EVI: A Minimal Physical Framework for Ordered Growth and Pre-Biological Individuality

We present EVI (Emergenza di Vincoli e Interazioni), a minimal physical framework aimed at clarifying the conditions under which matter can transition from undifferentiated accumulation to ordered growth capable of sustaining a history. The framework deliberately avoids assuming specific chemistry, information, function, orreplication as initial conditions. Instead, it identifies a small set of necessary physical constraints-local confinement, continuous dissipation, oscillatory selection, and ordered aggregation-whose cooperative action makes directionality physically possible.EVI introduces a corollary with two hierarchical thresholds. The first, a threshold of interiority, corresponds to the emergence of a physically distinct internal microenvironment characterized by attenuation of external perturbations, increased internal residence times, and stability dependent on internal order. The second, a threshold of relationality, is reached when interactions with other structures or structured elements of the environment become persistent and non-consumptive, allowing the accumulation of relational history. Ordered crystalline growth is discussed as a negative case that satisfies several constraints yet fails to cross either threshold.The framework is formulated as a criterion of physical possibility rather than a dynamic model and is explicitly falsifiable. EVI does not explain the origin of life but delineates a pre-biological regime in which individuality becomes physically admissible as an emergent outcome.