# Time

## Purpose

Time Tiles explore physics, fiction, memory, altered experience, and narrative causality without treating evocative analogy as experimental proof. This chapter is an index and a method: it shows how to explore the subject without collapsing documented history, current research, reported experience, fiction, community belief, and Oracle synthesis into one truth claim.

## Reading Method

1. **Locate the Tile.** Read its Primary Class to learn what kind of thing it is, then its Inquiry Domains to learn which questions it can illuminate.
2. **Name the material mode.** A science-fiction, mythology, political-mythology, experiential-report, or established-science label identifies context; it is not a score of spiritual or personal importance.
3. **Read claims layer by layer.** Begin with the literal-and-empirical layer, then the cultural-and-historical layer, and only then the symbolic-and-divinatory layer. An evidence state applies to one bounded claim, not to the Tile as a whole.
4. **Open the sources.** A concept-specific citation can support a history or bounded claim. A class-level contextual citation only locates the Tile in a wider field. Neither one certifies every interpretation.
5. **Follow typed edges.** Compare the exact verb and rationale. “Fictionalizes,” “opposes,” “echoes,” and “investigated-by” are not interchangeable. A resemblance edge is not proof of historical influence.
6. **Integrate through action.** Use Gift, Shadow, Threshold, and the integration practice to identify one grounded choice that remains useful even if a favored ontology is wrong.

## Worked Comparison

1. **Big Bounce** is a Cosmologies Tile centered on Time & Causality. Its literal layer is **well-established**; its symbolic question is: “What remains useful in Big Bounce if its strongest literal claim proves false? Answer by testing how the big motif meeting the bounce motif changes what counts as possible before any local decision is made against sequence, recurrence, prediction, counterfactuals, and the difference between order and cause.”
2. **Omega Point** is a Cosmologies Tile centered on Time & Causality. Its literal layer is **plausible-speculation**; its symbolic question is: “How can the gift of Omega Point be practiced while its evidence status remains explicit? Answer by testing how the omega motif meeting the point motif changes what counts as possible before any local decision is made against sequence, recurrence, prediction, counterfactuals, and the difference between order and cause.”
3. **Soul School** is a Cosmologies Tile centered on Time & Causality. Its literal layer is **not-applicable**; its symbolic question is: “What is the smallest reversible action that could clarify continuity of personhood beyond one frame meeting the school motif? Answer by testing how continuity of personhood beyond one frame meeting the school motif changes what counts as possible before any local decision is made against sequence, recurrence, prediction, counterfactuals, and the difference between order and cause.”

Compare these examples by asking what changes when the class, evidence state, or edge verb changes. Do not treat the most vivid Tile as the most factual. When a reading crosses into health, identity, conspiracy, or current politics, show the card’s safety flags and preserve an alternate explanation.

## System Links

- [How to Use](HOW-TO-USE.md) for reference, reading, and game workflows.
- [Graph](GRAPH.md) for edge semantics and provenance.
- [Divination](DIVINATION.md) for reflective reading rules.
- [Glossary](GLOSSARY.md) for Classes, Domains, Modes, and Evidence States.
- [Source Registry](../research/SOURCE-REGISTRY.md) for source tiers, scope, and rights.

