Radiation Before Matter: A Generative Framework for Spacetime and Quantum Measurement

This paper develops a generative interpretation of quantum and relativistic phenomena based on a Radiation-First ontology. Instead of treating matter and spacetime as pre-existing arenas in which radiation propagates, the proposed Closure-Oriented Radiative Expansion (CORE) framework reverses the order: radiation is primary, and matter together with spacetime arise as the accumulated record of radiative closures. All physical realization occurs within a finite generative domain, N, where lawful potentials become localized energy–momentum through absorption and emission processes. The resulting events form the realized domain, W(s), whose geometric representation corresponds to the observed spacetime continuum. This approach preserves Lorentz invariance and the empirical content of quantum theory while resolving the conceptual tension between potentiality and actuality. Superposition is understood as lawful openness, measurement as generative closure, and time as the ordered sequence of such closures through which the universe expands its realized record. The framework offers a unified ontology in which radiation, matter, and time are complementary aspects of a single physical process of becoming.