This paper establishes the formal mathematical core of the Breathing Universe Model (BUM) by constructing an explicit operator algebra governing admissibility, constraint interaction, and structural selection. The framework is intentionally pre-physical: it assumes no spacetime, no time parameter, no dynamics, no probability, no geometry, and no observables. Its sole purpose is to define which configurations are structurally admissible once snapping-induced discreteness is given as a canonical input. Operators are defined as constraint maps acting on a discrete, representation-agnostic abstract state space. Exactly five canonical operator classes are postulated as fixed inputs: Generative, Exchange, Stabilization, Relational, and Memory. Each class fulfills a logically irreducible constraint role, and the paper proves that this set is both necessary and sufficient for structural completeness. Operators do not generate evolution or causation; they restrict admissibility. Inadmissible configurations are represented explicitly via a null image, allowing deterministic exclusion without probabilistic interpretation. The paper develops formal rules for operator composition, incompatibility, partial ordering, conditional closure, and effective equivalence. Selection rules are derived as meta-constraints that distinguish admissible, persistent, collapsing, and forbidden configurations. All selection is deterministic and representation-invariant. No algebraic closure, linearity, metric structure, or functional form is assumed or permitted at the foundational level. Explicit comparisons demonstrate non-identity with quantum-mechanical operators, cellular automata, dynamical systems, and standard constraint algebras. Optional appendices show that the framework can be embedded into category-theoretic language without imposing categorical axioms. Numerical order, succession, and induction are shown to arise as necessary consequences of coherence-preserving operator repetition, not as axiomatic primitives. This work introduces no new ontology, revises no emergence hierarchy, and makes no empirical claims. It functions as the binding formal grammar of the Breathing Universe Model. All subsequent physical realizations, simulations, and empirical analyses within the BUM are formally constrained by the operator definitions, composition rules, and selection logic established here.
Ivo Gerlach Angela Noel Cerfontaine (Wed,) studied this question.