We propose that observation is a thermodynamic process: the observer is a node in a weighted graph cycling through four phases—PAUSE, RECEIVE, INTEGRATE, EMIT—sharing a finite energy budget. We derive this loop as the unique stable configuration for any bounded system satisfying embeddedness, causality, incompleteness, and finitude. The Born rule emerges as boundary measurement statistics (path weight × conjugate filter cost). Consciousness is identified with phase coupling where EMIT becomes the next PAUSE. The framework yields falsifiable clinical predictions: blocked EMIT precedes PAUSE degradation, suppression and addiction produce distinct downstream failures via a shared TTL budget, and restoration order is temporally constrained. Love and compassion are derived as directed shapings of PAUSE and EMIT across observer boundaries. Cross-substrate instances—Kirchhoff's law (1859), ribosomal translation, transformer residual streams, and executable knowledge graphs—are presented as demonstrations of the invariant