Selective Reality Theory (SRT): Selection Realism and the Constitutive Explanation of Determinacy

Selective Reality Theory (SRT) argues that the world is not fundamentally composed of determinate objects, subjects, and orders. Instead, object-style determinacy—boundary, identity, and practical stability—arises from constrained selection within a pre-object field. Selection is not an agent's choice but an earlier structure that differentially actualizes appearances through exclusion and anchoring; repeated anchoring builds reality-thickness, which then recedes into background order. The theory introduces a three-layer vocabulary: sub-determinate non-neutrality, manifestation or anchoring, and sedimented selection history. To avoid idealism and relativism, four dimensions of reality-strength are proposed: manifestational stability, cross-operator alignment, intervention-resistance, and inheritance. Consciousness is not the source of selection; subjectivity is a sedimented bearing-position where consequences return. Phenomenal consciousness condenses from sentience to reflexive awareness.

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Abstract

Object-first ontology begins from a world of determinate things: bounded objects, stable subjects, already-applicable predicates, and background orders within which perception, action, truth, and value are then discussed. Selective Reality Theory (SRT) argues that this order of explanation is too late. The sense that the world is already there is not denied, but treated as an achievement that requires explanation. This paper presents the current form of SRT as selection realism: the view that object-style determinacy -boundary, identity, and practical load-bearing - is not an unexplained ontological floor, but the result of constrained selection. Selection is not an agent choosing from a menu. It is the earlier structure by which a pre-object field is differentially actualized through exclusion, shaping, and inscription; an appearance becomes anchored; repeated anchoring acquires reality-thickness; and sedimented thickness recedes into order, pre-trimming what can later appear as available choice.The paper first diagnoses the explanatory debt of object-first ontology. It then defines SRT's restricted three-layer vocabulary: L0 as sub-determinate non-neutrality, not a hidden world; L1 as manifestation or anchoring, not a second substance; and L2 as sedimented selection history, not an automatically legitimate order. To prevent idealism and relativism, the paper introduces four dimensions of reality-strength: manifestational stability, cross-operator alignment, intervention-resistance, and inheritance/hardening. Ontological friction names the cost that a candidate cut pays under prediction, intervention, repetition, repair, and cross-operator correction. On this account, what is operator-relative is the determinate cut; what is not freely resettable is the comparative resistance it meets.SRT also revises the place of subjectivity and consciousness. Consciousness is not the source of selection. Selection can occur without consciousness, and consciousness can be present when action is blocked. Subjectivity is a sedimented bearing-position to which consequences return; concern and value arise when consequences reorganize the ongoing generation of such a position. Phenomenal consciousness is treated as a later condensation of this structure: first as sentience, where consequences are borne from within, and then as reflexive awareness, where the position can read itself as feeling, choosing, and persisting across time. The paper closes with explicit failure conditions. If object-style determinacy, reality-strength, consequence-return, and consciousness-boundary phenomena can be explained without remainder by an object-first, naturalness, or physicalist account, SRT narrows to an interface model rather than a meta-ontology.