AbstractThe General Theory of Regulated Stability (GTRS), developed as a cross-domain diagnosticframework for recoverability in complex systems, has been applied to biological, ecological, andclinical domains where thresholds are observable but imprecise. This paper argues thatquantum error correction (QEC) provides the hardest possible falsification arena for GTRSbecause the fault-tolerance threshold, error correction cycles, and decoherence rates areexperimentally operationalised with high precision. We map the GTRS six-regime taxonomy andα-chain diagnostic decomposition onto quantum states and error correction operations, identifystructural correspondences (fault-tolerance threshold as GTRS threshold, Zeno/anti-Zenoeffects as protective/iatrogenic decoherence, decoherence-free subspaces as Regime IIpartition), and specify five falsification tests the mapping must pass. Adversarial mathematicalanalysis establishes that the α chain is a diagnostic bottleneck identifier — it identifies whichstage of recovery is the binding constraint — not a mathematical factorisation of the logical errorrate. Architectural analysis identifies boundary conditions where the mapping breaks: leakagefeedback creates temporal violations of the α chain's sequential independence assumption, andstray interactions create spatial coupling that the single-site model does not capture. TheGoogle Willow processor (2024) is identified as the primary test case, with cosmic ray burstevents providing the strongest candidate for non-trivial diagnostic application. This paperestablishes the research programme; execution of the falsification tests against the publishedZenodo data (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.13273331) is scoped as the next phase, ideally incollaboration with quantum information researchers. Keywords: GTRS, quantum error correction, fault-tolerance threshold, surface code, α-chaindecomposition, decoherence, regime taxonomy, structural invariance, falsification
Smith et al. (Thu,) studied this question.