What you asked me to reread is TheMadFool's hypothesis. That is what I found to be incomprehensible. Truthfully, I find your writing quite clear, but you didn't succeed in making TMF's writing intelligible. Probably because it's not.

ok

Here's what some physicists are saying

I won't pretend that I understand all of this

As for time being a cause of change, I feel that change is a material phenomenon and time is immaterial and hence it's more plausible that time lacks causal power over the material domain. I liken spacetime to a theatrical stage on which all material phenomena occur and like the stage is causally inert. — TheMadFool

TMF!

And just to take a slight turn or detour here: I'm suggesting in a hierarchical fashion, something like:

cause--->change--->time (you questioned earlier in your OP about the beginning of Time)

In that matrix, it's possible they all could be abstract. In other words, depending upon how we think about them, they could all be immaterial and/or not observable. Kind of like the old debate between what is concrete v abstract.

As a common example, of course, through mathematics we define objects and other material phenomena in a purely abstract way. Similarly, there are many things that relate to the foregoing change that we can't really observe or see in a concrete way such as; air/oxygen, wind, heat, cold, calculating entropy, the entire universe, happiness, sadness, the will, etc.. And even still, but to a lessor degree, the theory of human change/evolution, is simply that, a theory. It's not something that is/was scientifically observable in a concrete way.

And so I'm thinking that if one wants to wonder about why or how (or what is) causation, change and time all came into being, those in themselves would be considered abstract (metaphysical) concepts. Maybe if one thinks about causation in an ontological way (the Will), I'm almost certain that that would lead to some sort of paradoxical happenstance (theories about consciousness).

Relative to the human condition, do you think cause, change and time, can be explained in a concrete ontological way (problem of universals/properties)? Maybe worth exploring in another thread... .

Truthfully, I find your writing quite clear, but you didn't succeed in making TMF's writing intelligible. Probably because it's not. — Metaphysician Undercover

:sad: I hope it's because the subject matter is tough, requiring more knowledge and experience than I have.

The universe is a gold record, eternal. The mind is the needle which makes the music.

Two worlds have collided.

cause--->change--->time (you questioned earlier in your OP about the beginning of Time) — 3017amen

Relative to the human condition, do you think cause, change and time, can be explained in a concrete ontological way (problem of universals/properties)? Maybe worth exploring in another thread.. — 3017amen

You seem to cast a wide net, into topics I'm not familiar with but if one were to try and establish a hierarchy for cause, change, and time then, in my humble opinion, it would be 1. time, 2. change, 3. cause. Time is immaterial and although we know time never stays still (it always changes one moment relinquishing its place in the present to another that was in the future) what I intuit, perhaps mistakenly, is we have to distinguish what time is from what happens to time. ; just like there's matter and there's change that happens to it. Time is first.

Change, since there always has to be something that experiences it, comes second. No matter, no change; no time, also no change.

Causality is change in matter but with a temporal component: x causes y iff there's some change and x temporally precedes y. So, causality occupies the third station.

Does this come close to answering your question of an ontological hierarchy to cause, time and change?