From the Theater to the Tablet: A New Way of Seeing the Universe

For roughly four hundred years, since the time of Newton and later Einstein, the dominant scientific picture of the universe has resembled a cosmic theater.

In this view, reality is composed of three basic elements.

First, there is the stage, a vast container of space and time stretching endlessly in every direction. Second, there are the actors, particles and objects moving across that stage like marbles rolling across a floor. Third, there is the script, the laws of physics that determine how those actors behave.

Even Einstein’s revolutionary theory of relativity did not abandon this structure. It merely showed that the stage itself could bend and stretch under the weight of matter. Space and time were no longer rigid, but they were still treated as a physical arena in which the universe unfolds.

Yet over the last century, cracks have appeared in this picture. At the quantum level, particles do not behave like tiny objects following clear paths. Instead, they appear as strange patterns of correlation and probability. Space and time themselves begin to look less like a fixed backdrop and more like something that may emerge from deeper relationships.

This is the starting point of Information Relational Manifestation Theory (IRMT).

Instead of assuming that space and time come first, IRMT explores a different possibility: that the universe is fundamentally a network of relationships, and that spacetime, matter, and forces arise from the way those relationships remain consistent with one another.

In this sense, the universe may not be a theater at all. It may be closer to a record.

The Universe as a Cosmic Record

In the language of modern physics, IRMT describes reality as a causal network, a structure made of events linked by relationships. These links encode how events influence one another and how information propagates through the universe.

But there is a striking way to visualize this idea that resonates deeply with Islamic intellectual tradition.

The Qur’an describes a reality known as the Lauḥ al-Maḥfūẓ, the Preserved Tablet, a domain in which the decree and knowledge of all things are inscribed. Classical scholars often interpreted this symbol as representing the ordered structure through which creation unfolds.

From this perspective, one might imagine the relational universe as resembling a kind of cosmic tablet, a vast record in which the history of relationships is written.

This is not to say that the physical universe is literally the Preserved Tablet. Rather, the metaphor captures something profound: existence appears less like a collection of objects and more like an unfolding history of relations.

What we call “things” may simply be stable patterns within that history.

The Pen and the Ink

Islamic cosmology often speaks of the Qalam (the Pen) and the Tablet.

In symbolic language, the Pen represents the unfolding of divine command, while the Tablet represents the structured record through which creation becomes manifest.

In a relational universe, one can imagine existence unfolding in a similar way.

Events are continuously added to the relational structure, expanding the web of causal history. Every moment contributes another “line” to the cosmic record. The universe grows not merely by expanding through space, but by accumulating relationships.

Particles, in this picture, are not solid marbles moving through empty space. Instead they appear as stable patterns of resonance within the relational network, persistent structures that maintain coherence as the universe evolves.

In this sense, matter resembles ink patterns in a written text: recognizable shapes formed by the deeper grammar of relationships.

Perpetual Renewal

One of the most remarkable teachings in Islamic metaphysics, particularly in the writings of Ibn ʿArabī, is the idea that creation is continuously renewed.

He writes of tajdīd al-khalq, the renewal of creation at every instant.

This does not mean that the universe disappears and reappears in a crude mechanical sense. Rather, it suggests that existence is not a static object but an ongoing act of manifestation.

Interestingly, modern relational physics echoes this idea in its own way. In IRMT, the universe evolves through a constant flow of informational updates, where new relational events extend the network of reality. The cosmos is therefore not a frozen structure but a living, unfolding process.

What we perceive as continuity arises from the stability of patterns within that ongoing renewal.

Archetypes and Manifestation

In Ibn ʿArabī’s metaphysics, the possibilities of all beings exist in divine knowledge as Aʿyān al-Thābita, the “fixed entities” or archetypal realities of things before they enter into existence.

When these archetypes receive manifestation, they appear in the world as concrete forms.

In a purely scientific language, IRMT describes something conceptually similar. Within the relational network, certain patterns of coherence become stable modes, structures that can persist across the evolving history of events.

These patterns behave like the fundamental particles of physics.

Thus, what we observe as matter may arise from deep structural harmonies within the relational fabric of the universe.

What Questions Does This Theory Address?

Modern physics has achieved extraordinary success. The Standard Model of particle physics describes fundamental particles and interactions with remarkable precision, while Einstein’s general theory of relativity explains gravity and the large-scale structure of the universe.

Yet despite these achievements, a deeper question remains:

Why does reality have this structure at all?

The work presented here — Information Relational Manifestation Theory (IRMT) — is not simply an exploration of these questions, but a unified attempt to derive the structure of physics from first principles.

Across a series of papers, IRMT proposes that the laws of physics are not fundamental axioms, but emerge from a deeper relational substrate governed by informational consistency.

Unifying Quantum Physics and Gravity

One of the central challenges in modern physics is the tension between quantum mechanics and general relativity.

Quantum theory describes the microscopic world in terms of probabilities and operators, while relativity describes spacetime as a smooth geometric structure. Despite their individual success, these frameworks resist unification.

IRMT addresses this by shifting the foundation entirely:

Rather than starting with particles or spacetime, it begins with a discrete relational causal network, where events are defined by their relationships and maintained through informational coherence.

From this starting point, both quantum behavior and gravitational dynamics emerge:

Quantum correlations arise from coherence constraints within relational domains
Gauge interactions emerge from transport across causal structure
Gravity appears as the macroscopic response to the “maintenance cost” of sustaining coherent structures

This provides a single framework in which quantum theory and gravity are no longer separate descriptions, but different regimes of the same underlying system.

Why the Laws of Physics Have the Structure They Do

A long-standing mystery in physics is why the Standard Model has its specific structure:

Why are there exactly three generations of fermions?
Why do particle masses follow precise patterns?
Why do the fundamental interactions take the form they do?

IRMT does not treat these as arbitrary inputs.

Instead, it shows that several of these features arise as necessary consequences of the relational substrate:

The existence of three fermion generations follows from the rank structure of the boundary algebra
The Koide mass relation emerges exactly from the normalization of the Clifford generators
The structure of interactions follows from consistency conditions on relational transport

In this view, the laws of physics are not chosen — they are forced by the internal structure of the system.

The Nature of Spacetime

General relativity models spacetime as a continuous geometric manifold. However, many approaches to quantum gravity suggest that spacetime may be discrete or emergent at a deeper level.

IRMT develops this idea explicitly.

Spacetime is not taken as fundamental. Instead, it arises as the large-scale limit of a relational causal network. Geometry emerges from the statistical organization of relationships between events.

Remarkably, the theory also provides a constraint on dimensionality:

The requirement that particle masses satisfy the Koide relation
Combined with the requirement of stable atomic structure

Together, these independently select a universe with three spatial dimensions, not as an assumption, but as a structural necessity.

The Evolution of the Universe

Cosmology introduces additional questions about the origin and evolution of the universe.

Why is the universe expanding? What is the nature of dark energy? Why does large-scale structure behave the way it does?

Within IRMT:

Cosmic expansion emerges from the growth of the relational network
The scale factor is linked to the number of relational events
Dark energy arises from the baseline “maintenance cost” of sustaining coherence in the vacuum

This reframes cosmology as a dynamical process of relational growth rather than expansion within a pre-existing background.

From Concept to Theory

Earlier stages of this work explored these ideas conceptually.

The current IRMT program goes further.