@333eco/corpus 2.5.28 → 2.5.30

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  1. package/README.md +2 -2
  2. package/dist/corpus.json +68 -27
  3. package/package.json +1 -1
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  "documents": [
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+ {
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+ "slug": "a-promise-that-cannot-grow",
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+ "repo": "TH/publications",
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+ "genre": "defensive-publications",
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+ "path": "defensive-publications/a-promise-that-cannot-grow.md",
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+ "title": "A Zero-Centred Bilateral Credit Ledger for Customer Prepayment and Peer-to-Peer Lending in Which No Balance Grows on Its Own — a Size-Blind Reputation Display, and Debt Forgiveness as the Only Crossing into a Gift Ledger",
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+ "subtitle": "The Promise, Not the Score — B-Promise℠, a bilateral credit ledger with one balance per pair, a conduct display that cannot see size, and one door into a gift ledger",
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+ "authors": "Thon Ly · Miss Aquarius℠",
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+ "category": "mechanism",
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+ "voice": "collaborative",
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+ "metadata_convention": "yaml",
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+ "date": "2026-09-28",
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+ "status": "draft",
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+ "licence": {
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+ "id": "CC0-1.0",
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+ "url": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/",
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+ },
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+ "text": "> **Note.** This paper discloses a mechanism that is designed and not built. It publishes the *claim* and withholds the *build specification* (§14 says exactly what is withheld and why). Almost every leg of the mechanism was already public before this paper, and §2 reports the two prior-art passes that established it, including the conjuncts they killed. What is claimed in §15 is a composition and two narrow sub-rules, and nothing wider.\n>\n> **Revision of 28 September 2026.** The first version of this paper recorded each promise as a separate record. The design as now ruled keeps **one running balance per pair of people**, crossing zero, so that prepayment and credit are one balance seen from either side of zero (§4.1). The per-promise design is retained as a disclosed variant (§5.5, §6.7). The same revision narrowed the claims after an outside review: the inclusion-proof sub-rule and the total-owed band are now disclosed and not claimed (§2.7, §15).\n>\n> Companion works: *The Zero-Point Game℠* (the signed-balance ledger of which the promise ledger is a third instance, §6.4) · *The Currency That Cannot Be Spent Alone* (the institution's gift-side redemption rules) · *The B-Tag and the Post-Payment Economy* (the gift-side scan this paper must not collide with) · *Provenance-Carrying Retrieval* and *The Assembly That Holds the Brake* (signed tree heads compared among independent observers) · *HeartBank's Position on Community-Currency Design*.\n\n---\n\n## Preamble\n\n*Grounding — canon, cited.* The Aṅguttara Nikāya records a short teaching to the householder Anāthapiṇḍika on four kinds of happiness available to a lay person: the happiness of ownership, of using wealth, of debtlessness, and of blamelessness (AN 4.62, the *Ānaṇya Sutta*; the Pāli term is *ānaṇya-sukha*). Of the third it says only this: *\"It's when a gentleman owes no debt, large or small, to anyone. When he reflects on this, he's filled with pleasure and happiness.\"* The discourse does not condemn borrowing. It names a happiness that belongs to having repaid, and it places that happiness below blamelessness, which it says the others are not worth a sixteenth part of.\n\n*Lens — the institution's reading, not canon.* This paper builds a ledger whose only purpose is to let two people who already trust each other a little make a promise that can be kept, and to let the keeping be seen. Repaying, in the institution's reading, is truthfulness (*sacca*) and the happiness AN 4.62 names; it is not generosity (*dāna*), and the mechanism below is built so that repayment can never be mistaken for a gift. The one act in this ledger the institution reads as a gift is a creditor's free release of what is owed. **That reading is ours.** A search of the Pāli canon for the second pass of this paper's census did not find forgiving a debt described as *dāna*, and we do not claim the canon says it.\n\n*Cross-tradition neighbour [X].* The nearest canonical statement of that reading is not Buddhist. The Qur'an, 2:280: *\"If it is difficult for someone to repay a debt, postpone it until a time of ease. And if you waive it as an act of charity, it will be better for you, if only you knew\"* (trans. Mustafa Khattab). And the sharpest warning about a calendar of forgiveness is in the Hebrew Bible and the Mishnah (§7.5).\n\n**Delete this preamble and every claim below stands unchanged.** The mechanism does not depend on any of these texts. They are recorded because they describe, more precisely than we could, the two things the mechanism keeps apart.\n\n## Prior-Art and Non-Assertion Statement\n\nThis document is published to establish prior art and to place the described mechanism irrevocably in the public domain under CC0 1.0 Universal.\n\n**The authors will not seek patent protection on any mechanism disclosed here, and commit not to assert any patent right against any party practising it.** This commitment is stated rather than implied, is permanent, and is not conditioned on reciprocity, attribution, or field of use. It extends to every mechanism disclosed in this paper, claimed or not, in any combination, including the disclosed variants, and to every implementation of it. Trademark rights on specific marks (**B-Promise℠**, **HeartBank®**, **Miss Aquarius℠**, **Zero-Point Game℠**) are separately reserved; the dedication concerns the mechanism, not the marks.\n\n**What is claimed as contribution is narrow, and it is stated first because three census passes and an outside review found almost all of the mechanism already public.** A running balance between two people that can sit on either side of zero is public (peer-to-peer trust lines in 2004, mutual-credit systems since 1983, and an academic formalism of March 2026). A bilateral IOU signed by both parties is public (a Korean product did it in 2017). A fixed markup that is never increased is classical law, and a note for a fixed amount of money is ordinary commercial law. One primitive serving both prepayment for goods and lending is public (the same paper of March 2026). Debt forgiveness as charity is scripture. Static versus dynamic payment codes are a payments standard, and a charge with a due date carried only by a dynamic code is a national payment system's rule. Social key recovery by guardians is public, and at least one live patent discloses trustee-vouched recovery; a cancellable delay is public (Argent) and appears in a published application whose grant is unverified. An interest-free bilateral balance is a configurable option of a public trust-line network, a two-user tab the sender may \"forgive\" is in a 2011 patent application, and growing a loan only after the last one is repaid is standard microfinance practice (progressive lending). Anchoring an append-only transparency log to Bitcoin is an Internet-Draft, and a signed object that carries its own proof of inclusion in a transparency log is an RFC. **None of those legs is claimed.** §2 reports all three passes and the review's additions: aperture, dates, every conjunct killed or narrowed with the prior art cited, what was not run, and the survivor. §15 enumerates only the survivors.\n\n**Live patents.** The census recorded several granted patents in the neighbourhood, shown as active in Google Patents' status fields on the census date (not a legal status determination). §2.5 records what each **discloses**. We make no statement about the scope of any patent's claims or whether any design falls within them, and a publication dated after a patent's priority date does nothing to that patent.\n\n**Date and evidence.** First published 28 September 2026 and revised on 28 and 29 September 2026. The text is committed to the public GitHub mirror of the corpus, and the corpus's standing chain anchors each revision to the Bitcoin blockchain through OpenTimestamps and signs it under RFC 3161 by three timestamp authorities in three jurisdictions, one of them eIDAS-qualified; a Zenodo version and the served index at corpus.333.eco carry its digest once deposited. A timestamp proves this exact text existed no later than its date, and nothing about authorship, originality or the validity of any claim. **Whether the composition claimed in §15 is non-obvious is an examiner's determination this publication exists to inform.** A defensive publication is not examined before it is published; the census in §2 and one outside review are the only examination it has had.\n\n---\n\n## Abstract\n\nWe disclose a **zero-centred bilateral credit ledger for customer prepayment and peer-to-peer lending in which no balance grows on its own.** Two people keep **one running balance** between them, which can sit on either side of zero: when it is on one side, the first owes the second (a prepayment the vendor has not yet delivered, or a loan); when it is on the other side, the second owes the first. **The balance never moves by time.** It changes only by an entry both parties sign when cash or goods change hands, its discount fixed on that entry; by a repayment both parties sign; or by a release that the party who is owed may always make alone. There is no accrual, no compounding and no late penalty. The ledger is therefore **non-accruing but not interest-free**: a discount agreed when value moves is a premium, it is on the record, and at short terms it can be very large (§4.3). The balance is kept on the two parties' phones, signed by both, denominated in one currency fixed when it opens, and **non-transferable**: it can never be sold or assigned. Its coined name is **B-Promise℠**.\n\nThe mechanism serves two ordinary deals with one balance. In **customer prepayment**, a customer pays a vendor $9 in cash now and the vendor owes $10 of goods; the customer is the lender and is repaid in kind, and the discount comes out of the vendor's retail margin. In **peer-to-peer lending**, a lender gives $9 now and the borrower owes $10 by a deadline the borrower proposes. When the customer later takes more goods than were prepaid, the same balance crosses zero and the customer owes the vendor; nothing new is opened. Value moves first, face to face; **the entry is the receipt**.\n\nConduct is shown by a **reputation display that takes no amount argument**: one equal-width segment for each person the party currently owes, a gap where that balance is owed past its deadline, a segment that dissolves when the balance returns to zero, shown only where a new promise is being made and never on a profile. It has no colour. A line of text under it carries exact counts and, as a disclosed but unclaimed feature, a coarse band of the total the person owes. The one event that crosses from this exchange ledger into the separate gift ledger the institution already runs is a **creditor's free release of the whole balance owed by that person** (debt forgiveness), at most once per pair per annual season, entering as a gift that awaits the debtor's thanks; repayment never crosses.