Reality as Configured Observation Plane: An Argument from First Principles

This paper derives, from a single axiom, the necessary triadic structure that any reality containing observers must have. The method is propositional, in the tradition of Wittgenstein, Spinoza, and Proclus. The argument combines Bostrom's view from inside reality with 't Hooft's view from outside reality through an axiom that lives at the meeting point of both perspectives—the axiom that observation is observed. The triadic structure derived from this axiom—Configured Observation Plane, abbreviated COP, comprising Configuration, Observation, and Plane—is shown to be consistent with the formal structure of both general relativity and quantum mechanics, and to identify what each theory requires in order to be complete at the structural level. The propositions stand or fall on their own merits, and the reader can examine them directly. We do not derive the field equations of general relativity or the Born rule of quantum mechanics; we derive the triadic structure that both formalisms exhibit and that any complete account of observation obtaining within reality must exhibit. Submitted April 2026 to Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy