The NEMS Framework: No External Model Selection as a Principle of Foundational Self-Containment

This paper provides a high-level narrative summary of the physics arc (Papers 01–25) of the NEMS suite: semantic closure, self-containment, and their consequences in physics and quantum gravity. The suite introduces a formal "no external model selection" principle, classifies realized systems into a small set of universality classes, instantiates the framework in physics using a minimal language of macroscopic records, applies self-containment constraints to 4D gauge-theory space to argue for structural stability requirements and Standard-Model optimality, and extends the framework to quantum gravity by fixing a minimal gravitational record language and showing that diffeomorphism redundancy and horizon-class phenomena force non-effective internal selection on diagonal-capable record fragments. This overview presents the core NEMS theorem engine and selected applications; stronger domain-specific derivation and ontological synthesis claims belong to separate release surfaces with their own premise bundles and formal artifacts. The emphasis here is conceptual clarity, not technical detail. Throughout, the theory space under consideration is the space of 4D relativistic quantum field theories with compact gauge groups; the suite does not claim to derive physics from pure logic, but rather to show which structures are forced once self-containment is imposed on that space. This paper presents the framework in physical and model-theoretic terms; later papers in the suite (notably Papers 26 and 27) develop a higher-level abstract model and a machine-checked API of which the present treatment is one instantiation—see. Trust boundary. This is a suite guide to the physics arc; the classification theorem and diagonal refinements are stated precisely in Paper 2 and the machine-checked mapping in. See.