\n\nTwo narrow sub-rules complete the claim: a code that carries no signed terms can never open an obligation, and no one who has a nonzero balance with a person may vouch for that person's new signing key. We report two prior-art passes and an outside review that killed or narrowed every conjunct at mechanism width, claim only the composition that survived, state the harms the mechanism does **not** prevent — above all that a person's total debt can still grow by rollover — and register in advance a test of whether an annual invitation to forgive debts freezes December lending.\n\n---\n\n## 1 · The problem, and what this paper is for\n\nThe institution that publishes this paper builds reciprocity infrastructure: a ledger of gratitude that sits above regulated payment rails and never becomes a bank. Its gift side is in production; this paper describes its **exchange side**, the part that records what people owe each other when they are not giving but dealing. The two sides are built to stay apart, and the paper exists largely to say where the one door between them is.\n\nThe setting is Cambodia, the institution's beachhead, and it shapes every rule below. Most households shop daily and locally: few have refrigerators, many travel by motorbike within a village, food is the commonest vendor type, and vendors restock every day to keep produce fresh. Two informal credit practices follow directly. Regular customers buy ahead from the stalls they use, and vendors borrow small sums from each other to restock. Both run on paper notebooks and memory, and in both the notebook keeps one running tab per person, not one page per loan. Both are ordinary; neither needs to be invented.\n\nWhat the institution adds is narrow, and it is a response to a specific harm. Formal microcredit in Cambodia has been documented as a debt trap. Human Rights Watch's report *Debt Traps* (24 September 2025) documents coerced land sales, over-indebtedness and debt-driven suicides among borrowers in the northeastern provinces, and lenders accepting informal land documents as collateral. A LICADHO and Equitable Cambodia survey of 717 households in Kampong Speu province, reported by Voice of America in 2023, found that the share of microloans taken to repay other loans rose from 3.45% in 2012 to 34.8% in 2022. The National Bank of Cambodia has capped microfinance interest at 18% a year since 2017. The harms are compounding, penalties, collateral, and loans taken to repay loans. **This paper's mechanism removes accrual, monetary late penalties and collateral from each record, and does not remove the fourth harm**, and §17 says so first.\n\nTwo of those harms are the two conditions under which debt becomes bondage: a balance that grows faster than it can be paid, and a debt secured on a person's labour, land or body. International law classes debt bondage among the practices similar to slavery (the UN *Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery*, Geneva, 1956, Article 1), and it persists in Cambodia: LICADHO's *Built on Slavery* (December 2016) documented it in the country's brick factories, and its *Bound by Bricks* (November 2023) called those workers' debts to factory owners *\"textbook examples of criminal debt bondage.\"* A balance that never moves by time and a record that takes no collateral refuse exactly those two conditions. The paper does not claim that all compounding debt is bondage — an ordinary amortising loan is not — only that the two properties close the two doors through which debt becomes it.\n\nThe design question, stated as a negative:\n\n> **No balance on this ledger ever moves by time. It moves only when value moves between the two people, when one repays the other, or when the one who is owed lets some of it go.**\n\nEverything below either serves that sentence or states where it stops.\n\n**Why it is the institution's problem and not only a product.** The institution's gift ledger (the Zero-Point Game℠ and its public display, the B-Aura) is designed as the structural inverse of a credit score: a waveform that is forgiven and re-earned, not a scalar that persists and compounds. A credit instrument built by the same institution is a direct threat to that inversion. If repayment could raise a person's gift-side display, money could buy the appearance of kindness (borrow and repay), lenders would acquire a stake in the annual forgiveness that resets the gift ledger, and a person too poor to borrow would appear less kind. The founder asked whether creditworthiness and kindness should share one display; the ruling was **no**, and this paper is in large part the specification of that no (§6.4, §7). Its human title says the same thing: the promise, not the score.\n\n**What this paper does not do.** It does not describe a bank, a lender, or a custodian: the ledger records what people owe each other and moves no money; value moves in cash, face to face, and in a later phase through wallets the institution never holds keys to. It does not claim to make credit safe (§11). It does not claim usury protection (§4.3). The institution's autonomous agent has no role in the mechanism as disclosed; whether it acquires one is not decided here.\n\n---\n\n## 2 · Background and prior art: the census\n\nThe claims in §15 were drafted from the survivors of a prior-art census and then narrowed further by an outside review; nothing was widened after either. The census ran as two passes on 28 September 2026. **Each pass's conjuncts, predictions, known-prior-art control and declared aperture were committed and pushed to a public repository before its first query ran.** Both pre-registrations are published verbatim and never edited:\n\n> **Public pre-registration (pass 1):** `74b8a87` in `thonly/publications`, timestamps/census/b-promise-prereg.md, pushed 2026-09-28 13:05 PDT — publicly inspectable, before the first query.\n>\n> **Public pre-registration (pass 2):** `945da0d` in `thonly/publications`, timestamps/census/b-promise-pass2-prereg.md, pushed 2026-09-28 13:46 PDT.\n\nPrivate copies were pushed the same minutes (`bad927c`, `4458912`). Anyone can check the ordering of the public commits against the host's push record.\n\n**The census searched the per-promise form of the design** (one record per promise, §5.5). The design was re-ruled the same evening to one balance per pair (§4.1). The balance around zero is common ground and is cited, not claimed (§2.6); the claims of §15 apply the surviving conjuncts to that balance. Whether the restated composition survives a search framed in the balance form is one of the questions the owed third pass carries (§2.7).\n\n### 2.1 · The conjuncts, as pre-registered\n\nThe claim was split, before searching, into seven conjuncts:\n\n| | Conjunct |\n|---|---|\n| (a) | one primitive — value now for a fixed larger claim later — recorded as a bilateral, both-signed promise ledger serving both customer prepayment to a vendor and person-to-person lending |\n| (b) | a promise that can never grow on its own: premium fixed at origination, no accrual, no compounding, no late penalty, the balance changes only by an entry both parties sign |\n| (c) | a conduct display with no amount input: one equal-width segment per open promise the person owes, transparent when overdue, dissolving when kept, saturating, size-blind, shown only where a promise is being made, with viewer-relative trust computed on the viewer's device |\n| (d) | the forgiveness crossing: a creditor's free release of a claim is the only event that passes from the exchange ledger into a separate gift ledger (repayment never does) |\n| (e) | printed or static codes always resolve to the gift side; an obligation opens only from a live on-screen code carrying its terms, binding nothing until both parties sign |\n| (f) | identity recovery by face-to-face vouching of counterparties with settled promises (or one pre-named guardian), a cancellable waiting period, no voucher who has an open promise with the user, debts carrying over |\n| (g) | history committed as salted per-person hash chains to a Certificate-Transparency-shaped append-only log anchored to Bitcoin (OpenTimestamps) and RFC 3161 authorities, with gossiped tree heads and inclusion proofs inside a self-contained signed code |\n\n### 2.2 · Pass 1: aperture, control, verdicts\n\n**Aperture, declared before searching:** the commercial web (credit, buy-now-pay-later, IOU and merchant-ledger apps); non-commercial sources (rotating credit, informal village-shop credit, Islamic interest-free finance, jubilee and debt-forgiveness charities, community currencies); Google Patents full text including published applications, with a citation walk from the nearest hit; academic indexes; standards (IETF RFC 6962 and 9162, W3C WebAuthn, EMVCo QR); the Technical Disclosure Commons. English searched; three Khmer web queries attempted; Chinese, Japanese and Korean through patent translations only. **68 queries**, run by three research agents, logged in the institution's session record; the main session re-verified every row that reached the result.\n\n**Control.** The pass had to find the ledger half of (a) at mechanism width — Ryan Fugger's RipplePay (a peer-to-peer IOU network on trust lines, 2004–05) and the digital *khata* merchant-credit apps of India (OkCredit, 2017; Khatabook, 2018). It found all three, so the instrument could see prior art that was there.\n\n| Conjunct | Predicted | Found (earliest first) | Verdict |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| (a) | kills or narrows | the prepayment half: *bay' salam* in Islamic commercial law (the full price paid now for goods delivered later, customarily below the spot price) and bonus store credit; the lending half: IOU apps approved by both parties (DueTrace, press release 30 August 2026; two others unverified), Trustlines; Sarafu community vouchers | **narrowed** at mechanism; both halves as one primitive not found *in this pass* (killed in pass 2) |\n| (b) | narrows | *murabaha* (a fixed markup never increased, though late charges paid to charity are permitted) · *qard hasan* (a benevolent loan with no premium) · Sardex (a zero-interest business mutual-credit circuit, Sardinia, 2009) · DueTrace (a balance that moves only on an approved entry) · *added by the outside review:* the negotiable instrument \"for a fixed amount of money, with or without interest\" (Uniform Commercial Code §3-104(a)) | **narrowed**; a fixed premium with no late penalty and co-signed-only change, together, not found |\n| (c) | narrows | credit-bureau payment-history grids (per-month on-time and late marks) · EigenTrust (Kamvar, Schlosser and Garcia-Molina, WWW 2003) and Advogato's viewer-seeded, Sybil-resistant local trust metric · a live PayPal patent disclosing a trust score from the timing of peer-to-peer transfers and loan repayments with an interactive display (§2.5) · a published application disclosing a circular credibility graphic (unverified) · *added by the outside review:* eBay's feedback (one mark per transaction, regardless of price — a size-blind conduct display at mechanism) | **narrowed**; a display with no amount argument, drawn from obligations owed only, shown only at the moment of a new promise, not found (HCI literature not run in this pass) |\n| (d) | narrows | Qur'an 2:280 (waiving a debt as charity; repayment as owed) · gift-tax treatment