Chronon Ontology: Time as the Primary Substrate of Physical Reality (Ontological Monism with Temporal Primacy and Emergent Physical Structure)

This article develops a radical ontological model in which time is proposed as the primary substrate of physical reality rather than a derived parameter of change. Contrary to classical and relativistic frameworks, where time is either an external absolute, a relational coordinate, or an emergent property, the present approach advances a strict temporal monism: all physical structures are interpreted as stabilized configurations of temporal becoming. Within this framework, space, matter, energy, and gravitation are redefined as secondary expressions of temporal dynamics. Space is understood as a relational projection of temporal differentiation; matter as persistent stabilization of temporal coherence; energy as intensity of temporal transformation; and gravitation as a gradient of temporal density or coherence. The concept of a chronon is reinterpreted not as a discrete unit of time but as a minimal ontological stability condition of temporal self-consistency. On this basis, a chrononic field is postulated as the fundamental level of reality, in which all physical phenomena emerge as metastable regimes of temporal organization. A key consequence of the model is the dissolution of the classical separation between ontology and epistemology. Observation is no longer treated as an external act of measurement but as an internal mode of temporal self-referential stabilization. Physical laws are redefined as invariant patterns of temporal coherence rather than externally imposed regularities. The framework further implies a strong form of ontological closure: reality has no external vantage point, and all descriptions are internal articulations of the same temporal substrate they attempt to model. This leads to a non-representational understanding of physics as the self-organization of temporal structure. Overall, the article proposes a unified ontological inversion in which time is not contained within reality, but reality is contained within time as its stabilized expression. Author portal: https://sites.google.com/view/yermakov-orcid