Off the Clock: Time's Flow, Value, and the Metric Foundations of Exchange and Duration

This thesis defends a dynamic view of time by drawing a sustained analogy between money and time. Neither, I argue, is merely an abstract quantity or externally grounded dimension - each is an impredicative system that derives measures of value or duration by means of self-reference. Time flows, and it does so at a rate of one second per one second. While this rate has been dismissed by some philosophers as meaningless, I argue that its structural form reveals an essential feature of temporal passage. This thesis not only seeks to rehabilitate the dynamic view of time but does so by treating money as a philosophical analogue capable of illuminating the flow of time.

Chapter 1 defends Tim Maudlin's claim that time flows meaningfully against Huw Price's objection that rates such as 'one second per one second' are tautological or nonsensical. I argue that such rates are structurally informative and consistent with how other basic measurement practices function.

In Chapter 2, I expand on the Temporal Regress Argument (TRA) introduced in Chapter 1. The TRA challenges the coherence of the dynamic view of time only if one assumes that each moment of time must be grounded in a prior or external standard. This regress mirrors a similar issue in monetary theory: if the value of money must always be grounded in something else (e.g. gold, labour, utility), a similar regress arises, which I call the Monetary Regress Argument (MRA). The problem isn't one of fundamentality. Money isn't fundamental. The problem is one of direction of fit. Any supposed more fundamental value must ground the value of money without in turn being measured.

Chapter 3 develops the MRA, applying the formal structure of the TRA to the ontology of monetary value. I argue that the value of money is not grounded externally but rather internally, by its impredicative structure - money measures value because it is defined in terms of its own purchasing power. This impredicative structure is also central to time.

In Chapter 4, I explore the ontological implications of this view. I suggest that both time and money gain important features not through reference to an external standard, but through self-reference. This explains both their universality and their role as metrics within broader social and physical systems.

Chapter 5 engages with recent positions which I collectively label the Embedded Perspective View (EPV). This holds that important features of time - like flow, passage or asymmetry - are merely features of human perspective rather than mind-independent reality. I counter this view by raising doubts about whether there can be creatures which do not experience manifest time. Likewise, I show that our money practice simply reflects the temporal asymmetry of past, present and future and the real modal change as the present becomes the past. Money isn't merely an analogue to money. Money interacts with time in a specific way. This change suggests that time possesses structure that is irreducible to the mere appearance of manifest time for creatures like us. I argue this structure is necessary for all information gathering and utilisation systems.

Finally, Chapter 6 examines financial instruments like yield curves, which embed dynamic temporal dimensions in both axes and data points. These graphs do not just measure time; they represent it as structured flow, akin to how time manifests in lived experience and dynamic metaphysical accounts. Just as money is defined by money, time is defined by time. We can measure both only impredicativily, and both exhibit a metaphysical structure that resists reduction to static or external reference.