Think for yourself. Question authority.

Question the authority of concepts within your own mind.

Like the concept of order. What is temporal order? A progression of events through time.

Consider two stars, countless light years from each other. A solar flare occurs on each. How do we determine which happened first? This should be a valid question, yes? We can say one happened before the other.

Just because we define a method through which we can authoritatively state one happened before the other, does our method have any significance or consequence? What is the significance of defining how events have a temporal order? In the context of solar flares on stars, it doesn't seem to matter much..

There is no difference between the order in which solar flares on stars occur, and the order in which a ball is thrown and caught. Time is time, despite lengths of space or complexity of interactions between one event and the other. At least, time is such a vital, independent property of the universe that its absoluteness in this regard doesn't seem questionable. Things happen in a certain sequence.

Considering solar flares on distant stars, however, it seems plausible we could define the stream of time in a multitude of ways in which one flare or the other occurred first. Perhaps this is because there are so few dependent events between the two. In contrast, a ball thrown and caught has a specific order. Certainly, a ball couldn't be caught before it was even thrown..?

What if the mechanics of the entire universe were concretely defined such that there is no randomness, no unexpected nature of anything..? In such a universe where everything has a fate, the event of the ball being thrown and the event of the ball being caught must not necessarily be considered as one occurring before the other.

The mere definition of either event necessitates the existence of the other. They are merely interdependent, but order is only an arbitrary label we give the events. Sure, you could argue, but what if we add a third event? Consider a ball thrown, a ball caught, and then a ball dropped. The ball must be caught before being dropped, yet it must be caught after being thrown. The ball couldn't possibly be dropped after being thrown without a catch occuring!

Indeed, the addition of a third event introduces the possibility of necessary intermediate events. This forces the events into a defined temporal stream - no longer could we consider these three distinct, independent events. We can argue over the direction in which time progresses along the stream, but it seems the stream must be followed nonetheless.

Perhaps we could consider only the throw and the drop as existing events.. in order for them to exist together in the same stream of time, the third event of a catch must also be forced into the stream. This is an interesting perspective, but it seems to only be a logical "discovery" of events in a stream. This discovery isn't necessarily linked to the existence of the events themselves, but merely our awareness of their necessity.

It's interesting to postulate the existence of a physical metaphor to such a discovery. For instance, electrical or magnetic attraction between bodies occurs over space. What if such an attractive interaction occurs over time. If we could conjure two distinct events that exhibit an attractive interaction over time, then the two could come together into a stream. That is, the interaction could force intermediate events to form between the two events to allow a stream to exist.

Am I a genius or just crazy? I don't know, but sometimes I freak myself out.