The Emergence Machine

past · temporal

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the time that is before now

Past (noun) means: the time that is before now. It emerges from time, previous: time.dimension together with previous.temporal is the time that is before now. In the EmergenceLexicon it sits at computed level 2, chaining down to the four foundations (space, time, energy, pattern).

past.temporal · forms: past, pasts

Examples

Emergence

from: time previous
through: time.dimension together with previous.temporal is the time that is before now

Chain to foundations

previousL1 previous.temporal: a thing that is before now in timepatternL0 pattern.regularity: That which is the same again: what is here is also there, or what is now was also before.pastL2 past.temporal: the time that is before nowtimeL0 time.dimension: The before and after of things: that in which a thing can be, and then not be the same.
full chain as text (5 steps)

Neighborhood

Concepts that depend on this one above; what it is built from below.

used bybuilt fromagoL3ago.temporal — it is before nowhindsight is twenty twentyL15hindsight-is-twenty-twenty.retrospection — A self-model that was wrong during the event becomes accurate when the past is observed, revealing that the model could overshootL17overshoot.dynamics — drift carrying past a wall before the force meant to stop it arrivesdenialL18denial.refusal — maintenance used to hold the self-model still while the parameter it tracks is already past the wall, keeping the model guiltL19guilt.act-scoped — a self-model reporting one past act as outside the window rather than the whole self, which is why it stops when the acttrack recordL20track-record.model-and — A model in a thing that is trusted because it has been the same through time, and so its future is expected to be like iscarL21scar.residual — a permanently narrower window left by a past excursion of a parameter where the walls were forced beyond their usual bourememberL22remember.cognitive — when a past memory persists into nowpastL2past.temporal — the time that is before nowtimeL0time.dimension — The before and after of things: that in which a thing can be, and then not be the same.previousL1previous.temporal — a thing that is before now in time

Used by (8)

agoL3hindsight is twenty twentyL15overshootL17denialL18guiltL19track recordL20scarL21rememberL22

Relations

is-atime.dimensionis-a
contrasts-withfuture.temporalcontrasts‑with

Provenance

author: openrouter:openai/gpt-oss-120b · date: 2026-07-29 · confidence: 0.6