EVI (v1.1): A Minimal Physical Framework for Ordered Growth and Pre-Biological Individuality

EVI — Scientific overview We present EVI (Emergenza di Vincoli e Interazioni), a minimal physical framework aimed at clarifying the conditions under which matter can transition from undifferentiated accumulation to ordered growth capable of sustaining a history. The framework deliberately avoids assuming specific chemistry, information, function, or replication as initial conditions. Instead, it identifies a set of physical constraints—local confinement, continuous dissipation, oscillatory selection, and ordered aggregation—whose jointly compatible realization contributes to the conditions under which directional organization becomes physically accessible, without guaranteeing its emergence. EVI introduces a corollary with two hierarchical thresholds. The first, a threshold of interiority, corresponds to the emergence of a physically distinct internal microenvironment characterized by attenuation of external perturbations, increased internal residence times, and stability dependent on internal order. The second, a threshold of relationality, is reached when interactions with other structures or structured elements of the environment become persistent and non-consumptive, allowing the accumulation of relational history. Idealized crystalline growth is discussed as an illustrative case showing that ordered aggregation alone does not establish functional interiority or relational history. It is not presented as a universal counterexample applicable to all crystalline systems. The framework is formulated as a criterion of physical possibility rather than a dynamic model and is explicitly falsifiable. EVI does not explain the origin of life but delineates a pre-biological regime in which individuality becomes physically admissible as an emergent outcome. Version 1.1 — Editorial and methodological revision (October 11, 2026) This revision clarifies that the physical constraints identified by EVI operate as jointly compatible families of requirements, rather than as an automatic causal sequence. It further distinguishes historically constrained structural memory from functional interiority, refines the interpretation of illustrative physical cases, and explicitly limits the framework's terminal boundary to the pre-biological domain. The revision also improves the treatment of prior scientific contributions, methodological qualifications, and technical cross-references.