Table of Contents:
  • <p>This paper develops the hypothesis that the fundamental constants and symmetry structures governing physics<br>are not arbitrary fixed parameters, but the result of a selection process operating across successive cosmological<br>cycles.</p> <p>The proposed mechanism localises hereditary variation in the quantum decoherence occurring during<br>spontaneous symmetry breaking in the primordial universe.</p> <p>The theory produces a hierarchical testable prediction : the robustness of fundamental constants should be positively correlated with the chronological age of the symmetry-breaking event that fixed them. This prediction is confronted with existing data on the strong coupling constant, the cosmological constant, and measurements of fine-structure constant variation in distant<br>quasar spectra. The epistemological limits of the hypothesis are explicitly formulated.</p>