Conceptual Guardrails: A Return from Mathematical Formalism to Constructive Physics

While modern physics possesses exceptional predictive power, it suffers from a profound "ontological deficit," conflating mathematical formalism with physical reality. This paper argues that this conflation obscures "Unconceived Alternatives" (Stanford 2006) and proposes "Conceptual Guardrails"—a meta-theoretical criterion ensuring that mathematical models rely on a consistent ontological foundation.We present the "Space Quanta and Existence Waves" theory as a genera-tive case study adhering to these guardrails, demonstrating that the schism between relativity and quantum mechanics can be conceptually unified and resolved as "computational costs" on a single discrete physical substrate (hardware).Ultimately, this paper critically redefines the validity of continuous mathematical formulas as a "lossy compression of high-resolution reality," advocating for an "Inversion of Platonism" in science. Conceptual Guard-rails serve as a compass to redirect the aim of physics from "saving the phenomena" via elegant formulas back to the "inquiry into reality" via concrete and rigorous algorithms.