Rethinking Time: From Linear Flow to Relational Becoming

Time is often treated as one of physics’ most basic givens: a continuous axis, a dimension of spacetime, or a universal parameter governing change. But these interpretations inherit deep ontological commitments from substance metaphysics. In this post, we explore how a relational ontology reconceives time—not as a universal background, but as a modulation of relational coherence.

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1. The Classical View: Time as a Container

In Newtonian mechanics and even in much of relativity, time is treated as:

• A neutral continuum that flows independently of what occurs within it;

• A parameter against which motion, causation, and entropy are measured;

• A universal scaffold that applies identically everywhere.

Despite technical refinements, this view treats time as an external axis—a measure imposed on events from the outside.

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2. The Relational Turn: Time as Emergent Structure

A relational ontology begins with a different assumption:

• There is no background time.

• Instead, time emerges from the structure and evolution of relations.

This entails:

• Events do not happen in time; time is the pattern of their happening.

• Duration is not given in advance, but arises from the rate and regularity of relational transitions.

• Past and future are not containers of content, but trajectories of coherence.

Time is not what ticks, but what differentiates: the unfolding of constraint across a field of possibility.

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3. Time Without a Global Clock

Quantum mechanics, relativity, and quantum gravity all problematise the idea of a universal clock:

• In relativity, simultaneity is frame-dependent.

• In quantum gravity, time disappears from the fundamental equations altogether.

• In cosmology, early time lacks the markers (entropy gradients, classical trajectories) that give time its directionality.

From a relational standpoint:

• Time is always local and contextual: it is indexed to systems of relation, not globally imposed.

• Different relational domains may operate on incommensurable temporalities, with no overarching temporal synchronisation.

This view aligns with certain quantum formulations (e.g. the Page–Wootters mechanism) where temporal order arises from correlations between subsystems.

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4. The Arrow of Time Reconceived

Standard accounts of the arrow of time rely on entropy: the tendency of systems to move from order to disorder.

Relational ontology suggests:

• The arrow of time is not a law, but a topological feature of relational unfolding.

• Irreversibility is not imposed by thermodynamics, but arises from asymmetries in constraint propagation and path-dependence in coherence formation.

• Memory, causation, and agency are all emergent features of local relational structure—not universal time markers.

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Closing

Time, in a relational cosmos, is not an axis along which things move—it is the movement itself: the modulation of coherence, the pacing of emergence, the structure of constraint realising itself through difference.

Rather than a river flowing past passive objects, time is the becoming of relation—a measure of how the field transforms under its own immanent logic.

In the next post, we’ll turn from time to causality: What does it mean to say one thing causes another, in a world without substances and without absolute time?