Harmonic Coherence via Contextual Entropy Reduction: A Dependency-Governed Framework

This manuscript presents a governance framework that imports the Contextual Entropy Reduction (CER) theorem into a layered Hierarchical Compression program with status-tagged extension claims, providing the falsifiability protocol and claim-status ledger that makes the corpus auditable. Terminology. The foundational publications developed the framework under the name Harmonic Coherence, reflecting its origin in physics domains where phase-locked resonance and coherent-structure formation are the operative bridge mechanisms. As the framework extended to number theory, complexity theory, and algebraic geometry—domains with no physical harmonic content—the name became a source of friction. This paper uses Hierarchical Compression (HC) for the domain-independent Layer 1 framework and reserves Harmonic Coherence (always spelled out, never abbreviated) for the Layer 2 physics-domain bridge instantiation. The abbreviation HC refers exclusively to the framework.