Relational Gravity: An Informational–Coherence Foundation of Spacetime Curvature

This work presents the ontological foundation of the Relational Gravity program. Spacetime curvature is fundamentally sourced by coherent relational information. Here, “sourced by” is used in the effective continuum sense: curvature is the geometric realization of coherent relational structure, not the result of an additional ontologically independent source term. The central postulate developed here is that spacetime curvature originates in the degree of coherence of relational information wherever such information is instantiated, with energy–momentum appearing as a derived and effective description rather than a primary source. In this framework, relations constitute the basic ontology; information describes their structure; and coherence determines their stability and physical efficacy. Rather than introducing new technical derivations, this paper clarifies the conceptual evolution that leads to this postulate. It situates Relational Gravity within the relational tradition in philosophy and physics, contrasts it with thermodynamic/entropic and related emergent-gravity perspectives, and articulates coherence as a scale-general selection principle governing geometric significance. This paper serves as the program’s conceptual entry point: it fixes the ontology and interpretive claims, while formal dynamics, operational proxies, and data-facing tests are developed in the technical addenda and phenomenological studies.