Δt — What Is Time?

TLCTC V2.0 introduces Attack Velocity (Δt) as a central metric. The operational details — notation, velocity classes, DCS metrics — are specified in the framework. This post asks a different question: what actually is "time"?

The answer has consequences. Not for the practical application of Δt — that works regardless of philosophical positions — but for our understanding of what we are working with. TLCTC takes a clear position here: time is not an absolute quantity, but a relation between event chains.

This is already visible in the notation. TLCTC uses a defined set of interval conventions:

// TLCTC Canonical Duration Units
ms  (milliseconds)     s  (seconds)     m  (minutes)
h   (hours)            d  (days)        w  (weeks)
mo  (months)           y  (years)

// Example
#9 →[Δt=24h] #4 →[Δt=10m] #1 →[Δt=instant] #7

One "now" — two chains. Δt is the count of reference ticks between attack events. The gaps are deliberately not to scale: without the lower chain, there is no scale.

These units are not a measurement "in time" — they are conventions grounded in concrete reference event chains. Operationally, TLCTC works with what philosophers call a relational conception of time.

How we measure time

Our timekeeping is anchored in repetitions of events:

Reference event chains

Day: one rotation of the Earth around its own axis
Year: one orbit of the Earth around the Sun
SI second: 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation of the caesium-133 atom

What they have in common: in every case, "time" is the ratio between an event chain being measured and a reference event chain. The second is not a mystical quantity — it is a conventionally chosen, highly regular event chain against which we calibrate other event chains.

Δt is therefore not "time as such", but the ratio between two event chains.

Newton and Leibniz: an apparent conflict

Whether time is "absolute" or "relational" has occupied philosophy for centuries. Two positions seem to stand in opposition:

Isaac Newton

Absolute Time

Time "flows" uniformly, independent of anything external.

The line exists first; events hang on it.

G.W. Leibniz

Relational Time

Time exists only as an order among events.

Only events and their relations; the ordering is the time.

But is this really a contradiction? On closer inspection: Newton's "absolute time" is the idealized form of our reference event chains.

"There is no universal time — only a reference time 't', typically our primary measurement procedure for Δt. Newton's 'absolute time' is the mathematical idealization of this reference."

Physics and the problem of "t"

Relativity: one step further

Einstein eliminated absolute simultaneity. Different observers measure different Δt for the same events. An observer's "proper time" (τ) along their worldline is invariant — but relative to other observers. That is thoroughly relational.

Quantum gravity: not a problem, but a consequence

The Wheeler-DeWitt equation of quantum gravity contains no time parameter. Julian Barbour argued convincingly in "The End of Time" (1999) that this is not a problem, but a logical consequence.

"The Wheeler-DeWitt equation is telling us... that the universe in its entirety is like some huge molecule in a stationary state and that the different possible configurations of this 'monster molecule' are the instants of time."

— Julian Barbour

Configurations of Barbour's "monster molecule" — instants without an axis, an arrow, or a flow.

Time emerges wherever event chains exist — in classical physics, in our everyday experience, in cyber attacks. At the most fundamental level of quantum gravity there are no chains, and therefore no time.

Consequences for TLCTC

Operationally, TLCTC stands on the side of Leibniz — without discarding Newton. The framework uses Newton's practical idealization (the SI time units), but understands them for what they are: conventions based on reference event chains.

// What Δt measures in TLCTC:

Not: "speed through time"

But: the ratio between
  → the attack event chain (attacker steps)
  → a reference event chain (SI-based conventions)

// Example
#9 →[Δt=24h] #4 →[Δt=10m] #1

24h = 24 × 3600 × (9,192,631,770 caesium periods)
    = a ratio to a concrete reference event chain

The Velocity Classes (VC-1 to VC-4) do not categorize "how fast an attack moves through time", but how many reference Δt lie between the attack events — and thus which types of controls can still structurally fit "in between".

Stretch the Δt between two attack events: each velocity class changes which control types structurally fit into the gap.

Conclusion

The philosophical insight changes nothing about the operationalization — but it keeps us from treating "time" as something it is not. Time is not a container through which attacks "flow". Time is the measurement ratio between event chains — and "t" is our conventional reference for it.

→ To the framework

The operational details of Attack Velocity — notation, velocity classes, measurement model, DCS metrics — are specified in TLCTC V2.0, Chapter 4.

Julian Barbour, The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics (1999).

TLCTC Framework · CC BY 4.0