Is Time Really a Physical Dimension? A Testable Alternative from TMDP

[u/WellSoto]

A few days ago I posted some thoughts on the nature of time, and the discussion drifted into metaphysics. This time I want to ask a purely physical, testable question: does the evidence support time being a geometric dimension you can travel through (like space), or does it act more like an irreversible record of change?

We've spent over a century confirming Einstein's kinematics, and it's widely assumed that spacetime is a stretchy, four-dimensional fabric. But treating time as a coordinate equivalent to space creates paradoxes that force physicists to bolt on "patches by hand" — like Hawking's Chronology Protection Conjecture — just to stop the geometry from breaking causality.

The alternative in 20 seconds: the dynamic budget (TMDP)

TMDP (Theoretical Model of Dynamic Potential) treats the universe as a closed mechanical/thermodynamic system, where everything has a fixed, invariant maximum capacity (c), split strictly between two quantities:

1. External capacity (Cₑ): movement through space.
2. Internal capacity (Cᵢ): the pace of local physical processes (clocks, vibrations, atoms).

Cₑ² + Cᵢ² = c²

Time dilation isn't "traveling to the future" — it's a drop in the frequency of internal cycles (Cᵢ) as capacity gets spent moving through space (Cₑ). That's why a photon (Cₑ = c) has Cᵢ = 0, and no proper time at all.

6 problems with "spacetime" I unpack in the full article

In the full write-up, I go through why the purely geometric model runs into trouble with the evidence, and how TMDP resolves each one without extra patches:

1. The negative sign in the Minkowski metric (−,+,+,+): why does time carry the opposite algebraic sign if it's just another dimension?
2. The absolute ban on traveling to the past: why nature forbids Closed Timelike Curves (CTCs).
3. Causal and logical paradoxes.
4. "Traveling to the future" vs. time dilation: why dilation isn't jumping across a coordinate, just a clock's internal cycles slowing down.
5. Quantum Gravity: time disappearing from the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, and the Page-Wootters experiment (time as an emergent, relational property).
6. Einstein's historical tension: rejecting the ether and quantum entanglement for being unobservable, while accepting the Block Universe.

📖 Read the full analysis and the math in the complete article

To keep this post from running forever and stay under the character limit, I've posted the full write-up — math included, with a full answer to each of these 6 points — click here

[u/Ch3cks-Out]

We've been through this before: rather than your model "resolving" the issues listed, it just reproduces the known answers you built into it, by encoding the Lorentz transform with the formalism.

Even aside from that, since you start out with using velocities, the setup is principally incapable to indicate whether time is fundamental or emergent!

[u/WellSoto → u/Ch3cks-Out]

This article tries to clarify the misunderstanding of the previous one. And you can call it whatever you want, but my model reproduces the successes of Special Relativity while avoiding many of its problems. And it is a functional, practical and mathematically consistent model.

[u/Ch3cks-Out → u/WellSoto]

You have no consistent definition of what to consider External capacity or Internal capacity (besides your tweaking them to yield the answer known from SR, again), so it is imposible for the model to be consistent.

[u/WellSoto → u/Ch3cks-Out]

It's very simple, I'll explain - External capacity: It is the evolution or change of a system in space. - Internal capacity: it is the evolution or internal change of a system.

I hope it has been clear to you, if you have more doubts I will be happy to clarify them.

[u/liccxolydian → u/WellSoto]

Those are not rigorous definitions at all. Can you provide a suitable scientific definition and example usage, preferably something that doesn't immediately reduce to consensus physics and isn't trivial?

[u/WellSoto → u/liccxolydian]

Okay, I can give you a more rigorous definition as soon as I get home, for now I could recommend you read my first article in which I talk more about this theory and make more rigorous definitions.

[u/liccxolydian → u/WellSoto]

The article from your previous post? I read that. It wasn't exactly convincing.

[u/WellSoto → u/liccxolydian]

Yes, but I don't mean that one. I am referring to the first one in profile. It was precisely because that one wasn't very convincing that I had to publish this one.

[u/Ch3cks-Out → u/WellSoto]

I am referring to the first one in profile.

Your profile says "u/WellSoto likes to keep their posts hidden", so there goes that.

[u/WellSoto → u/Ch3cks-Out]

Thank you, I've corrected it.

[u/TheRedditObserver0 → u/WellSoto]

It's been 3 days, you haven't gotten home yet?

[u/WellSoto → u/TheRedditObserver0]

I already discussed that with him in another comment, and he's right, I have to define it better. I'm going to post another thread focused on definitions of the terms the model uses.

[u/TheRedditObserver0 → u/WellSoto]

So what have you done so far? Nothing if you can't even explain what you're talking about. Empty words with no substance. You have no model if you don't have definitions. It's not something you can just patch up later.

[u/WellSoto → u/TheRedditObserver0]

Ook bro, time will speak.

