Time as generative process: SMM/DTT and Presentism and the growing-block universe

01The question behind the comparison

To describe time as generative is to treat the arrival of a determinate event as part of what the theory explains. An ordinary dynamical equation begins with a state space, variables and a law. A stronger SMM/DTT construction would explain why certain variables form spatial objects and why their changes share a measurable temporal order. Its appeal lies in reducing the independence of geometry, matter and clock readings. The single-source claim becomes physically significant when the same mechanism constrains all three rather than merely running three separately chosen rules.

A generative process is not necessarily an event before the universe in an earlier external time. If space and outer time are outputs, their source cannot be located at a pre-existing spatial address or timed by an unexplained outside stopwatch. Mathematical descriptions can still use an index to express dependency. The index is then part of the representation until an operational meaning is provided. This is familiar in constructive mathematics: the order in which a proof or object is built need not be a physical sequence measured in seconds. DTT must explain when its generative order becomes more than this.

Six nested inner levels offer a proposed organization of dependencies. Their scientific role would be clearest if dropping one level destroys a necessary capability, while adding a level contributes no independent capability. Such minimality is stronger than naming six stages after a familiar result. A successful construction would also prevent arbitrary reassignment of stage labels from changing its physical conclusions. The point is not the number alone but the restrictions imposed by the nested organization on possible records and their lawful transformations.

02The single-source and nested-time proposal

SMM begins with one nonspatial generative source. DTT distinguishes its inner production from the outer order in which completed results become accessible. The six inner levels are nested functional dependencies within that production; the seventh denotes outer completion. They are not six independent clocks, six spatial directions, or six simultaneously occupied temporal axes. This distinction makes the framework more specific than a general claim that everything changes: it asks how a world of persistent relations can be generated before its spatial representation is taken for granted. ^[2]

03The comparator’s explanatory structure

Presentism restricts concrete temporal existence to the present; the growing-block view includes the past and present while excluding the future. The distinction is decisive for a record-based ontology. A present record of yesterday and yesterday’s continuing existence are different claims. Broad’s treatment of becoming supplies the historical growing-block comparator; the presentist alternative sharpens what an archive does and does not establish.

Suppose a stone bears an inscription describing a vanished ceremony. A presentist can treat the inscription as a current object with a history. A growing-block theorist can additionally include the ceremony itself in reality. Both can agree about what the inscription says. The disagreement therefore cannot be settled by pointing to a stored record alone. SMM/DTT gains precision by stating whether renewal preserves past events, preserves only present traces, or uses another form of persistence. Relativity adds the separate question of how a privileged present, if proposed, relates to spatially separated events. ^[1]

04The precise agreement and difference

Presentism and growing-block theories primarily specify the temporal extent of reality. DTT’s generative programme instead asks how determinate states are produced. These projects can cooperate: a source law might implement a growing boundary or sustain a succession of present states. The ontological label alone does not provide the mechanism, and the mechanism alone does not determine whether past events continue to exist.

A particularly important difference concerns retained memory. In a growing block, past events may remain real but need not be accessible. In a renewal-based presentism, accessible traces must be carried into the current state even though the earlier events no longer exist. DTT must therefore distinguish history as an ontological domain from memory as a current resource. Its six nested levels could organize the passage from incomplete structure to record, but a physical model must explain how that record influences later generation. This is where DTT can add more than a preferred temporal ontology: it can supply a disciplined account of succession and inheritance. ^[1]

05Worked example: what follows and what does not

Consider a rewrite system starting from one mark. A rule replaces each mark with two related marks and preserves their ancestry. After n steps there are 2ⁿ leaves and a rooted tree of relations. The construction has genuinely produced multiplicity and a distance based on shared ancestry. It has not produced ordinary three-dimensional Euclidean space: a tree has a different neighborhood structure. Giving the leaves three coordinates afterwards changes their representation, not the original relation. The example identifies a positive milestone for SMM/DTT: derive relational structure first, then prove which metric and dimension its observations support. Unity can generate many objects without uniquely selecting their geometry.

06What this comparison contributes

The comparison therefore concerns explanatory priority. Does a theory start from events and organize them, or provide a process that constitutes events? Both can describe change, but they answer different questions. The most useful bridge is an explicit map from generative states to the observables of a familiar theory, together with an explanation of why the map respects that theory’s symmetries. A completed reconstruction could then illuminate the origin of an established law even before it supplies a new empirical prediction.

THE SAME QUESTION, DIFFERENT STARTING POINTS

The comparison at a glance

Continue on SMONAD

• The Single Monad Model of the Cosmos →

  Connects this comparison with the author’s discussion of generative.

• The bare-source obstruction →

  Connects this comparison with the author’s discussion of generative.

• spatial readout →

  Connects this comparison with the author’s discussion of generative.

• Publication record: The Dynamic Formation of Spatial Dimensions in the Inner Levels of Time →

  Connects this comparison with the author’s discussion of generative.

• Emergent geometry →

  Connects this comparison with the author’s discussion of generative.