Absolute incidence theorems and tilings

We give a precise definition of incidence theorems in plane projective geometry and introduce the notion of ``absolute incidence theorems,'' which hold over any ring. Fomin and Pylyavskyy describe how to obtain incidence theorems from tilings of an orientable surface; they call this result the ``master theorem''. Instances of the master theorem are always absolute incidence theorems. As most classically known incidence theorems are instances of the master theorem, they are absolute incidence theorems. We give an explicit example of an incidence theorem involving 13 points that is not an absolute incidence theorem, and therefore is not an instance of the master theorem.