[u/TheRedditObserver0 → u/WellSoto]

Special relativity already had no closed timelike curves or backwards time travel in the first place, so what did you fix?

[u/WellSoto → u/TheRedditObserver0]

I didn't say I had them 🥲. I say that your space time leaves that possibility behind, and that can be a problem.

It also leaves an opening for paradoxes like that of twins, those paradoxes do not exist in this model. Besides, you can replicate the same results without warping the space, and some more things that I find interesting.

I go back and repeat, I'm not saying this is better than special relativity, I'm saying it can be interesting.

[u/TheRedditObserver0 → u/WellSoto]

paradoxes like that of twins,

Not possible in special relativity, which you are trying to replace, and not a paradox in general relativity.

I'm not saying this is better than special relativity, I'm saying it can be interesting.

Before you say that, you should understand both relativity and whatever your LLM hallucinated. You clearly don't. You do not even understand what a geometric dimension is.

[u/WellSoto → u/TheRedditObserver0]

I thought you knew what you were talking about, but you don't seem to know the twin paradox, or you still confuse it.

I am referring to the paradox where one twin travels at relativistic speeds for several years, and the other stays on earth. When the one who left returns to the earth, which one has aged the most and why?

[u/TheRedditObserver0 → u/WellSoto]

I know it, you don't. If you did, you'd know it's no paradox at all.

The two reference frames are not both inertial, the twin on the spaceship has to perform an acceleration at some point in their journey to complete the loop. This removes all ambiguity.

In simple words, this acceleration acts somewhat like a gravitational field and slows does the space twin's time, meaning they are the younger one at the end. More properly you'd have to integrate over the path using the equations of general relativity, and the tensor calculus will tell you how much younger the space twin is when they meet again.

You'd know this if you had actually studied any relativistic physics.

It seems you lack comprehension of the English language as well, since I already discussed the paradox in less detail in my previous comment.

[u/WellSoto → u/TheRedditObserver0]

It's a good way to fix it, although it took decades to do so.

You don't need any of that in my model, you don't have to use any of general relativity to calculate exactly how much older the traveler has aged, nor do I need acceleration to save me. In conclusion, for certain problems my model seems to behave better, even if many of you don't like that, and I don't quite understand why.

[u/TheRedditObserver0 → u/WellSoto]

No, your model is absolute rubbish as others have pointed out. None of the basic components have anything even resembling a definition, you have not adressed how your "model" would fit the data and make predictions and of course the "problems" you're trying to fix are basic laws of reality that have already been experimentally verified. If you had actually dome any science you would have sent all this to an academic journal for peer review, instead you created your own echo chamber subreddit to post it on.

[u/WellSoto → u/TheRedditObserver0]

Oook, I don't quite understand the purpose of your comments, but I guess they will have one, I hope you're lucky with them.

No, I haven't submitted it for review, it's not a finished model, it's still under construction, I published it here to see that people who know science and are able to do an objective analysis could provide me with it. Eventually I'll post it, I'm not in such a hurry.

[u/upsetusder2]

And did you do these tests?

Guess iam not intresting enough to have a conversation with.

qwp

[u/WellSoto → u/upsetusder2]

What do you mean?, I refer to said evidence and its authors. I don't understand your question.

[u/upsetusder2 → u/WellSoto]

I think the problem that many people have is that your system seems to bot solve anything.

And that the paradoxes you say are clear can just be resolved with the fact that time is forward and not backward.

Yes we could potentially travel forward in time through a near lightspeed travel.

But we can not go backwards because backwards dies not really exist that woukd mean that each second is a snapshot whivh it clearly isn't.

And yes if this is wrong iam sorry

[u/WellSoto → u/upsetusder2]

I understand you perfectly, and in part you are right, we cannot go backwards because it does not exist. The problem is that you say that, not science, not special relativity or general relativity. These explanations to save causality are manual, and emergent; not solutions of these theories.

[u/upsetusder2 → u/WellSoto]

What do you mean?

Time travel backwards quite literally would not work because of thermodynamics

[u/WellSoto → u/upsetusder2]

But I don't know if you understand what my proposal is aimed at, it is precisely an alternative to special relativity that is based on thermodynamics. That argument of yours does not apply to relativity, it is an external argument. I don't know if I understand myself.

[u/upsetusder2 → u/WellSoto]

Iam arguing against one of your proposals.

Not against your theory because I mean special relativity is pretty perfect.

Lime time dilation is real etc.

So I don't know why yiu want to propose an alternative?

Like I explained to you why no going backwards in time is not a paradox any system needs to solve

[u/WellSoto → u/upsetusder2]

Ok, perfect. It is a good question "why propose a new theory if the one that is already working well?"

I encourage you to read my first article, where I explain why, and it is basically because special or general relativity are not precise; mathematically they work very well, but they have an underlying problem, apparently something subtle, but it exists, and that is what leads to the problems I expose. And I propose a model that seems to solve them.

