[2a] Time and Gravitation as Consequences of Retained Measurement Records

Despite their empirical success, the conceptual foundations of time and gravitation remain unsettled. In general relativity, time is treated as a geometric dimension, and gravitation as spacetime curvature sourced by stress-energy, whereas in quantum theory, time appears as an external parameter, and measurement introduces irreversibility without a unified interpretational basis. This paper proposes an interpretational framework in which both time and gravitation are understood as consequences of retained asymmetry produced by irreversible measurement events. Time is interpreted as the ordering induced by retained measurement records, while gravitation is interpreted as the constraint imposed by their density. This framework introduces no new entities or mathematical structures and remains consistent with established results in general relativity and quantum mechanics.Keywords: foundations of physics, measurement theory, foundations of spacetime, time, gravitation, interpretation