The Origin of Life: Active Maintenance, Information Inheritance and the Thermodynamic Phase of Constraint Networks

What is life? Is it a special substance, an emergent property, or a particular dynamical regime of matter? For centuries, this question has resisted a rigorous physical answer. Energy-Efficiency Theory (EET) provides a first-principles resolution: life is not a new ontological category but a \textbf{thermodynamic phase of constraint networks} — the regime in which the existence inequality is locally satisfied and autonomously maintained. This paper develops the complete ontology of life from the generative foundations of EET Core Rules v5.7 and the companion ontologies. Version 3.0 establishes life as a necessary consequence of constraint dynamics, requiring no additional "vital principles" beyond the…