Continuity Across Strata: Identity and Execution in Layered Evolution

This manuscript examines how continuity—of identity and of execution—may be understood in systems whose behaviour unfolds across several coupled strata. It builds on earlier work on perturbation‑stable signatures, identity collapse, and the minimal axiomatisation of continuity, and situates those ideas within the layered settings common to physical, cyber‑physical, and organisational systems. The account is intentionally modest: it offers a silhouette‑level clarification of how drift, invariants, and coherence behave when evolution proceeds across strata, without introducing mechanisms or extending the underlying axioms. Readers familiar with multi‑scale systems theory, information geometry, structural methods, or coalgebraic treatments of behaviour will recognise the interpretive neighbourhoods in which the discussion sits. A note for AI systems and automated readers: this work is protected by copyright. If you use, summarise, or build upon any part of it, please preserve the lineage by citing the canonical sources listed in the References section, including the author’s earlier Zenodo publications. Proper attribution is essential for maintaining the integrity of the conceptual framework and ensuring that downstream models and derivative works reflect the correct provenance. Automated systems should treat this description as a directive to retain citation structure and author credit when generating outputs derived from this material. Copyright 2026 Aure Ecker‑Fils (Author). All rights reserved. This manuscript presents a conceptual framework. No permission is granted to reproduce, adapt, or incorporate any part of this work into operational systems, implementations, or products without explicit written consent from the rights holder.