Brown, Christopher Lamarr: Ontological Bedrock: Persistence, the Void, and the Fine-Structure Constant

We establish a minimal, defect-free foundation for determinate existence and apply it to two problems: the structural impossibility of absolute non-existence, and the derivation of the fine-structure constant. Beginning from the single premise something exists determinately, we give a precise four-condition definition of "determinately": not vague, not self-contradictory, not flux, and—crucially—not vacuous. From this definition we prove that exactly three structural primitives are forced: a sta