This paper presents a structural argument for the separation of the complexity classes P and NP based on an intrinsic asymmetry between verification and selection. Problems in NP are characterized by the existence of admissible solutions together with efficient, first-order verification procedures. By contrast, membership in P implicitly requires the ability to select and construct a distinguished solution from among multiple admissible configurations. We show that selection is inherently a second-variation operation acting on relations among configurations rather than on configurations individually. Such selection induces an idempotent but intrinsically non-invertible projection that irreversibly collapses multiplicity. This non-invertibility is structural and independent of computational models, resource bounds, or proof techniques. Consequently, the requirements implicit in P are incompatible with the structural limits that define NP. It follows that the equality P = NP is logically inconsistent within the structural framework developed here, and the separation P ≠ NP emerges as a consequence of the mathematics of selection.
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