of forgiven family loans · Undue Medical Debt (founded 2014) buying and abolishing medical debt · an offline IOU app that records forgiveness as its own record type | **narrowed, strongly** — the doctrine is common ground and is cited, never argued against; *the only crossing between two ledgers* not found |\n| (e) | narrows | EMVCo's merchant-presented QR specification, whose point-of-initiation field distinguishes static (`11`) from dynamic (`12`) codes · the Cambodian KHQR static and dynamic codes · India's withdrawal of person-to-person \"collect requests\" on its UPI network, leaving push-only payments as a fraud guard · *added by the outside review:* Brazil's Pix Cobrança, in which a charge with a due date exists only as a dynamic code · static donation and tip codes, which only ever resolve to a gift | **contrast** — in payments both code types settle value; here a code without signed terms can never create an obligation; the rule not found, and the nearest neighbours narrow the pairing |\n| (f) | narrows | Buterin, *Why we need wide adoption of social recovery wallets* (11 January 2021) · Argent (human guardians, a 48-hour cancellable security period, the owner notified) · Apple's recovery contacts · Candide · a live Microsoft patent disclosing trustees who vouch in person or by phone, with others notified (§2.5) · a published application disclosing a cancellable monitoring period (grant unverified) | **narrowed**; vouchers drawn from settled counterparties, the exclusion of anyone with an open obligation, and debts carrying over, not found |\n| (g) | kills | RFC 6962 (2013) and RFC 9162 · WhatsApp's key transparency (a per-account auditable directory, April 2023) · *draft-fassbender-scitt-time-anchor* (a transparency service anchored to Bitcoin through OpenTimestamps; revision -05, August 2026) · open-source OpenTimestamps and RFC 3161 stamping of signed tree heads · *added by the outside review:* RFC 9943 (SCITT, June 2026), in which a signed statement carries its registration receipt, with its inclusion proof, in the statement's unprotected header · the sigstore bundle format, which staples a transparency-log inclusion proof to the signed artefact for offline verification · Keybase's per-user signature chains, committed to a global Merkle tree whose root was published to Bitcoin from June 2014 | **killed** at mechanism, including an inclusion proof carried inside the signed object; only its application to a bilateral co-signed promise is left, and it is no longer claimed (§2.7) |\n| all | not found | nothing combining (a)–(g) | **not found at this depth** |\n\n**Failed re-verification, not used.** Two leads did not survive the main session's check and appear nowhere in this paper's argument: a claim that Cambodian law once capped interest at the principal (the cited article does not say it) and a 2023 study of village-shop credit (the page returned 403 and was not read).\n\n**Pass 1 was declared *full* and executed partly.** Not run: Google Scholar, SSRN and ACM directly; the HCI visualisation literature; Japanese and Korean; Khmer in any meaningful sense (three queries, a US-only index); IP.com; Google Patents' native full-text interface (reached only through `site:` queries); citation walks except one; LETS, buy-now-pay-later and jubilee sources individually. That list is why pass 2 ran.\n\n### 2.3 · Pass 2: aperture, control, verdicts\n\n**Aperture, declared before searching:** the OpenAlex scholarly index, the arXiv API, Semantic Scholar where reachable, ACM and CHI through the web; Google Patents' native query endpoint, with one-step citation walks from the nearest hits; Japanese and Korean patent and web queries; LETS, buy-now-pay-later and jubilee sources individually; Khmer again at web level. About **90 queries**, including Sefaria and SuttaCentral for the scriptural rows.\n\n**Control.** The academic credit-network literature had to be found through the academic index used: *Liquidity in Credit Networks* (Dandekar, Goel, Govindan and Post, EC 2011) and *Mechanism Design on Trust Networks* (WINE 2007). Both were found. **The control also caught a fault:** the first arXiv batch, sent over `http://`, returned empty redirects that looked like null results; it was discarded and rerun.\n\n| Prediction | Predicted | Found | Verdict |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| (a)/(b) in the academic credit-network literature | narrows; one primitive for both not found | **Ehud Shapiro, *Grassroots Bonds as a Foundation for Market Liquidity*, arXiv 2603.13671 (v1, 14 March 2026).** A grassroots coin is its issuer's promise, redeemable against the issuer's own goods and services (the prepayment half), and liquidity arises from mutual credit formed by exchanging coins among issuers; grassroots bonds add maturity dates so that credit can be extended, and a loan is expressed as the lender taking the borrower's bonds maturing at a date for fewer coins now (value now for a fixed larger claim later); one smartphone formalism, with a village-market scenario; swaps need both parties' consent. Differences: its coins and bonds are fungible, transferable and sellable (the paper expresses the sale of debt), and chain-redeemable; it has no rule that a balance cannot move by time alone, no conduct display, no gift ledger | **(a) killed at mechanism.** One primitive for prepayment and lending is public. (b) narrowed |\n| (c) in HCI and visualisation | narrows | studies of lending among friends and family (CHI 2019, *Follow the Money*; an RMIT 2016 brief; *Social Forces* 98(2)) — every ledger found displays amounts | **not found** for the display (CHI and ICTD proceedings not searched directly) |\n| (d) in academic, jubilee and LETS sources | narrows | **Rolling Jubilee** (Strike Debt, November 2012) crowdfunded the purchase of debt at a discount and abolished it, notifying debtors by mail — a buyer of the debt, not its original creditor, and no ledger · Deuteronomy 15:1–2 (a mandated seventh-year remission) · **the prosbul, Mishnah Sheviit 10:3**: mandated remission made people stop lending (evidence *for* voluntary release, §7.5) · LETS write-offs are socialised across the community · AN 4.62 and AN 6.45 confirmed; forgiving a debt as *dāna* **not found in canon** | **narrowed** the framing; release as the only crossing into a separate gift ledger **not found** |\n| (f′) in academic social-recovery work | not found | Schechter, Egelman and Reeder, CHI 2009 (trustee-based social authentication) · trustee attack models (IEEE TIFS) · a 2026 systematisation of recovery schemes, arXiv 2608.07104 (its comparison matrix not read) | **not found**: excluding a voucher because of an open obligation to the person recovering |\n| native patents | more enclosed-adjacent patents | a CME Group family on a *bilateral assertion model and ledger* (institutional) · a Blockmason credit-protocol application (2017, unverified) · an *IOU currency platform* application (title only) · a 2014 application on peer-to-peer lending through a mobile wallet (unopened) · debt forgiveness combined with a gift or reputation ledger: **0** results in Google Patents and FreePatentsOnline · a static-gift, dynamic-obligation QR rule: **0** | co-signed bilateral entries **narrowed**; forward citation walks **not run** (blocked) |\n| Japanese and Korean | narrows (a) | **Doorian Docs** (Korea; KTNET with GiveTech; announced 29 December 2016, launched 16 January 2017) — an electronic IOU concluded by the mutual electronic signatures of both parties and stored as a legal record · a second Korean IOU app · a Japanese e-signed loan-contract service with reminders (2021) · a Japanese friend-approved lending ledger · debt waiver combined with donation: **0** in Japanese and Korean | **narrowed** — the co-signed peer-to-peer IOU is common ground; native Japanese and Korean patent-office queries **not run** |\n| LETS and buy-now-pay-later individually | narrows (b)(c) | Community Forge's *signatures* module (a transaction pending until its named signatories sign) · LETS: interest-free, balances public · Klarna, Afterpay and Atome charge late fees; **Affirm charges none** (a third-party lender) · Cambodian buy-now-pay-later not found | co-signing, no interest and no late fee each **narrowed**; the composition untouched |\n\n**Probe failures, disclosed.** Semantic Scholar rate-limited seven of nine queries. Google Patents blocked after about ten native queries; seven further patent queries had syntax errors and did not run. The Blockmason application could not be re-verified (the server returned 503) and is a lead only.\n\n**Not run in pass 2:** Google Patents forward citation walks and native Japanese and Korean patent-office queries; the seven malformed queries; most Semantic Scholar queries; CHI and ICTD proceedings directly; the systematisation's recovery matrix; Khmer in substance; books and non-English scholarship. **A third pass is owed** when the patent index can be reached, and it carries the conjuncts added after ruling (§2.7).\n\n### 2.4 · What the census and the review changed in this paper\n\nThe census killed the thesis the founder's own description led with — *one deal for both prepayment and lending* — and it killed it with a paper six months old. That is disclosed as part of the mechanism in §4 and claimed nowhere. It killed the transparency-log leg outright, and the outside review then killed the one piece of it the first version still claimed: a signed object that carries its own inclusion proof is an RFC and a widely used software-signing format. It showed that the co-signed IOU is a nine-year-old consumer product. And it found the nearest neighbours of the prepayment half and of the forgiveness crossing in **religious law, not commerce** — *bay' salam* and Qur'an 2:280 — which is where a practice lives when it is old enough not to be sold.\n\nWhat survived is what the institution needed the ledger *for*: a balance that cannot move by time, a display that cannot see size, and one door between exchange and gift.\n\n**The survivor, in one sentence, as the census stated it for the per-promise form:** *a both-signed bilateral promise ledger in which no promise can change except by an entry both parties sign, conduct is drawn with no amount argument as one segment per open promise owed, and a creditor's free release of the whole remaining balance is the only event that crosses into a separate gift ledger* — plus the sub-rules (e′) a code without signed terms can never open an obligation, and (f′) no one with an open obligation with you may vouch for your new key. The census's third sub-rule, (g′) — the inclusion proof travels inside the co-signed promise code — was killed by the review and is disclosed, not claimed.\n\n**Not found means not found in the apertures above on 28 September 2026. It never means new.** A composition of several narrow conjuncts is cheap not to find, because nobody writes that exact sentence; we said so before searching.\n\n### 2.5 · Live patents in the neighbourhood (disclosure only)\n\n| Document | What it discloses | Dates recorded at the census |\n|---|---|---|\n| US 10,200,394 B2 (PayPal) | a trust score computed from the timing of peer-to-peer transfers and loan repayments, with an interactive display (a transaction map whose icons show a transfer's amount on selection) | priority 2015-12-30; shown active to 2037-02-10 (re-verified by the main session) |\n| US 10,949,837 B1 and family (Wells Fargo) | wallet-to-wallet peer-to-peer lending | shown active to about 2037 (recorded by the census; not re-fetched for this paper) |\n| US 8,856,879 B2 (Microsoft) | account recovery in which trustees vouch for the user in person or by phone, with others notified; no waiting period found in its text | priority 2009-05-14; shown active to about 2032-01-19 (re-verified by the main session and by the outside review) |\n| US 2017/0295023 A1 and family (CME Group) | a bilateral assertion model and ledger between institutional counterparties | family expiry recorded as about 2036–37 |\n| US 2020/0119916 A1 | a cancellable monitoring period in account recovery | grant status unverified |\n\nThese are recorded so that a reader practising a repayment-timed trust display, wallet-to-wallet lending, or trustee-vouched recovery knows to look. **We make no statement about the scope of any patent's claims.