In the previous post, we reframed time and space as emergent from relational cuts rather than as pre-existing containers. Here, we focus on time itself: not as a universal metric or linear sequence, but as a relational horizon — perspectival, system-relative, and traced by the actualisation of potentialities.
Temporal Emergence from Systems
Time emerges through the instantiation of systems. Each system actualises a subset of potentialities, producing a temporal horizon unique to its perspective. Duration, sequence, and rhythm are not absolute; they are relational phenomena that arise from the constraints and possibilities internal to the system.
For example, consider a plant growing toward sunlight. The “time” of its growth is not measured against a universal clock but is actualised through the plant’s own system: its metabolism, cellular interactions, and environmental feedback. The temporal horizon is the relational contour of these successive instantiations. Remove the system, and the notion of temporal progression evaporates.
Temporal Contours and Perspectival Tracing
Temporal contours are the patterns traced by successive instantiations. Each event or moment is a perspectival cut, an actualisation that marks a boundary between potentialities. Time is thus experienced and observed not as a flow but as the relational imprint of differences actualising in sequence.
In human experience, this is readily apparent. Moments of intense focus or creativity feel elongated; periods of monotony or waiting seem compressed. These subjective variations are not illusions: they reflect the system-relative nature of temporal emergence. Time is inseparable from the perspective of the system in which it arises.
System-Relative Temporality
Each system carries its own temporal logic. Biological, social, and ecological systems operate on distinct temporal scales and rhythms, coexisting without a universal synchronisation. A bee’s foraging pattern, a musician’s composition, and a city’s traffic cycle each instantiate temporal horizons emergent from their internal relational structure. Interactions between systems may align, clash, or coalesce, producing complex relational dynamics that classical notions of linear time cannot capture.
Implications for Causality and Sequence
Seeing time as relational also reshapes how we understand causality. Sequence is not a matter of one event “preceding” another in absolute terms; it is the pattern of actualisation within and across systems. Causal relations are perspectival: they exist only in the context of a system’s temporal horizon. Multiple systems may produce overlapping or divergent sequences, revealing that “before” and “after” are not universal, but relational and emergent.
Next in the series: Space as Emergent Construal — we will explore how spatial relations emerge through perspectival distinction, and how distance, separation, and orientation are co-actualised with temporal horizons.
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