## Canonical Tiles

- [Big Bounce](../cards/cosmologies/sfoc-cosmologies-big-bounce.md) — The working core of Big Bounce is the big motif meeting the bounce motif: a pattern that can reorganize attention, relation, and action. established findings do not automatically support later extraordinary extensions.
- [Omega Point](../cards/cosmologies/sfoc-cosmologies-omega-point.md) — At the center of Omega Point is the omega motif meeting the point motif. The card treats that tension as a whole-world model for reality and its hidden architecture, bounded by coherence is not the same as demonstration.
- [Soul School](../cards/cosmologies/sfoc-cosmologies-soul-school.md) — Soul School gathers a field around continuity of personhood beyond one frame meeting the school motif. Its deeper subject is retrospective coherence can turn coincidence into destiny and warning into inevitability.
- [Future Human](../cards/beings/sfoc-beings-future-human.md) — Future Human brings possibility organized as aspiration meeting the human motif into focus. It operates as an agent, intelligence, identity, or recurring role and asks how sequence, recurrence, prediction, counterfactuals, and the difference between order and cause alter practical choice.
- [Time Crystal](../cards/technologies/sfoc-technologies-time-crystal.md) — Time Crystal offers an instrument for reading ordered consequence meeting the crystal motif. It becomes useful when interpretation remains answerable to build a dated chain and ask which link is observation, inference, memory, or forecast.
- [Cosmic Treaty](../cards/events/sfoc-events-cosmic-treaty.md) — Within the Oracle, Cosmic Treaty holds together the cosmic motif meeting the treaty motif and sequence, recurrence, prediction, counterfactuals, and the difference between order and cause. That combination creates both an interpretive tool and a responsibility.
- [Paradigm Rupture](../cards/events/sfoc-events-paradigm-rupture.md) — Paradigm Rupture concentrates the paradigm motif meeting the rupture motif into a threshold that produces a meaningful before and after. Its value lies in examining sequence, recurrence, prediction, counterfactuals, and the difference between order and cause without exceeding the evidence layer.
- [Great Reset](../cards/events/sfoc-events-great-reset.md) — Read Great Reset as a threshold that produces a meaningful before and after shaped by civilizational scale meeting renewal that may also erase continuity. The useful inquiry is not belief alone, but what build a dated chain and ask which link is observation, inference, memory, or forecast.
- [Quarantine Declaration](../cards/events/sfoc-events-quarantine-declaration.md) — Read Quarantine Declaration as a threshold that produces a meaningful before and after shaped by the quarantine motif meeting the declaration motif. The useful inquiry is not belief alone, but what build a dated chain and ask which link is observation, inference, memory, or forecast.
- [Timeline Branch](../cards/events/sfoc-events-timeline-branch.md) — At the center of Timeline Branch is the timeline motif meeting the branch motif. The card treats that tension as a threshold that produces a meaningful before and after, bounded by the synthesis must never masquerade as inherited doctrine or discovered fact.
- [Timeline Convergence](../cards/events/sfoc-events-timeline-convergence.md) — The Oracle places Timeline Convergence where the timeline motif meeting the convergence motif affects agency. It is neither mere decoration nor automatic proof, but a threshold that produces a meaningful before and after with a declared evidence boundary.
- [Timeline Collapse](../cards/events/sfoc-events-timeline-collapse.md) — the timeline motif meeting loss of a sustaining order is the engine beneath Timeline Collapse. As a threshold that produces a meaningful before and after, it reveals how a local image can carry system-scale consequences.
- [Temporal Loop](../cards/events/sfoc-events-temporal-loop.md) — the temporal motif meeting the loop motif is the engine beneath Temporal Loop. As a threshold that produces a meaningful before and after, it reveals how a local image can carry system-scale consequences.
- [Mandela Effect](../cards/events/sfoc-events-mandela-effect.md) — Collective disagreement with the archive, interpreted through memory, culture, or timeline mythology.
- [Time Slip](../cards/events/sfoc-events-time-slip.md) — Time Slip gathers a field around ordered consequence meeting the slip motif. Its deeper subject is retrospective coherence can turn coincidence into destiny and warning into inevitability.
- [Missing Time](../cards/events/sfoc-events-missing-time.md) — The working core of Missing Time is the missing motif meeting ordered consequence: a pattern that can reorganize attention, relation, and action. respect for testimony does not require certifying one external cause.
- [Resurrection](../cards/events/sfoc-events-resurrection.md) — Resurrection frames the resurrection motif placed within time & causality as a decision environment rather than a finished answer. Its evidence discipline is transparent analogy, declared invention, and practical usefulness.
- [Event Horizon](../cards/events/sfoc-events-event-horizon.md) — an irreversible threshold meeting a boundary beyond which information changes is the engine beneath Event Horizon. As a threshold that produces a meaningful before and after, it reveals how a local image can carry system-scale consequences.
- [Timelessness](../cards/states/sfoc-states-timelessness.md) — What makes Timelessness consequential is the meeting of the timelessness motif placed within time & causality with sequence, recurrence, prediction, counterfactuals, and the difference between order and cause. The card preserves that meeting without universalizing it.
- [Aspirational Future](../cards/myths/sfoc-myths-aspirational-future.md) — Civilization imagined as deliberately growing beyond scarcity, nationalism, and inherited prejudice.
- [Future Human Hypothesis](../cards/hypotheses/sfoc-hypotheses-future-human-hypothesis.md) — The Oracle places Future Human Hypothesis where possibility organized as aspiration meeting the human motif affects agency. It is neither mere decoration nor automatic proof, but an explanatory lens applied to ambiguous observations with a declared evidence boundary.