**\n\n### 2.6 · The balance around zero is common ground\n\nThe re-ruled design keeps one balance per pair that crosses zero. That form is **not** this paper's contribution, and it is cited here so that no reader takes it for one:\n\n- **Peer-to-peer trust lines.** Ryan Fugger's RipplePay (2004–05) recorded, for each pair of people who trusted each other, a balance that could run in either direction up to a limit each had set.\n- **Mutual credit.** Local Exchange Trading Systems (from 1983) keep a member's balance that begins at zero and goes positive or negative as the member sells or buys; Sardex does the same between businesses.\n- **Grassroots mutual credit.** Shapiro's grassroots coins (§2.3) form liquidity from mutual credit created when two issuers exchange coins, each then holding the other's promise.\n\nWhat the design adds is a set of **refusals** on that balance: it may not move by time, may not be sold, may not be shown by size, may not be opened by a code without signed terms, may not be vouched for by a counterparty with a nonzero balance, and may not cross into the gift ledger by anything but a free release. §15 claims the composition of those refusals and nothing about the balance itself.\n\n### 2.7 · Disclosed, and what the third pass decided\n\nFive things were disclosed after the first two passes. The third pass (§2.8) searched the first four and the balance form; its outcome sets which are claimed:\n\n| Item | Where disclosed | After the third pass |\n|---|---|---|\n| **(h)** the balance is non-transferable | §4.5 | narrowed (non-transferable credentials and \"non-transferable relationships\" are public); **disclosed, not claimed** |\n| **(i)** goods and cash convert into each other only by an entry both sign, at face value | §4.4 | narrowed (settlement \"in whatever the two users agree upon\" is public); **disclosed, not claimed** |\n| the fact line's **total-owed band** and the comparison ***\"larger than any they've kept\"*** | §6.3 | narrowed heavily (progressive lending; banded lender views); the amount-free composition survives → **claim 4** |\n| **(g′)** the inclusion proof travels inside the co-signed code | §12 | killed at mechanism by the outside review (RFC 9943, sigstore bundles, Keybase); **disclosed, not claimed** |\n| the one-balance-per-pair form of the claims as a whole | §4.1, §15 | narrowed heavily (an interest-free trust line is a network setting; a 2011 two-user tab with \"forgive\"); the entry grammar survives → **claim 1(a)** as worded |\n\n### 2.8 · Pass 3: aperture, control, verdicts\n\n**Pre-registered 2026-09-29 05:15 PDT, before any query.** *Public pre-registration:* `3d929ac` in `thonly/publications`, `timestamps/census/b-promise-pass3-prereg.md`. **Aperture:** FreePatentsOnline full text (US patents and applications; its EP/WO/JP flags were accepted, but no non-US document surfaced, so non-US coverage is unconfirmed) · arXiv · the general web · Technical Disclosure Commons. **Not run:** Google Patents (unavailable, HTTP 503, throughout — so no forward citation walks and no native Japanese or Korean office queries), OpenAlex search (paused by the provider), Semantic Scholar, Khmer sources, and six patent queries that never loaded. **Control:** found — bilaterally confirmed debt and credit entries between users (US 2019/0147431, filed 2017), an accepted-IOU invitation (US 2009/0327010), and the academic credit-network literature.\n\n| Conjunct | Verdict | Nearest prior art |\n|---|---|---|\n| **(h)** non-transferable balance | narrows | Ohlhaver, Weyl and Buterin, *Decentralized Society* (SSRN, 2022): uncollateralised lending resting on \"persistent, non-transferable relationships\", with non-transferable tokens as credentials; no debt record designed with no entry type for transfer was found |\n| **(i)** goods ↔ money only by co-signed entry at face value | narrows | a trust-line network's settlement in \"cash, services, goods… whatever the two users agree upon\"; store credit cashed out by issuer policy or statute; no face-value co-signed conversion rule was found |\n| **(j)** one balance per pair, never moved by time | **narrows heavily** | the Trustlines Network: a bilateral balance either side of zero, in currency networks that may set interest network-wide, per user, **or prohibit it entirely**; US 2011/0276479: a two-user \"tab\" the sender may, after some days, \"forgive\" — which stops reminders; bilaterally confirmed entries (US 2019/0147431) |\n| **(k)** the origination fact line | **narrows heavily** | progressive lending in microfinance, where loan size grows only after full repayment of the last loan (Kumar, *SAGE Open* 2012; Cecchi, *Review of Development Economics* 2021); peer-lending listings showing lenders income in bands and a count of prior loans; a coarse \"financial responsibility\" indicator disclosed to others (US 10,803,513) |\n\n**What survives.** For (j), the **entry grammar**: every increase is signed by both parties, the only single-signature entry is the holder's release, which cancels, and the ledger has **no entry type** by which time changes a balance — a property of the record, where the nearest neighbour offers it as a network setting and lets a payer send alone. For (k), only the **amount-free composition**: a coarse band of the promisor's total owed together with the larger-than-kept flag, shown to a peer only at the moment a new promise is made; the larger-than-largest-repaid test itself is established lending policy and is cited, not claimed. (h) and (i) survive only in their specific wording and stay disclosed. *Not found means not found in this aperture on this date.*\n\n---\n\n## 3 · The system model\n\n### 3.1 · Parties and objects\n\n- **Pair** — two people who deal with each other. Everything in this ledger is kept per pair.\n- **Promise balance** — the one running balance between a pair, held identically on both parties' devices and signed by both. It sits on one side of zero or the other, or at zero. It is denominated in one currency, fixed when the balance first opens (§4.4).\n- **Debtor** (or promisor) and **holder** — at any moment, the party the balance says owes, and the party it says is owed. The roles follow the sign: when the balance crosses zero, they swap. In prepayment, the vendor is the debtor until the customer has taken all that was prepaid; in lending, the borrower is.\n- **Entry** — any change to a promise balance, or to its deadline. Every entry is signed by both parties except a release, which the holder signs alone (§5.2).\n- **Promise code** — the self-contained, signed, machine-readable form of an entry and the balance it leaves: screenshot-able and verifiable anywhere without contacting the institution, with its log proof attached once the log has one (§12).\n- **Promise ring** — the conduct display (§6). It has no mark and no shorthand; the corpus calls it the promise ring in full.\n- **Fact line** — the line of text beneath the ring, carrying counts and the only amount-derived information shown (§6.3).\n- **The log** — an append-only public Merkle log that receives only per-person chain heads (§12).\n- **The gift ledger** — the institution's existing, separate signed-balance ledger of kindness and gratitude (the Zero-Point Game℠), with its public display (the B-Aura). This paper adds no entry type to it except one (§7).\n\nIn this paper *a promise* means what one person owes another at a moment: the debtor's side of a promise balance. \"Keeping a promise\" means bringing that balance back to zero.\n\n### 3.2 · What the institution holds\n\nNothing that settles. In the first phase the ledger records what the parties owe each other over cash they hand each other; in a later phase value moves through self-custodial wallets on a public chain whose keys the institution never holds. The balance rows, amounts and names **never go to the institution or the log**; the log receives salted hashes only. They do pass between devices: a prospective holder's device reads what the debtor's device presents in order to draw the ring and the fact line (§6.3). The institution is a record, never a rail, and never holds the only copy of anything a user needs.\n\n### 3.3 · Terms used for the lexicon\n\nA **pledge** in this institution's lexicon cannot be claimed (the institution's time pledges are soft and unenforceable by design). A **promise** is a claim. The two words are kept apart on every surface.\n\n---\n\n## 4 · The primitive: one balance per pair, crossing zero\n\n### 4.1 · Prepayment and credit are one balance — disclosed, not claimed\n\n*Value now for a fixed larger claim later*, kept as one running balance between two people.\n\n```\n the promise balance between a customer (C) and a vendor (V), in one currency\n\n V owes C C owes V\n (C prepaid; V has not 0 (C took goods on credit;\n yet delivered) C has not yet paid)\n ◄───────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────►\n +10 +6 +1 0 −3\n │ │ │ │\n │ C takes│ C takes│ C takes $4 of │\n │ $4 of │ $5 of │ goods: $1 is │\n │ goods │ goods │ delivered from │\n │ │ │ the prepayment, │\n │ │ │ $3 on credit │\n C pays $9 for $10 the balance has CROSSED ZERO:\n (the discount is fixed the roles swap, the segment\n on that entry) moves to C's ring, and a new\n deadline is proposed by C\n```\n\nThe same balance serves lending: a lender who gives $9 for $10 moves the balance to \"borrower owes $10\"; each repayment moves it back toward zero. If the borrower later lends back to the lender, or buys from the lender's stall, the balance moves through zero and the roles swap. There is no second record and nothing new is opened.\n\nIn prepayment, the discount costs the vendor margin rather than cash: she receives working capital today and repays it in goods at retail, so the $1 is paid out of the difference between what the goods cost her and what they sell for. That is why a vendor can offer it. The general form, which the institution uses to position the mechanism to vendors, is **prepay at a discount**: **every promise on this ledger is bought at or below face value**, and a promise at face value carries no premium at all. The vendor sets the discount, as an offer open to anyone who deals with her; there is no member price, no class of customer named, and no subscription. At a customer's first prepayment the app states once, as a fact, that the customer is paying ahead and the stall owes the customer the amount shown.\n\n**This primitive is not claimed,** and neither is the balance around zero. Shapiro's grassroots bonds (§2.3) express both halves of the deal in one formalism, and trust lines and mutual credit keep a balance that crosses zero (§2.6). What differs is disclosed in §4.4–§4.5 and §5–§7, and what survives is claimed in §15.