In this article
- The question behind the comparison
- The single-source and nested-time proposal
- The comparator’s explanatory structure
- The precise agreement and difference
- Worked example: what follows and what does not
- What this comparison contributes
Free will and temporal becoming: SMM/DTT and Ibn Arabi’s metaphysics
Ibn Arabi’s relation between divine determination, human capacities and responsibility gives agency a theological depth that cannot be reduced to a random choice mechanism. The comparison develops this distinction through a worked example and explains its implications for SMM/DTT’s nested generation, completed records and account of the observable world.
01The question behind the comparison
A world that becomes is not automatically a world containing free agents. New outcomes may be random, mechanically determined, responsive to reasons, or imposed from elsewhere. SMM/DTT’s emphasis on completion can illuminate when an action becomes a settled event, but freedom concerns how that event relates to the agent’s capacities, deliberation and control. The philosophical task is to explain agency within a source-generated world without erasing the difference between the person’s action and a merely external occurrence.
Determinism and fatalism are also different. A deterministic process can include deliberation as a cause of what happens. Fatalism would make the outcome unavoidable regardless of relevant deliberation or action. Introducing indeterminism does not by itself improve control: an unpredictable coin flip is not an exercise of will. A source-based theory can therefore explore a reasons-responsive form of agency even if its update law is deterministic. A stronger libertarian proposal would need to explain how alternatives remain genuinely open and how their resolution belongs to the agent.
The six nested inner levels should not be treated as six hidden decisions made by a small inner person. That would reproduce the problem inside the model. Their useful role would be to organize capacities such as memory, evaluation and action selection in a physically or conceptually explicit way. These are illustrative functions, not established identities of the six DTT levels. Outer completion could mark when an action yields a stable public consequence. The model would still need to explain how the agent’s own organization participates in that completion.
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
Ibn Arabi’s writings examine the relation of divine reality, manifestation and the forms through which reality is known. The translated passage on barzakh offers a particularly useful primary example: mediation can distinguish two orders while relating them. This is a metaphysical and interpretive relation, not a measured extra spatial direction.
For SMM/DTT the historical connection is direct, but the modern reconstruction must still state its own contribution. A source state, retained memory and a completion rule are mathematical commitments whose validity depends on definitions and argument. They cannot be attributed to a medieval text merely because a familiar metaphor can illustrate them. Conversely, translating every spiritual expression into a physical variable can lose distinctions the text was intended to preserve. The most illuminating comparison identifies a shared question about unity and manifestation, then explains what the modern temporal construction adds to that question. It also avoids simply identifying the Single Monad, any created intermediary and divine reality without attending to their different roles. [1]
04The precise agreement and difference
Ibn Arabi’s relation between divine determination, human capacities and responsibility gives agency a theological depth that cannot be reduced to a random choice mechanism. SMM/DTT can inherit the question of how a dependent being acts meaningfully within a source-grounded world. The relevant affinity is dependence without immediately dismissing local action as unreal.
DTT’s completion language can clarify when an intention becomes an enacted consequence, but it does not by itself establish freedom. A source could generate deterministic, stochastic or reasons-responsive processes. The philosophical issue is which features make an action attributable to the person. A careful comparison therefore distinguishes the metaphysical ground of the agent from the agent’s organized capacities and commitments. Spiritual responsibility can be discussed at that level without claiming that quantum uncertainty proves free will. The six nested inner levels may help model the relation between potential and completed action, but they are not six hidden acts of choice. This formulation gives SMM a coherent route to agency while preserving the complexity of its theological source tradition. [1]
05Worked example: what follows and what does not
An agent chooses between helping a neighbor and continuing a private task. Suppose better information about the neighbor’s need would change the choice, while coercion would undermine it. A reasons-responsive account regards these counterfactual differences as evidence of agency. Now replace the decision by a random switch with the same observed outcome. The event remains unpredictable, but the relation to the agent’s reasons has vanished. This example shows why temporal openness and agency are separate. A DTT model of becoming can provide the setting for action, yet a theory of freedom must identify the relevant control relations within that setting.
06What this comparison contributes
The constructive opportunity is to distinguish source dependence from the absence of local agency. An organism may be wholly dependent on its underlying physical and metaphysical conditions while still acting through its own organized capacities. Whether that suffices for freedom is a philosophical disagreement worth stating explicitly. DTT becomes clearer when it specifies which account it supports, rather than presenting a new temporal vocabulary as a resolution of every debate about responsibility.
THE SAME QUESTION, DIFFERENT STARTING POINTS
The comparison at a glance
| Question | SMM/DTT | Ibn Arabi’s metaphysics |
|---|---|---|
| Explanatory starting point | Temporal becoming provides a setting in which an agent’s retained reasons and capacities can participate in forming a new completed action. | Manifestation, mediation and modes of knowing are interpreted within a theological and metaphysical framework. |
| Key distinction | Randomness supplies unpredictability, whereas agency requires control relations such as responsiveness to reasons and resistance to coercion. | Ibn Arabi’s relation between divine determination, human capacities and responsibility gives agency a theological depth that cannot be reduced to a random choice mechanism. |
KEEP THE CONNECTION
Key ideas
- Temporal becoming provides a setting in which an agent’s retained reasons and capacities can participate in forming a new completed action.
- DTT’s completion language can clarify when an intention becomes an enacted consequence, but it does not by itself establish freedom.
- Randomness supplies unpredictability, whereas agency requires control relations such as responsiveness to reasons and resistance to coercion.
Continue on SMONAD
- Causality and explanation: from common origin to controlled change →
Connects this comparison with the author’s discussion of agency.
- Observer and record: making observation part of the model →
Connects this comparison with the author’s discussion of agency.
- The Principle of Ever-renewed Creation →
Connects this comparison with the author’s discussion of agency.
- Physical Time and Spiritual Time →
Connects this comparison with the author’s discussion of agency.
- Philosophy of time and creation →
Connects this comparison with the author’s discussion of agency.
Sources and further reading
References support the comparator and the specific mathematical or interpretive claims indicated. SMM/DTT connections are developed in the analysis above.
- J. W. Morris (trans.), Divine “Imagination” and the Intermediate World: Ibn Arabi on the Barzakh (prepublication version; revised publication 1995) ↗Includes an abridged primary translation of Futuhat al-Makkiyya chapter 63 with an introduction. Revised as Spiritual Imagination and the “Liminal” World: Ibn Arabi on the Barzakh, POSTDATA 15(2) (1995), pp. 42–49 and 104–109. Supports imaginal mediation and the mirror example; the modern SMM/DTT reconstruction is distinct.
- Mohamed Haj Yousef, Philosophy of time and creation, SMONAD ↗Author’s philosophical discussion of source, dependence, renewal and records.
How these comparisons distinguish premises, results and physical claims