Operational Meaning and the Limits of Physical Attribution in Gravitation

This work applies a reconstruction-based criterion of physical meaning to gravitation. It examines how the reconstructive character of gravitational observation constrains the physical status of distinctions introduced by theoretical descriptions. A formal distinction between gravitational fields, configurations, or state assignments does not by itself constitute a physically fixed difference. Physical attribution requires that a distinction be reconstructible through admissible physical access and remain non-eliminable under admissible reformulation. The analysis focuses on the operational meaning of gravitational quantities and on the relational reconstruction of physical information through events, clocks, worldlines, and signals. It distinguishes formal definability from physical fixation without challenging the mathematical or predictive role of general relativistic description. The work thereby establishes a boundary between descriptive structure and physical attribution. Cosmology is considered as a limiting case in which observational access is restricted to information available within the same spacetime being reconstructed. The consequences for the physical individuation of cosmological states are left to the subsequent work of the series.