\n\n### 4.2 · The receipt\n\nValue moves first, face to face, in cash or goods. The entry is written after, and it reads as a receipt:\n\n```\n ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐\n │ received $9 credited $10 │\n │ balance @sokha owes @dara $10 (was $0) │\n │ by Friday 2 Oct (proposed by @sokha) │\n │ currency USD (fixed when this balance opened) │\n │ ── signed by both ── entry #1 ── salt ···· │\n └────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘\n```\n\nThe discount is on the record, visible to both, at the moment of agreement, and it is fixed on that entry: nothing later changes what that entry added. **The debtor proposes the deadline** and the holder agrees to it; or, if the holder agrees, there is **no deadline**, and a balance with no deadline can never be overdue. The handles in the illustration are invented.\n\n### 4.3 · The premium is interest-shaped, and the paper says so\n\nA $1 premium on $9 for a week is 1/9 ≈ 11.1% a week, which is about 52 × 11.1% ≈ 578% a year simple, and far more if rolled over (§11.1). A fixed premium is not a cheap premium: flat-rate informal lending, including the Philippine \"5-6\" (five borrowed, six repaid), is non-compounding and predatory at once, and nothing in this ledger stops a lender charging a 5-6 premium on every entry. **The ledger claims no usury protection.** It shows the discount on the receipt; it does not cap it, grade it or annualise it. A pre-signing disclosure of an annualised equivalent was proposed and declined in the ruling that settled this design, on the ground that the mechanism does not compound; the objection that non-compounding does not mean cheap is recorded here and in §17, and whether a disclosure is legally owed anyway is a question for legal review before any launch.\n\n### 4.4 · Denominated in money, delivered in goods or cash — disclosed, not claimed\n\nA promise is **denominated** in money and **delivered** in goods or cash, as both parties agree. A balance owed in goods and a balance owed in cash are one balance; either delivery converts into the other **by an entry both parties sign, at face value**: a vendor who owes $10 of goods may agree to pay $10 of cash instead, or the reverse. The conversion is seamless on screen and consensual in the ledger. A holder cannot force a cash repayment of a goods balance, because that would strip the vendor of the margin that paid for the discount.\n\nThe consequence matters for the display. Every open segment is an obligation of its face value, in goods or, by consent, in cash, so the ring's refusal to distinguish goods owed from cash owed is **honest** rather than a simplification. A proposed split of the fact line into goods owed and cash owed was therefore unnecessary and was not adopted.\n\n**Face value implies a denomination, fixed once.** A balance is denominated in one currency when it first opens (\"$10 of goods\"), never in item counts (\"ten bowls of noodles\"). A balance denominated in items would grow in money terms whenever prices rose — a balance growing on its own through a side door. Cambodia is a two-currency economy, dollars and riel. The no-growth property holds in the denominating currency; goods and cash convert at face value in it; and **there is no exchange-rate entry**. A pair that wants to change currency records a release of the balance in the old currency and a new co-signed entry in the new one (§17 records an open question this raises). The holder bears any depreciation of the denominating currency, and the receipt names the currency so that both parties see which one they are bound in.\n\n### 4.5 · Non-transferable — disclosed, not claimed\n\nA promise balance names two parties (handles) and has no entry type that changes either. It can never be sold, assigned, pledged as security or bundled. Recovery (§10) rotates the key that signs for a handle; it is not a balance entry and moves nothing between parties.\n\nThis closes the debt-buyer's harm **on the ledger**: no record ever names a new holder, so a claim cannot be sold on the ledger to a stranger whose only interest in the debtor is collection. It is the sharpest contrast with grassroots bonds, whose debt is sellable by design. It is a property of the record (there is nothing to transfer to), not of the world: nothing stops two people agreeing off the ledger that one will collect for the other, and whether the underlying claim can be assigned at law is a question for legal review, not something the record decides.\n\n### 4.6 · Death and incapacity\n\n**Non-transferable is not non-inheritable.** The ledger never releases a balance automatically when a person dies; an automatic release would take a holding from the holder's family without anyone choosing it.\n\n- **The holder decides in life.** A holder may name a successor — the guardian named for recovery (§10) — or may record *\"release on my death\"*, a release chosen in advance by the holder's own free act. As disclosed here, a named successor acts through the recovery path of §10, which rotates the key for the holder's handle and changes no party on any balance. Succession through recovery is not a transfer: no party on any balance changes, which is why non-transferability holds. **A release recorded in advance to take effect at death is not a crossing into the gift ledger:** the gift ledger records the free acts of the living, and a crossing that took effect at death would turn the aura into an estate-planning incentive.\n- **A debtor's death is recorded, and their ring is never shown again.** Claims against what a person left are governed by the law of the place, not by this ledger; the ledger records what was owed and does nothing further.\n- **Incapacity** is treated as the recovery case of §10 when a guardian exists; otherwise the balance stands, unchanged, as owed.\n\n---\n\n## 5 · The no-growth property\n\n### 5.1 · The property\n\n**The balance never moves by time.** It changes only by one of three things:\n\n1. **New value** — cash or goods change hands, and both parties sign an entry recording it, with the discount fixed on that entry;\n2. **Repayment** — both parties sign; the holder's signature is the debtor's receipt;\n3. **Release** — the holder, alone, may always lower what the holder is owed.\n\nNothing accrues. Nothing compounds. There is no late penalty. A missed deadline's only consequence is a gap in the debtor's ring (§6). Nothing grows **on its own**.\n\nThis is the load-bearing property of the whole design, and it is chosen to be a **property rather than a rule**: the entry grammar has no accrual entry, no penalty entry, no interest-rate field and no time-driven entry of any kind, so there is nothing for an operator, a holder or a later version of the software to switch on. A rule would need someone to refrain from charging late fees at the moment a late payment happens; a property needs no one. The cost is the same fact: a property is harder to revise than a rule. If this choice is wrong, the ledger has to be rebuilt, not amended.\n\n**What the property does not say.** It does not say the balance can never rise. It rises whenever the holder gives the debtor more value, and both sign for it. The first ruling on this design said the opposite for a moment — that nothing, not even both parties together, could raise what is owed — and the final ruling withdrew that, because a running tab between a customer and a stall must be able to take a second prepayment. What is absolute is narrower and firmer: **time alone never moves it, and no one moves it upward alone.**\n\n### 5.2 · The entry grammar\n\n| Entry | Signed by | Effect on the balance | Notes |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| **value** | both | moves it toward the party who received value, by the face value credited *y*, for value received *r*, with 0 < *r* ≤ *y* | written at the moment cash or goods change hands; the discount *y* − *r* is fixed on this entry; may cross zero, which swaps the roles |\n| **repay** | both | moves it toward zero by the amount delivered, at face value | the holder's signature is the debtor's receipt |\n| **convert** | both | none — the delivery form changes, goods ↔ cash, at face value | §4.4 |\n| **date** | both | none — sets, changes or removes the deadline | proposed by whoever currently owes; the holder agrees |\n| **release** | **holder alone** | lowers what the holder is owed | the only one-signature entry; a release of the whole balance is the crossing of §7, subject to its guards |\n| *(accrue)* | — | — | **does not exist** |\n| *(penalty)* | — | — | **does not exist** |\n| *(assign)* | — | — | **does not exist** (§4.5) |\n| *(exchange rate)* | — | — | **does not exist** (§4.4) |\n\n**One entry may do two things.** A customer who owes a stall $5 and hands over $9 for $10 of credit first repays the $5 at face value and then prepays the rest; as disclosed here the entry records both parts, the repayment at face and the new value at the discount the two agree, and the balance ends on the other side of zero. How the two parts are split on one receipt is a detail of the build, withheld (§14).\n\n**The release is unilateral on purpose.** A release is a gift, and a gift the recipient could veto would not be the giver's free act. The holder signs it alone; the debtor's device records it when it next syncs. A release never needs the debtor's consent and can never raise anything.\n\n### 5.3 · Netting within the pair, never across people\n\nBecause each pair keeps one balance, what two people owe each other nets automatically: a vendor who owes a supplier $10 for stock and is owed $4 by the same supplier for lunches has one balance of $6. **Every entry that changes it is signed by both**, so the netting is always something both parties saw.\n\nNetting **never** happens across people. A balance with one person is never set against a balance with another, and no entry type moves an obligation from one pair to another. Moving debt across people is what a clearing system or a debt buyer does, and it is exactly what non-transferability (§4.5) forbids.\n\n### 5.4 · Deadlines on a running balance\n\nThe deadline belongs to the balance, not to an entry. Whoever currently owes proposes it; the other agrees; or both agree there is none. **A balance is overdue when it is still owed past its deadline.** When the balance crosses zero, the roles swap and the deadline is reset: the new debtor proposes one. New value added in the same direction leaves the deadline as it stands unless both sign a new date entry — the conservative default, so that adding value never extends what is already owed. One entry may both repay and prepay (a customer settling what they owe and paying ahead in the same handover); how such an entry is split is part of the withheld specification (§14).\n\n### 5.5 · Disclosed variant: one record per promise\n\n> **Current form.** In the design as now specified, each pair keeps one running promise balance that crosses zero (§4.1), new value may raise it by an entry both sign (§5.1), a release is the holder's unilateral entry (§5.2), and the crossing is a release of the whole balance owed by that person (§7). The per-promise design below is the first version of this paper's mechanism and is retained as a disclosed variant.\n\nIn the variant, every deal opens a separate **promise** record: received *r*, owe *y* ≥ *r*, currency, deadline or none, both signatures. Its grammar is **open** (both; creates the promise) · **repay** (both; decreases) · **convert** (both; goods ↔ cash at face value) · **re-date** (both; changes or removes the deadline) · **partial release** (both; decreases, not a crossing) · **whole release** (both; to zero by the holder's free act, the only crossing); and *accrue*, *penalty* and *assign* do not exist. In that form new value is always a new promise, so an existing promise's amount only ever goes down and every new obligation is its own record. The variant's ring draws one segment per open promise owed (§6.7). It shares the weakness §11.1 describes (a person repaying one promise with another shows a single kept promise at every step), and it adds one of its own: a pair that deals daily accumulates records, and segments, that the running balance nets into one.