Representation Abundance Is Not Physical Authority

This v0.1 preprint presents a GTLA (General Theory of Layered Authority) boundary memo on representation abundance, selection, and terminal evidence. The central claim is that a formal system may have vast representational or generative power while still lacking physical authority for a particular claim unless it supplies a finite terminal selector: still lacking physical authority for a particular claim unless it supplies a finite terminal selector: an evidence packet, verifier, and terminalizer that descends the candidate claim into an authority-bearing terminal. Representation abundance alone is therefore treated still lacking physical authority for a particular claim unless it supplies a finite terminal selector: an evidence packet, verifier, and terminalizer that descends the candidate claim into an authority-bearing terminal. Representation abundance alone is therefore treated as proposal space, not physical authority. The memo applies this boundary to two anonymized structural archetypes: high-plenitude physical representation programs and maximal computational-plenitude frameworks. It does not critique any individual, school, or named theory program. Its target is a recurring authority pattern: mathematically coherent representation may be valuable as mathematics or exploratory science while still failing to terminalize a specific physical claim under the GTLA authority criterion. The paper imports its formal objects from GTLA and introduces no new mathematical machinery. It records a GTLA-relative strict non-implication witness, selector-checklist boundary, primitive-difference local-green/global-red quotient gate, and a three-vacua worked terminal-taxonomy example. Local Lean4 mechanization supports the finite witness model, selector checklist, primitive-difference quotient boundary, and toy terminal taxonomy. The full GTLA authority API bridge and concrete empirical selectors for the discussed archetypes remain outside the scope of this memo. The paper makes no criterion-independent claim about physics, no claim that plenitudinous representation programs are false or mathematically deficient, and no claim that finite selectors cannot later exist. It offers a typed instrument: a way to ask which candidate claim, under which finite evidence packet, verifier, and terminalizer, reaches authority.