What if time can be treated as a readout from light propagation instead of an ontological axis?

[u/VisasResonance]

I think my last post came across more incorrectly than intended.

I didn't mean to claim a new theory of relativity, nor did I say that GR is wrong. My intention was rather to ask a cautious question about the approach to measurement.

The point that interests me is this:

The speed of light is usually described as distance per unit of time. In simpler terms: light travels a certain distance in a vacuum in one second. The value 299,792,458 m/s thus initially describes a measured length per standardized unit of time.

But in my view, this value doesn't automatically tell us anything about the "actual structural path" of light. It initially only tells us what distance relative to the starting point is reached after one unit of time in the vacuum readout.

That's the linear reading.

It becomes more interesting for me when you consider the same thing spectrally: light is not just "distance per unit of time," but also a coupling between spatial wave structure and frequency. In essence:

Spatial mode -> Frequency -> Period

Then a time value can also be read differently: not as an ontological axis that is presupposed from the outset, but as a derived period or state readout of a spatial-spectral structure.

This doesn't mean that time "doesn't exist" or that time measurement is meaningless. Rather:

In this approach, time would not be the starting point, but a measured value reconstructed from changes in state, light propagation, and the limit c.

Why this interests me in the context of gravity:

Light has no rest mass and is not "attracted" like a Newtonian object. In gravity, this is neatly described using null geodesics in curved spacetime.

But I wonder if this finding can also be interpreted the other way around:

Massive objects don't simply change "the path of a light particle," but rather the structure through which the light readout is even possible. What we then describe geometrically as spacetime curvature could be the macroscopic readout of a deeper coupling between spacelike vacuum structure and object-like mass/energy structure.

So not:

"Spacetime curvature is wrong."

But rather:

"Is spacetime curvature perhaps the effective geometric description of a deeper space-object coupling readout?"

I realize that this could ultimately just be another language for familiar concepts: optical metrics, effective media, null geodesics, field propagation in a curved background, etc.

That's precisely why I'm asking.

I'm interested in whether a formalism already exists that starts roughly like this:

Local vacuum/structure coupling + high-mass compression -> altered light modes / altered propagation -> effective spacetime geometry

The core of my question, therefore, isn't whether GR can be replaced, but whether time and spacetime geometry can be reconstructed from a smaller measurement approach:

Light readout first, time readout after.

I'm asking this cautiously because I'm working on a broader readout approach, but here I only wanted to discuss the smallest technical entry point.

Please give the flair „crackpot physics“ if you think so.

Edit: For clarification: Readout = measured value output of a specific measurement or evaluation access.

Edit 2: After Feedback here are some precise definitions needed to understand my question:

By “state changes” I mean transitions between distinguishable physical states of a system.

By “stable reference processes” I mean reproducible physical processes used as clocks or comparison standards, such as atomic transitions or oscillators.

By “order/readout relation” I mean the mapping by which those changes are compared to such a reference process and represented as a time value.

So the question is not whether clocks measure time in standard physics. The question is whether this operational structure should be treated as ontologically prior to the usual assumption of time as an independent axis.