Gravitation as a Gradient of Temporal Capacity: A Record-Theoretic Interpretation of Spacetime Curvature

This paper supplements a three-part framework in which physical time is not fundamental but is locally generated through irreversible record formation. In Paper I (A Physical Law for the Local Generation of Time), time is identified with the accumulation of irreversible records governed by a contraction law on accessible futures. Paper II (Mass as Temporal Capacity) interprets mass as the capacity of physical systems to support future temporal realization, while Paper III (Atemporal Limits of Emergent Time) examines black holes as saturation limits of this process. Building on these foundations, the present work provides a gravitational interpretation within the same ontology. Without modifying Einstein’s field equations, gravitation is reinterpreted as arising from spatial gradients in temporal realization rate, with the spacetime metric functioning as a history-density map encoding variation in accumulated realized time. The contribution is interpretive rather than dynamical and preserves the empirical structure of General Relativity.