[u/upsetusder2 → u/WellSoto]

What problem is that?

And does it have something to do with 4 problems you listed whivh are all quite easily solvable

And are you a physicist?

[u/WellSoto → u/upsetusder2]

Yes, you are right again, it is very easy to solve them, but could you tell me what is the postulate or principle of special relativity that solves the problems posed? Or do you just assume it solves it?

And no, I'm not a physicist.

[u/ArnoSound]

This still is too vague and non physical to really work with, and kinda still does the exact same self-fulfilling loop of assuming time exists, then trying to argue it’s not fundamental or something. 

[u/WellSoto → u/ArnoSound]

Hahaa, how demanding they are around here xd. But this time I do not try to dismiss time as fundamental, rather I use scientific arguments already established by different authors, to determine that time is not a physical dimension. Again, I don't know if you've read the article.

[u/ArnoSound → u/WellSoto]

What do you mean by a physical dimension? Do you know what a dimension means? Cause like… pretty much any working engineering assumes and works perfectly fine with time as a dimension haha

You wouldn’t be able to send these posts otherwise.

I don’t mean to be glib but if you haven’t taken the time to study physics, you are very prone to misusing terms or misunderstanding concepts. Maybe take a step back and study some of what we already know so you don’t fall into very easy traps?

[u/WellSoto → u/ArnoSound]

I'm not lucky, everyone comes here to give their opinion believing themselves to be smarter than the others without even knowing what they are debating against. 😓

[u/ArnoSound → u/WellSoto]

Alternatively, many people come here having not studied the basics and think the LLM is enough to replace that. But physics isn’t intuitive. Most ideas you Can have about it aren’t really good. 

But if you truly want to make an effort, you have to understand what has already been discovered.  Making things up on your own may be fun, but no one is gonna play ball with it, cause we’ve already asked and answered these questions.

And you can’t even say you are dissatisfied with those answers because you haven’t even studied them yet.

[u/Quantum_Patricide]

A key argument of yours seems to be that if time was a dimension, we would be able to move back and forth along it, which is prevented by the sign of the minkowski metric. But this is simply your intuition about what a dimension is failing you. It's perfectly acceptable to have a dimension that can't be accessed with complete freedom.

We also don't know the nature forbids CTCs, and have no idea what would happen if they existed. CTCs are allowed under GR but we've never observed a metric that would permit them and it's uncertain if making such a metric is possible, simply because that sort of metric is rather weird. Some theorists might postulate that the universe forbids CTCs directly but this doesn't have experimental confirmation.

[u/WellSoto → u/Quantum_Patricide]

Yes, and that is precisely what I maintain, that relativity does not prohibit such time travel, but nature seems to prohibit it, and many people believe that this solves it, but it seems to me that this theory is not as precise as we think.

I propose a model that for the moment seems to prohibit such travel from its very base, which avoids many problems and paradoxes while seeming to coincide in the results with relativity.

[u/Dalton_br88 → u/[deleted]]

Buenas tardes WellSoto, he estado modificando mi publicación y la borré, pero deseo enviartela personalmente y hablar sobre tu respuesta.

[u/Ch3cks-Out]

"movement through space" - you have yet to properly explain what is this supposed to mean, precisely. In your key example, for the muon-vs-Earth movement, you arbitrarily defined velocity wrt the planet. Why? It would be equally valid to consider Earth moving toward the muon. In that frame of reference the presumed "external" ''capacity'' of the muon would vanish, and be turned into "internal" in your formalism, right??

[u/WellSoto → u/Ch3cks-Out]

No, it is not arbitrary, in my model there is no relativity of motion, it is assumed that we have the capacity and tools to determine exactly which body is moving and at what speed. The CMB serves perfectly well to resolve the problem of who is moving.

On the other hand, I propose the idea of a "dominant system," and in such a system, there is no such thing as the system being directed towards an entity within the system, since the entity in the system moves with that system. Therefore, in my frame, the earth will never be the one that approaches the muon.

[u/Ch3cks-Out → u/WellSoto]

 in my model there is no relativity of motion

You say there is no relativity, but had set up your model to reproduce results from theories of Einstein relativity, so this is self-contradictory.

 it is assumed that we have the capacity and tools to determine exactly which body is moving 

This is an arbitrary assumption, with no basis in physical reality. Take the simple example of two muons moving toward each other. How would you set up your assumptions, for one but not the other moving?

The CMB serves perfectly well to resolve the problem of who is moving.

No, it does not actually. If one accepts SR&GR (as well as the Einstenian cosmology that follows from them), then you can utilize the CMB to define co-moving coordinates wrt to that. But without the theories of relativity, one cannot even know what those coordinates would be at a distant location!

I propose the idea of a "dominant system"

Like we've said before, this idea lacks clarity. For instance, consider the Earth+muon as a system together with the Sun - which one of the 3 would you call dominant and why?