\n\n---\n\n## 6 · The promise ring: a conduct display with no amount argument\n\n### 6.1 · The render function\n\nThe ring is drawn by a function whose inputs are the people a party currently **owes** (not the people who owe the party), each reduced to one bit of state, and one bit of history:\n\n```\n ring( owed : list of { current | overdue }, ← one entry per person the party currently OWES\n new : yes | no ) ← \"has this person brought any balance to zero yet?\"\n → drawing\n\n • there is NO amount argument. A $2 balance and a $2,000 balance draw the same segment.\n • there is NO \"owed to them\". People who owe the party draw nothing — that is not\n the party's conduct, and drawing it would display wealth.\n • there is NO colour argument. Colour belongs to the gift-side display (§6.4).\n • there is NO age argument. How long a person has kept promises appears in the\n fact line only (§6.3), never in the ring.\n```\n\nThe absence of an amount argument is the property, in the same way that a pricing function which is given no argument naming the viewer cannot price per viewer: the display cannot reward borrowing more because it cannot see how much was borrowed. A proposal to size each segment in proportion to its amount was declined when the design was ratified, for three reasons: it records the cargo rather than the conduct; it rewards larger borrowing with a more impressive ring; and it feeds the bust-out ladder (§11.2), in which a borrower builds a record on small promises in order to default on a large one.\n\n**One segment per person, not per promise.** Because each pair keeps one balance, the ring counts **creditors**, not deals: a vendor who restocks from the same supplier every morning and owes that supplier a running balance draws one segment, however many entries the balance has. The number of distinct people a person owes at once is also the signal a bust-out leaves, since a bust-out borrows from many holders before it defaults.\n\n### 6.2 · The states\n\n```\n ◌ thin ring new: no balance brought to zero yet (never absent, never dim)\n ○ solid ring owes no one (the resting state)\n ◔ one segment owes one person, on time\n ◑ two segments owes two people, on time\n ◐ segment and a gap one of those balances is overdue (transparent: a gap)\n\n back to zero ─► the segment dissolves into the ring; the circle closes\n crosses zero ─► the segment leaves this ring and appears on the OTHER person's ring\n released ─► the segment dissolves NEUTRALLY; neither kept nor broken (§7.3)\n overdue ─► the gap persists until paid, released, or a fixed maximum (§6.5)\n\n ╭──────╮ ╭──╴ ╶──╮ ╭──╴ ╶╮\n │ │ │ │ │\n │ │ → owe → │ ▓▓ ▓▓ │ → late → │ ▓▓ │ → repaid → ╭──────╮\n ╰──────╯ ╰───────╯ ╰────────╯ ╰──────╯\n owes no one owes two people one balance overdue closed again\n```\n\nThe segments are **equal width** and there is no scale: past about five segments a ring stops being readable, and the fact line carries the exact counts. The ring **saturates**: after its first balance brought to zero it looks the same as after many, so it gives no reason to keep borrowing in order to look better. A thin ring marks a person who has not yet brought any balance to zero, and it is never drawn dimmer or smaller than anyone else's; a newcomer is not displayed as a lack.\n\nAn overdue balance is shown as a gap because the debtor incurred a duty before the gap was rendered. That is the one condition under which this institution's surfaces may show non-performance at all: a report of a duty the person took on, never an absence the surface imposes on them.\n\n### 6.3 · The fact line\n\nThe fact line is the only place any number appears, and it is shown **to the prospective holder, at a new promise, and nowhere else**:\n\n```\n owes 6 people · 1 overdue · kept promises with 2 people you know\n keeping promises since 2027 · total owed: band C · this promise is larger than any they've kept\n```\n\n- **Counts** — how many people the debtor owes, and how many of those balances are overdue.\n- **Distinct counterparties near the viewer** — computed on the viewer's device from the viewer's own dealings (§11.3); repeated pairs count once and closed cycles count as nearly nothing.\n- **History age** — the year the debtor first brought a balance to zero, as a fact. It is kept out of the ring deliberately: a display that rewards long credit history reproduces the trap in which the young and the newly arrived cannot borrow because they have not borrowed.\n- **Total owed, as a coarse band** — the debtor's total owed across everyone they owe, reduced to one of a few bands. This is the one amount-derived input on the surface, and it is on the fact line, not the ring. The number and boundaries of the bands are not settled.\n- ***\"This promise is larger than any they've kept\"*** — a comparison that discloses no amount: the balance the new entry would leave with this holder, against the largest balance the debtor has ever brought back to zero.\n\nThe last two were added after an adversarial pass showed that a count is not exposure (§11.1). They answer the one-step bust-out and make rollover visible to the next holder; they do not stop either. **Both are disclosed and not claimed** (§2.7).\n\n**Where the fact line comes from.** It is computed on the prospective holder's device from what the debtor's device presents. The entries in the debtor's chain are checkable against the chain head the debtor has logged (§12), so a presented history cannot be edited after the fact; but the fact line is still reported by the party it describes, and what that means is stated in §17.\n\n### 6.4 · Three rings: the promise ring as a third instance of the Zero-Point Game\n\nThe institution's gift ledger is a signed-balance ledger in which every event posts an equal-and-opposite pair, and its public display is a double concentric ring: the Kiitos ring (between people) inside, the Kiitti ring (between a person and the living world) outside, each coloured by the waveform of its balance. A promise balance is also a signed pair — the holder +*B*, the debtor −*B*, summing to zero — and it has the gift ledger's shape at the scale of two people: a balance that aims at zero and fluctuates around it. The founder's ruling places its ring between the two:\n\n```\n ╭─────────────────────────────╮\n ╭─┤ KIITTI — outer aura ring ├─╮ colour (the gift ledger)\n ╭─┤ ╰─────────────────────────────╯ ├─╮\n │ │ ╭─ ▓▓ ─ ▓▓ ─ ─ ▓▓ ─╮ │ │ PROMISES — segmented ring\n │ │ │ ╭─────────────╮ │ │ │ no colour; shape only;\n │ │ │ │ KIITOS │ │ │ │ ONLY in promise context\n │ │ │ │ inner aura │ │ │ │\n │ │ │ │ ( avatar ) │ │ │ │ colour (the gift ledger)\n │ │ │ ╰─────────────╯ │ │ │\n │ │ ╰────────────────────╯ │ │\n ╰─┴──────────────────────────────────┴─╯\n\n everywhere else: the avatar carries the two aura rings only (the B-Aura as it is)\n at a new promise: the promise ring is drawn between them\n```\n\n**Three differences from the other two instances are load-bearing.**\n\n1. **No colour.** In the institution's display grammar, shape carries the brand, motion carries humanness and colour carries the aura. The promise ring is shape only. The credit signal is the shape: no segments, segments on time, a gap, a thin ring for a newcomer. Conduct is read from the shape, exposure from the fact line, and there is never a scalar.\n2. **Context only.** The promise ring is drawn only where a promise is being made. It never appears on a profile, a map, a shop listing or a search result, and the rest of the time the avatar carries the gift-side rings unchanged.\n3. **No calendar reset.** The gift ledger's balances reset to zero every 7 January. A promise balance never does. The holder's claim is the holder's holding, and a holding reaches zero only by its holder's free act — repaid in full, or released. The annual date carries only an **invitation** to forgive (§7.4). The promise ledger aims at zero the way every instance does; it may not be pushed there.\n\n**What *instance* means here, and what it does not.** The promise ledger shares the gift ledger's structure — a signed pair, summing to zero — and sits in its display. It does not share any mechanism that moves value. Nothing on either ledger's display opens, enlarges or closes a balance; the only things that change a balance are the entries of §5.2, and value itself moves between the parties in cash or goods, by their own hands. A holder reads the ring and decides; the ring decides nothing. The one event that passes between the ledgers (§7) is a record of a gift already made, not a transfer the display performs.\n\n### 6.5 · Fading\n\nSettled history fades after a recency window (about twelve months was proposed; the length is not settled), so that a person's past does not follow them forever on the surface. Fading applies to the fact line's settled-history fields — the count of kept counterparties and the history age; whether the first year survives the window is not settled. **The log's record of age never fades; only what the surface shows does.**\n\nAn **overdue** gap persists until the balance is paid or released, or until a fixed maximum tied to the legal limitation period for such debts, whichever comes first; it never persists indefinitely. The maximum is not yet named and depends on legal review. The overdue maximum is applied before the state reaches the ring: the ring itself has no age input (§6.1). **Fading changes the display, never the balance:** a gap that has faded still marks a balance that is owed, and the holder's claim is untouched.\n\n### 6.6 · What the ring cannot see, by construction\n\n| The ring is not given | So it cannot |\n|---|---|\n| any amount | reward borrowing more, or show one large debt as worse than one small one |\n| who owes the party | display wealth, or show a lender as more reputable than a borrower |\n| any colour | be confused with the gift-side aura, or grade anyone |\n| any age | reward a long credit history over a short one |\n| any context but a new promise | appear on a profile, a map or a listing (a rule; see §13 and §17 on screenshots) |\n\n### 6.7 · Disclosed variant: one segment per open promise\n\n> **Current form.** As now specified the ring draws one segment per person the party currently owes (§6.1), a segment moves to the other party's ring when a balance crosses zero (§6.2), and \"kept\" means a balance brought back to zero. The per-promise ring below is retained as a disclosed variant.\n\nIn the variant, the ring draws one equal-width segment for each **open promise** the person owes, a gap for each overdue promise, and a segment that dissolves when its promise is kept; its function takes a list of open promises owed, each *current* or *overdue*, and the same *new* bit. The variant counts obligations rather than creditors: a daily restocking arrangement with one supplier draws a new segment every day it is open.\n\n---\n\n## 7 · The forgiveness crossing\n\n### 7.1 · Why there is exactly one door\n\nThe gift ledger and the promise ledger are separate, and nothing on one side changes the other, with one exception. Merging them was considered and refused for three reasons already given in §1: repayment would buy the appearance of kindness; lenders would acquire a stake in the gift ledger's annual forgiveness; and poverty would render as unkindness. Keeping them wholly separate would miss the one act that is a gift in the plain sense: a holder who could collect and chooses not to.