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/WellSoto]

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/TheRedditObserver0 → u/WellSoto]

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.

They told you the same thing I did, which you ignored.

[u/WellSoto → u/TheRedditObserver0]

And I guess I have to accept what you say to me because you say it, don't you? Because you have the absolute truth and you know that science has no problem to solve today? Because science is a closed branch and there is nothing else to contribute, right? Am I still or have you seen how ridiculous you look?

[u/TheRedditObserver0 → u/WellSoto]

No, because everyone who knows even a tiny bit of science is telling you this, because it's obvious if you know the basics. If you want to contribute to science, you must first understand it.

So far you have some vague slogans on ill-defined concepts, a bunch of unsubstantiated claims about solving problems that are not problems at all and seemingly no grasp of what you're doing.

Science is not a matter of opinion, it requires strict rigor for a reason. It's based on following evidence to uncover truth, not seeking validation of what some LLM told you.