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 Spinoza’s substance monism
Spinoza treats freedom through understanding and activity within necessity, rather than an uncaused interruption of nature. This is a valuable comparator for SMM/DTT because dependence on one source need not eliminate the distinction between acting through one’s organized capacities and being passively driven. A worked example clarifies the distinction and its implications for SMM/DTT’s account of generation and completed observation.
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
Spinoza distinguishes one substance from its modes and treats thought and extension within one intelligible order. His monism is not simply the assertion that every visible object is the same object. Particular things retain determinate relations even though they are not independent substances. This makes his philosophy a strong comparator for a source-based account of unity and differentiated appearances.
The crucial issue is whether dependence is an unfolding in time or an ontological relation that need not be temporal. A geometrical consequence depends on its premises without waiting for them to produce it. SMM/DTT’s generative language can instead give becoming an irreducible role, or interpret inner ordering as structured dependence. These options lead to different relations with Spinoza. His account of mind and body also does not require mental events to push physical events across a boundary between substances. A DTT bridge must state whether psychical and physical are coordinated aspects, generated sectors or interacting domains. [1]
04The precise agreement and difference
Spinoza treats freedom through understanding and activity within necessity, rather than an uncaused interruption of nature. This is a valuable comparator for SMM/DTT because dependence on one source need not eliminate the distinction between acting through one’s organized capacities and being passively driven. DTT can develop a source-compatible account of agency without claiming that indeterminism alone supplies control.
The contrast appears if DTT interprets becoming as genuinely open alternatives resolved by an agent. That stronger proposal differs from Spinoza’s necessity and needs an account of why the resolution belongs to the person. A random update at completion would not suffice. The practical example is deliberation: if learning a relevant fact changes an action through the agent’s reasons, the process exhibits a meaningful form of responsiveness even when it has physical causes. DTT’s nested architecture can model those dependencies, but should not present them as a proof of every kind of free will. The comparison clarifies whether its contribution is reasons-responsive agency, metaphysical openness or a deliberate combination of both. [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 | Spinoza’s substance monism |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | One substance supports determinate modes and an intelligible relation of thought and extension. |
| Key distinction | Randomness supplies unpredictability, whereas agency requires control relations such as responsiveness to reasons and resistance to coercion. | Spinoza treats freedom through understanding and activity within necessity, rather than an uncaused interruption of nature. |
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.
- The contrast appears if DTT interprets becoming as genuinely open alternatives resolved by an agent.
- 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.
- B. Spinoza, Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order (published 1677), adapted English text by Jonathan Bennett ↗The complete adapted English text, with Bennett’s editorial additions marked. Part I concerns substance and modes, Part II mind and body, Part III conatus, and Part V eternity.
- 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