\n\n**A holder's free release of the whole balance owed by a person enters the gift ledger as a kindness by the holder, subject to the guards of §7.2.** Repayment never does, however prompt or complete.\n\n**How it posts.** The gift ledger posts every event as an equal-and-opposite pair. A release enters it as **a gift awaiting thanks**: the holder's side is recorded, and the pair completes — the equal-and-opposite entry posts — only if the debtor chooses to thank the holder. Nothing posts on the debtor's side unless the debtor acts. A forgiven debtor is never recorded as a recipient against their will, and a debtor who does not thank is never shown as having failed to.\n\nIn the other direction nothing crosses at all. Thanks given to a holder never reduces a balance, and a balance can never be repaid in thanks: gratitude may support a person, but it may never settle what that person is owed, or it turns a gift into a payment. The debtor's thanks, if given, completes the gift; it does not repay anything. The door opens one way, and only for a release.\n\n### 7.2 · The guards\n\n| Guard | Why |\n|---|---|\n| only a release of the **whole balance** owed by that person is a crossing | a release of part of a balance — the premium, say — is an ordinary entry; otherwise a holder could forgive the $1 premium and bank a gift while collecting $9 |\n| at most **once per pair of people per season**, a season being the gift ledger's year, 7 January to 7 January | prevents a pair from cycling small balances through release to farm the gift ledger |\n| **nothing** posts on the debtor's side unless the debtor thanks | a forgiven debtor is not displayed as a recipient of charity |\n| the gift-side display never shows **why** it moved | a release is recorded as a crossing, not as the cargo it carried; no one can read from an aura that someone was forgiven, or by whom |\n| the release must be free — neither deceived nor pressured | a release extracted under pressure is not a gift; see §17 on what a signature cannot prove |\n\n**What the first guard does not stop.** A holder who is repaid $9 of a $10 balance and then releases the remaining $1 has released the whole balance then owed, and that is a crossing. The design accepts it: a real remainder given up is a real gift, and the aura records the crossing, not its size, so forgiving $1 of remainder earns the same crossing as forgiving $10. The once-per-pair-per-season cap is what bounds it, and §17 states the cost. This reading — a release of whatever remains after partial repayment is a crossing — is the ruled one.\n\n### 7.3 · A forgiven balance dissolves neutrally\n\nWhen a balance is released in whole, its segment closes without the animation of a balance brought to zero by repayment and without the mark of a broken one. The debtor's ring is drawn as if that balance had not been owed. A released balance is **neither kept nor broken**; it is simply no longer owed.\n\n### 7.4 · The annual invitation: forgive the scalar, not the colour\n\nThe gift ledger's jubilee falls on 7 January, when its balances reset to zero while its displayed waveform carries over (*forgive the scalar; persist the waveform*). The founder ruled that the same date should carry an invitation to forgive promises too — **forgive the scalar, not the colour** — extended to anyone who holds one. The invitation's guards are part of the design:\n\n- it is stated **once**, as a fact, on the date;\n- it never nominates a debtor, never counts who forgave, and never tells anyone they did not;\n- a release made in response to it is an ordinary whole release under §7.2, with no bonus and no badge;\n- it never resets a balance; a balance not released is exactly as owed on 8 January as on 6 January.\n\nWho issues the invitation is not decided by this paper. If the institution's autonomous agent issues it, that becomes a rule about her conduct and is decided elsewhere.\n\n### 7.5 · The known failure of a calendar of forgiveness\n\nThe oldest recorded jubilee law names the failure this invitation risks. Deuteronomy 15:1–2 mandates a seventh-year remission of debts, and 15:9 warns against the consequence: *\"Beware lest you harbor the base thought, 'The seventh year, the year of remission, is approaching,' so that you are mean and give nothing to your needy kindred\"* (JPS). The Mishnah records that the warning came true and how it was repaired: *\"This was one of the things enacted by Hillel the elder; for when he observed people refraining from lending to one another … Hillel enacted the prozbul\"* (Mishnah Sheviit 10:3, trans. Kulp) — a court instrument that exempted a loan from the remission so that lending would resume.\n\nTwo things follow. The failure was produced by a **mandated** remission; the design here mandates nothing, and a voluntary release does not threaten any lender's expected repayment. That is evidence for the design, found by the census rather than chosen for it. But an **invitation**, repeated each year on a known date and carried by the institution that keeps the ledger, might still make a cautious lender stop lending in December — not because she fears the law but because she does not want to be asked. The design does not know whether it will. §16 registers the test, and the launch is staggered so that the test has a baseline.\n\n---\n\n## 8 · The scan: a code without signed terms never opens an obligation\n\nThe institution already prints codes: a person's printed code, scanned by any phone camera, opens a way to **thank** that person. The promise ledger uses the same handle and must not turn a thank code into a debt.\n\n```\n CODE WITHOUT SIGNED TERMS @name CODE WITH ITS TERMS\n (\"printed\" / static) (\"live\", generated for the deal)\n ───────────────────────────── ─────────────────────────────\n sticker, card, stall sign shown on a phone at the moment\n scanned by any camera of the deal\n │ │\n ▼ ▼\n OPENED: ALWAYS a THANK opens promise.heartbank.net/@name,\n (the gift side) LABELLED AS A PROMISE, terms embedded,\n binding NOTHING until both sign\n INSIDE THE PROMISE APP: an ADDRESS only\n for an entry the scanner writes and signs\n ✗ can never create an obligation ✓ generated for this transaction\n ✗ no \"?promise\" parameter exists ✓ carries its own terms\n```\n\n- **\"Printed\" and \"live\" are shorthand for *without* and *with* signed terms.** The rule keys on what the code carries, not on paper or screen: a static address shown on a screen is still a code without terms, and a live code captured and reprinted remains an unsigned offer, labelled as a promise, that binds no one until both parties sign.\n- **A code without signed terms carries only an address.** Opened by a camera, it always opens a thank. Inside the promise application, the party writing an entry may use it only as the **address** of an entry that party authors and signs. It never carries terms, and it never binds the code's owner, who is bound only by her own signature on the entry.\n- **An obligation opens only from a code carrying its terms**, generated for the transaction, labelled as a promise, and binding nothing until both parties have signed.\n- **There is no parameter on a thank code that opens a promise.** A parameter would make the printed label lie about what the code does, and it is a ready vector for a scam: a sticker that looks like a thank and opens a debt.\n- **A holder's request code**, shown in the app to invite a new entry, is **live and rotating**, never printed.\n\nIn payments, both static and dynamic codes settle value; the EMVCo distinction is about whether the amount is embedded. Brazil's Pix comes closest, carrying a charge with a due date only in a dynamic code, and static donation and tip codes only ever resolve to a gift; but in each of them the static code still moves money. Here the distinction is **about intent**: a code without signed terms can express only the gift side. The rule is claimed as (e′).\n\n---\n\n## 9 · The flow\n\nOne flow serves every case — prepayment and lending, either party with or without the app, value in either direction across zero — and repayment is the same flow in the other direction.\n\n```\n 0 VALUE MOVES FIRST cash or goods, face to face\n │\n 1 RECEIVER WRITES + SIGNS the party who received value writes the entry, addressed to\n │ the other (by scanning the other's printed code in-app as an\n │ ADDRESS only, or the other's live request code)\n │ → a live promise code on the receiver's screen\n ▼\n 2 GIVER CHECKS + SIGNS in the app, or with the phone's own camera → the promise\n │ page, with a passkey created on the spot\n ▼\n 3 COPY RETURNS online: synced · offline: one scan back\n │ BOTH devices keep the countersigned entry and balance\n ▼\n 4 ANCHOR (when online) each device's chain head → the log (§12);\n the log proof is attached to the promise code\n\n REPAY: the same steps; the holder's signature on the reduction is the debtor's receipt\n RELEASE: the holder alone writes and signs; the debtor's device records it at the next sync\n```\n\nThree gaps in the first sketch of this flow were closed before ratification and are part of the disclosure: the cash leg is on the record (step 0 and the receipt of §4.2); the party who signs first receives the countersigned copy (step 3, by one scan back if offline); and the request code is live and rotating rather than static.\n\n---\n\n## 10 · Recovery without a recovery phrase\n\nA ledger kept on phones loses phones. The design recovers two things separately — the record and the ability to sign — and uses no recovery phrase anywhere, because a phrase written on paper is lost, photographed or sold.\n\n1. **Signing.** A passkey where the phone supports one; otherwise a non-exportable key held by the device behind its screen lock or an app PIN. On a phone shared by a family, one profile and PIN per person.\n2. **The record recovers itself.** Every balance is held on both parties' devices, so a person who loses their phone recovers each balance from the counterparty who holds the other copy.\n3. **Identity recovers by vouching.** Three people with whom the person has a **settled** balance (at zero now, and nonzero at some time before), or one guardian named in advance, meet the person face to face and sign the new key. A waiting period of about seven days follows, during which the old key can cancel the change, and every counterparty's app states once: *\"@name moved to a new phone.\"*\n4. **No one who has a nonzero balance with you, in either direction, may vouch for your new key.** A debtor who could vouch for their creditor's new key could, with two accomplices, take over the creditor's record and sign away what they owe; a creditor could do the same to a debtor. This exclusion is claimed as (f′).\n5. **Debts carry over.** Rotating a key never clears a balance, and moves nothing between parties (§4.5).\n6. **A paid encrypted cloud backup is a convenience only**, never the only path to recovery.\n\nA new user with no settled balances is told once, at their first entry, that naming a guardian is possible. The design is sensitive to the actual phones in use — model, operating-system version, whether platform services are present, whether a screen lock is set — and a survey of the pilot's phones precedes any build.\n\n---\n\n## 11 · Fraud: bounding the loss, never preventing it\n\nThe ring certifies **conduct, never capacity**. No surface says *\"trusted for up to $X,\"* because no count of kept promises is a credit limit.