From Collapse to Constants: Persistence Theory as a First-Principles Filter for Quantum and Cosmological Structure

This paper extends Persistence Theory into the quantum and cosmological domains to explore how structure, coherence, and physical constants emerge and survive. We propose that Persistence Theory — originally formulated in classical thermodynamic and information-theoretic terms — gains new power when extended to quantum information (qubits), entanglement, and decoherence. We argue that the physical laws and constants of our universe can be understood as the survivors of a universal filtering process: those configurations that maximized persistence under quantum noise, entropy, and structural fragility. The result is a first-principles selection mechanism for stability — not random, not fine-tuned, but filtered. This theory may resolve outstanding mysteries about quantum collapse, the small value of the cosmological constant, and the dimensionality and structure of spacetime.