics as Readout: Recasting Tier-1 Physical Law Through Source-Lift Status Discipline

This paper is the third support paper in the Shadow Theory sequence. It applies the source-readout and source-lift machinery developed in the first two support papers to the status of physical law. The paper treats ordinary Tier-1 physics as law over admitted readout structure. This does not make ordinary physics false or invalid. Rather, it assigns ordinary physical law its correct default status: image-level validity over the admitted Tier-1 domain. A stronger source-side interpretation requires additional certification. Building on the Tier-1 source-readout non-identity theorem and the reflective mathematics source-lift formalism, the paper defines reflective/readout physics as ordinary physics equipped with the inherited machinery of projection, fibers, non-injective registers, predicate-sensitive lift certificates, and a grounded status classifier. Physical claims are classified as image-valid, source-valid by invariance, lift-relative valid, overextended, unresolved, or otherwise statused according to the same disciplined promotion rules used for mathematical claims. The central contribution is a physical promotion discipline: a source-side physical claim is whole-fiber source-valid only when it is invariant across the relevant fiber, or otherwise valid only relative to a certified subfiber under an explicit predicate-sensitive lift certificate. Projection trace alone is not enough. The paper extends this discipline to physical objects, relational laws over joint fibers, sector translations, model-fiber certification, residual obligations, thermodynamic coarse-graining, finite law-induced examples, and gauge-quotient caution cases. Several worked examples show how the calculus separates genuine source-lift from convention. A finite-resolution digitizer demonstrates how exact source-side claims can be blocked by coarse readout. A finite oscillator law shows how a fixed law can certify an invariant while blocking non-invariant predicates on the same law-generated fiber. A coarse-readout oscillator illustrates how law restriction can change the status of a claim without converting every readout-level statement into a whole-fiber source-level theorem. The paper also records sector templates for quantum theory, gravity, the Standard Model, constants, and cosmology, specifying what kinds of certificates would be required for stronger source-level claims. It does not claim to derive the Standard Model, general relativity, quantum gravity, dark-sector physics, or a final theory of physical ontology. Its purpose is to provide the status discipline that such future claims would need to satisfy within the Shadow Theory architecture. Together with the first two support papers, this work strengthens the broader Shadow Theory program by showing how Tier-1 mathematics and physics can remain valid as readout-side disciplines while still requiring explicit source-lift certification for stronger claims about underlying source-side structure.