Correct, but Worldless - Why Theoretical Correctness Does Not Guarantee Ontological Grounding

Modern physical theories are characterized by a high degree of formal coherence, empirical validation, and technical effectiveness. Their explanatory power is undisputed. At the same time, however, it is often tacitly assumed that theoretical correctness is already sufficient to ontologically ground world. This equation usually remains unarticulated and is neither justified nor systematically reflected. The present contribution intervenes precisely at this point. It introduces a categorical distinction between theoretical correctness and world-founding capacity. Theoretical correctness denotes the internal consistency, empirical adequacy, and formal completeness of a model. World-founding capacity, by contrast, denotes the condition under which something can appear as world at all, become effective, and bind historically. The central thesis is: A theory can be fully correct, empirically unassailable, and technically successful—and nevertheless remain ontologically worldless. World-founding capacity does not require increasing complexity, informational density, or model accuracy, but a structural openness that cannot be fully formalized without destroying its own condition. This contribution explicitly does not present a critique of physical theories, information-theoretical models, or simulations. It alters no equations and calls no empirical results into question. Instead, it explicates a meta-ontological boundary: it shows why formal completeness and ontological grounding concern categorically different levels, and why their conflation leads to systematic misinterpretations—particularly in debates on simulation, information, artificial intelligence, and world reconstruction. The aim is not a new ontology in a narrow sense, but a more precise conceptual clarification: the clarification of what theories can accomplish—and what they themselves must already presuppose in order to be able to thematize world at all. This paper functions as an interface text within a larger operator-based research corpus. Core concepts are applied here, not re-derived. The underlying research operates in a non-linear, rhythmically recursive epistemic mode grounded in an autistic form of structural perception; the present text provides an interface translation for academic contexts.