Reflections on Machism

 With a Discussion on Time as the Flow of Energy

 Preface

 When I was young, I had an intuition: time is the flow of energy.

 Later, through reading, I learned this was not considered “professional”. Physicists would say: time is time, energy is energy. Noether’s theorem connects them, but that is a mathematical correspondence, not the same thing. Still later, I read Mach, who rejected absolute space and time, stating that time and space are merely “dependencies between sensory experiences”. To put it more plainly on his behalf: the essence of change is the transfer of energy, and time is the measure of this process of transfer.

I. What Mach Did, and What He Did Not

Mach accomplished one great thing: he dismantled absolute space and time.

Newton claimed that absolute time “flows uniformly without relation to anything external”, and absolute space “remains always similar and immovable”. Mach declared this useless metaphysics. Time is not a container, but a sequential relation between events; space is not a stage, but the relative positions between objects. The task of physics is not to reveal “essences”, but to describe the connections between sensory experiences in the most economical way.

This half-step was clean. But Mach stopped there.

His view of time is relational, yet static. He said “A comes after B” as a matter of fact; he allowed change to be described, but the driving force of change had no place in his system. The dependencies between sensations are flat and mutual, with no “force” propelling them forward. Mach rejected metaphysics so thoroughly that he banished energy—this hard currency—from the realm of ontology.

I complete that half-step for him: energy is the hard currency of dependencies between sensations. Not arbitrary sensations, but a physical quantity that is dimensional, conserved, and capable of doing work. Time is not a weightless web of relations, but a river driven forward by energy.

II. What Time Is

My definition can be written in a single sentence:

Time is a process of motion referenced to space, with the flow of energy at its core.

It breaks down into three layers:

First, time is referenced to space. Without it, there would be no distinction between “here” and “there”, and no change at all. Time is relative, not a container. On this point, I stand with Mach.

Second, it is a process of motion. Time is not a coordinate parameter, but a gerund—flow, transfer, reconfiguration. Time without motion is absurd.

Third, the core is the flow of energy. No matter how varied the changes in space may seem, they ultimately amount to energy being moved from one place to another. Changes in position, temperature, color—all are behind them the redistribution of energy. To grasp energy is to grasp time.

III. The Arrow of Time Does Not Depend on Probability

Boltzmann explained the arrow of time using entropy increase: in an isolated system, entropy increases with high probability, hence time has direction. This is statistical and probabilistic. Many take this as the final answer, but it is not. Entropy increase is a phenomenon, not a root cause.

The flow of energy itself has direction: from high potential energy to low potential energy, from concentration to dispersion, from usable to unusable work. This direction is not probabilistic, but dynamical. A stone falls from height, potential energy converting to kinetic energy, not the reverse. It is not because the reverse is improbable, but because it requires an injection of separate energy.

The directionality of energy flow precedes entropy increase. Entropy increase is the statistical manifestation of this directionality in the context of large numbers of particles, not its cause.

The flow of energy is objective reality, and physical laws are the projection of this reality onto human cognition.

Precisely because energy flows from high to low, entropy increase gains direction, and time is unidirectional.

IV. Why Mach Is Insufficient

Mach said time is a dependency between sensory experiences. If we stop here, time becomes too insubstantial.

Mach’s framework cannot distinguish between “having relations without time” and “having relations with time”. Mine can.

In my framework, time is not an all-or-nothing predicate; it has dimension, intensity, and direction. A system with slow energy flow (such as a cold rock) and one with intense energy flow (such as a burning star) both have time, but with different “densities” of time. This is not merely a metaphor. In general relativity, proper time is indeed determined by mass-energy distribution—the more concentrated energy is, the slower time passes. Defining time through the flow of energy is spiritually consistent with Einstein’s equations.

Mach’s shortcoming is that he gave no driving force to “difference”. I have supplied energy.

V. Criticisms from Physics and Responses

Physicists will say: your definition is inconsistent with mainstream physics.

I admit it.

Relativity holds that space and time are on an equal footing, while my definition states that time is referenced to space—this truly conflicts within the framework of continuous spacetime.

This text does not contribute new equations to physics. It contributes a perspective. This perspective is simple, yet more powerful than many abstruse philosophies of time.