Stig Harder
This paper presents Pure Temporal Potentiality (PTP) — the fundamental ontological insight that reality is pure temporality as potentiality: ontorealis. Rather than treating time as a dimension within reality, PTP recognizes that time is reality itself, constituting the absolute ground of existence. This recognition emerges through rare ontological windows — transitions from absolute unconsciousness to awareness that reveal the primordial contrast between nothing and something. PTP offers a minimal yet comprehensive foundation for understanding emergence, consciousness, and the nature of existence itself.
Keywords: ontorealis, temporality, potentiality, ontology, consciousness, emergence, metaphysics
Ontorealis.
Reality is not in time.
Reality is time itself.
This is not a theory to be proven but a recognition to be had. What follows is an invitation to see what may already have been glimpsed but never articulated.
There exists a moment available to conscious beings that provides direct access to ontorealis's foundation — not through reasoning or imagination, but through lived transition. This is the split-second emergence from absolute unconsciousness: not the gradual surfacing from dream states or hypnagogic transitions, but the abrupt shift from complete absence to presence.
In this moment — if noticed — consciousness does not gradually assemble itself from components. It appears instantaneously, yet already structured temporally. More significantly, the contrast reveals something profound: the "nothing" from which consciousness emerged feels more real than the flood of "something" that follows. This is not merely a subjective impression but an ontological glimpse — recognition of the foundation rather than its image.
The window opens for an instant: you are nothing, then something, and in the transition you see both. Not imaginatively, but directly. The nothing is not empty space or dark void — these are still "somethings." The nothing is the pure potentiality for anything to be at all.
This cannot be demonstrated to those who have never noticed such a transition, just as the experience of color cannot be conveyed to the congenitally blind. Yet for those who have glimpsed it, no argument is necessary. The recognition is immediate and complete.
From this recognition emerges a simple logical structure:
Therefore, temporality is not merely necessary for reality — it is ontorealis at its most fundamental level.
Ontorealis inverts the traditional priority of actuality over potentiality. Rather than treating potentiality as unrealized possibility within an actual world, potentiality itself is fundamental. Actuality represents particular manifestations of temporality's self-differentiation.
Pure temporality exhibits minimal structure:
This is not circular reasoning but recognition of temporality's unique status: it is the only conceivable foundation that requires no external ground. Like mathematical recursion, it establishes its own base case.
Consciousness does not emerge from unconscious matter but represents a sophisticated form of temporality's self-relation. The reflexivity of awareness — consciousness aware of itself — instantiates temporality's capacity for relating to itself across its own differentiations.
This dissolves the "hard problem" of consciousness by revealing that consciousness and matter are different expressions of the same temporal foundation rather than fundamentally distinct ontological categories.
Complex phenomena emerge through elaboration of temporal patterns rather than through addition of new ontological ingredients. Causality becomes a pattern of actualization within temporality rather than events causing other events within time.
Physical theories describe patterns within manifested reality; ontorealis addresses what makes manifestation possible at all. Spacetime in relativity is a manifestation within physical theory, not a challenge to temporality's ontological primacy.
Fundamental concepts often resist intuitive grasp. Their elusiveness may indicate ontological primacy rather than theoretical inadequacy. The ground cannot be seen because it is what enables seeing.
Zero is not a number among numbers, yet without it, numerical systems make no sense. Temporality is not a structure among others but the possibility of structure itself. To call temporality's self-relation circular is to confuse foundation with what it founds.
Ontorealis makes ontological rather than empirical claims. Physics measures what unfolds; ontorealis concerns what makes unfolding possible. Like mathematics, metaphysics establishes foundations rather than predicting phenomena.
Ontorealis does not compete with scientific theories but addresses the deeper question: what enables such explanations to be possible? It provides ontological foundation, not empirical alternative.
Ontorealis is measurable in the most fundamental sense possible: the binary contrast between absolute nothing and anything at all. If pure temporal potentiality were "OFF," there would be nothing — not even the possibility of measurement. That there is something — this page, this moment, this act of reading — demonstrates that ontorealis is "ON."
This is not an empirical measurement among others but the ontological ground that makes all measurement possible. Empirical science presupposes a world in which events unfold; ontorealis accounts for why there is unfolding at all. In this respect, existence itself is the measurement outcome.
The ON/OFF metaphor captures this elegantly: reality itself is the register that ontorealis is always ON. The fact that we overlook this most obvious measurement reflects not its absence but its immediacy — too close to notice until pointed out.
If you have never noticed the instant you emerged from nothing, this may sound like abstract speculation. But if you have glimpsed that transition — if you have been nothing and then something, and noticed the contrast — you already know what ontorealis articulates.
The recognition changes everything while changing nothing. Ontorealis was always temporal potentiality constituting itself. We simply failed to notice that we are not contingent products within an alien universe but direct expressions of ontorealis's creative foundation.
Consciousness does not happen to temporality; consciousness is temporality knowing itself. In recognizing this, we discover our fundamental nature: not beings in time, but time itself becoming aware of its own creative activity.
Pure Temporal Potentiality offers the most minimal possible ontology: ontorealis as pure temporality, the sheer potentiality for becoming that stands between nothing and something. From this foundation, space, matter, and consciousness emerge through temporality's inherent capacity for self-differentiation and self-relation.
This is not another metaphysical system competing for theoretical allegiance. It is recognition of what has always already been the case, available to any consciousness that has noticed its own emergence from nothing. The ontological window is always potentially open; PTP simply provides language for what can be glimpsed there.
The deepest measurement has already been taken: something rather than nothing. Ontorealis itself is the readout that pure temporal potentiality remains ON.
Ontorealis is not in time. Ontorealis is time itself — pure temporality as the potentiality for everything that has been, is, and could be.
This paper presents an ontological recognition accessible through direct transition rather than discursive argument. The "ontological window" provides immediate access to what traditional philosophical categories cannot adequately capture. Readers are invited to recognize rather than merely evaluate these claims.
This work represents an original ontological insight. AI assistance was utilized for academic structuring and presentation.
This work is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
For further developments of this framework, see the companion paper: Branches for Further Exploration: Implications of Ontorealis.