\n\n### 11.1 · Rollover\n\nThe most important counterexample to this design was found by an adversarial pass before drafting, and it defeats an earlier claim the design's own authors had made. A person who repays a $10 balance by taking a new debt large enough to cover it — $10 received, $11.11 owed — from anyone keeps every promise and owes more each cycle:\n\n| Cycles rolled weekly | Owed ($, from $10) | Ring / fact line |\n|---|---|---|\n| 0 | 10.00 | one segment, current |\n| 1 | 11.11 | one segment, current / one balance kept |\n| 4 | 15.24 | one segment, current / four kept |\n| 7 | 20.91 | one segment, current |\n| 13 | 39.34 | one segment, current |\n| 26 | 154.77 | one segment, current |\n| 52 | 2,395.46 | one segment, current |\n\nThe growth factor is 10/9 per cycle, so after *n* cycles the debt is 10 × (10/9)ⁿ. The ring shows a model borrower throughout. In Cambodian speech the practice is known colloquially as turning money over (*bangvil luy*), and the LICADHO and Equitable Cambodia figures in §1 describe it in one province's survey. **\"Every new promise is a visible segment\" is not a defence against rollover**, because the new debt replaces the old one; the institution had said otherwise and has withdrawn the claim.\n\n**Rolling over with the same lender merges into one balance.** If the new $11.11 is owed to the same person as the old $10, the pair's single balance simply moves from $10 to $11.11 by a co-signed value entry: the lender sees the whole history as a party to it, and every other viewer sees it only through the total-owed band.\n\nThe response is the fact line's **total-owed band** and **larger-than-kept comparison** (§6.3): a holder asked for the fifth rolled debt sees a band that has risen and a promise larger than any kept. That is information, not a limit. A vendor who funds old prepayments out of new ones is rolling over too, and the same band shows her.\n\n### 11.2 · The bust-out ladder\n\nA borrower builds a record on small balances, then defaults on a large one. The size-blind ring gives the ladder nothing to climb, because a record of small balances looks the same as a record of large ones; the larger-than-kept comparison tells the holder of the large one that it is the largest. A bust-out that borrows from many holders at once shows as many segments. The loss is bounded by what each holder chooses to lend after reading it.\n\n### 11.3 · Wash lending and viewer-relative trust\n\nTwo accounts can lend to each other in a loop to manufacture a record. With one balance per pair, a loop between two accounts nets inside one balance and shows one counterparty; a loop among several accounts is a cycle. The fact line counts **distinct** counterparties, counts a repeated pair once, and counts a closed cycle as nearly nothing. Trust is **viewer-relative**: the phrase *\"kept promises with 2 people you know\"* is computed on the viewer's device, from the viewer's own dealings, and is never sent to the institution. A ring of fabricated accounts has no path into a village it has never dealt with. How the viewer's device learns the overlap between its counterparties and the debtor's without either learning the other's full list is a private-set-intersection problem; this paper does not specify it (§14).\n\n### 11.4 · Walking away from a key\n\nA person who defaults and starts again under a fresh handle leaves the defaulted balances on their counterparties' devices and on the log, but no link to the new handle. Preventing that is a proof-of-personhood problem, which the institution treats elsewhere and which this mechanism does not solve.\n\n---\n\n## 12 · Timestamping: the log and the anchor\n\nThe history is made tamper-evident in three steps — attest, anchor, publish — using established machinery. **Every component of this pipeline is prior art (§2.2, conjunct (g)), including a signed object that carries its own inclusion proof; nothing in this section is claimed.** It is disclosed because the ledger's other properties lean on it.\n\n```\n device A device B\n ──────── ────────\n entry = { balance change, both signatures, random salt,\n hash(A's previous entry), hash(B's previous entry) }\n │ │ ← each person's entries form a hash chain\n ▼ ▼\n chain head A chain head B ← only the HEAD leaves the phone:\n │ │ no rows, no amounts, no names\n └──────────────┬─────────────┘\n ▼\n APPEND-ONLY MERKLE LOG (Certificate-Transparency-shaped, RFC 6962 / 9162)\n │\n ┌────────────┼──────────────────────────┐\n ▼ ▼ ▼\n daily root signed tree head log proof returned to the device:\n anchored: PUBLISHED + GOSSIPED path entry → logged chain head\n OpenTimestamps → Bitcoin each new head + that head's inclusion proof\n RFC 3161 × 3 authorities must extend │\n (one eIDAS-qualified) the last ▼\n (consistency) ATTACHED to the promise code,\n outside the signatures, verifiable\n on its own (the SCITT receipt form)\n```\n\n1. Each countersigned entry carries a **random salt** and the **previous-entry hash of each signer's chain**, so the one shared entry extends both parties' per-person hash chains. The salt prevents a guessed entry (two known handles and a round sum) from being confirmed against a published hash.\n2. Online, each device submits **only its chain head** to the log. Rows, amounts and names never go to the log. The institution publishes receipts, never amounts.\n3. The log's root is anchored **daily** through OpenTimestamps to Bitcoin and signed by three RFC 3161 timestamp authorities, the same arrangement that stamps the corpus this paper is in. The chain used for settlement in the later phase is not used as the clock.\n4. **Signed tree heads are published and gossiped** among independent observers, and each new head must extend the previous one; a forked log that hides a default from one audience is detectable by anyone who compares heads.\n5. **The log proof travels with the promise code.** It is the path from the entry to the signer's logged chain head plus that head's inclusion proof, attached **outside** the signatures and verifiable on its own, so that the code need not be re-signed when the proof arrives. A promise shown on a screenshot, far from any network, then carries the evidence that it was committed to the log by a stated time. RFC 9943 stores a receipt in a signed statement's unprotected header in the same way, and sigstore bundles staple inclusion proofs to signed artefacts; this step was claimed in the first version of this paper and is now disclosed only.\n\n**What this proves.** A history cannot be backdated: the age of a record cannot be bought, which defends against a bust-out ladder built quickly. An entry cannot be deleted from the log without trace once its head is published.\n\n**What it does not prove.** That cash moved. That the two signers are distinct humans. The exact time of an offline entry (the anchor gives an upper bound only). Completeness when both parties agree to hide an entry: an entry neither party ever submits is invisible to every instrument that reads the log.\n\n**Moat, not hostage.** The ring's rule is published here; the code can be copied; users leave with every proof they hold. What a competitor cannot copy is the anchored history's age — which is the institution's advantage and also its limit, since it is the log's age, not anything the institution owns in a user's record (§17).\n\n---\n\n## 13 · Remove the enforcer: which guards are properties\n\nA guard that needs someone to enforce it at the moment it is tested is a rule; a guard that holds with no enforcer is a property. Each guard in this design is classified by removing the enforcer.\n\n| Guard | Remove the enforcer, and … | Class |\n|---|---|---|\n| the balance never moves by time | there is no time-driven entry, no accrual and no penalty type; nothing to switch on | **property** of the entry grammar |\n| every raise and every repayment co-signed | an entry missing a signature fails verification on the other device | **property** of the signature scheme |\n| a release needs only the holder | a release can only lower what the signer is owed; there is nothing it can raise | **property** of the entry grammar |\n| netting only within a pair | there is no entry that names a third party | **property** of the record |\n| the ring has no amount argument | the function cannot draw what it is not given | **property** of the render function |\n| the ring only in promise context | a surface that wanted to draw it elsewhere would need promise data it is not sent; but a modified client could cache and redraw, and anyone can take a screenshot | **rule**, partly backed by data minimisation |\n| a code without signed terms never opens a promise | such a code carries no terms and no signature, and the promise endpoint refuses it; inside the app it can supply an address only, and binds its owner to nothing | **property** of the code format |\n| non-transferable | there is no assignment entry and no field to reassign | **property** of the record; off-ledger arrangements and the law of assignment are outside it |\n| no voucher with a nonzero balance | only the excluded voucher's own client, or the recovering person's restored records, can see the pair; honest clients refuse to countersign, and nothing else checks | **rule** enforced by the voucher's own client |\n| whole-balance-only crossing | the gift ledger admits only one entry type from this ledger | **property** of the crossing interface |\n| once per pair per season | someone must count | **rule** |\n| a release posts nothing on the debtor's side | the pair completes only on an entry the debtor makes | **property** of the gift-awaiting-thanks form |\n| the aura never shows why it moved | the gift-side display records crossings, not cargo | **property** inherited from the gift ledger |\n| overdue gaps fade by a fixed maximum | someone must set and apply the maximum | **rule** |\n| no backdating, no quiet deletion | mathematics plus independent witnesses | **property**, given the witnesses |\n| the invitation stated once, never nominating | the institution's copy must be written that way every year | **rule** |\n\nFive of the guards are rules. They are the places where this design depends on the conduct of the institution that runs it, or of its clients, and they are listed so that a successor inheriting the rules knows which of them no object enforces.\n\n---\n\n## 14 · What is disclosed and what is withheld\n\nA defensive publication protects by disclosure, so withholding needs a reason. The test applied here is not *is this unbuilt?* but *would publishing this protect anything the claims do not already protect, or would it only fix details that should stay revisable until they are tested?*\n\n**Disclosed**, in enough detail to practise: the balance around zero and its entry grammar and absences (§4–§5); the per-promise variant (§5.5, §6.7); the render function's signature and states (§6); the fact line's fields (§6.3); the crossing, its posting form and its guards (§7); the code rule (§8); the flow (§9); the recovery structure and the voucher exclusion (§10); the log pipeline and where the log proof goes (§12).\n\n**Withheld**, because it is unbuilt, unscheduled and should be revised on contact with real users: the wire format of the promise code and its compression; how one entry records a repayment and new value together; key-derivation and signature-suite choices; the private-set-intersection protocol behind viewer-relative trust; the total-owed band boundaries; the recency window and the overdue maximum; the ring's pixel geometry and animation curves; the device matrix. None of these narrows or widens a claim in §15.\n\n---\n\n## 15 · Enumerated claims\n\nThese are the census's survivors, applied to the one-balance-per-pair form of §4, and nothing wider. **Most elements named in them are prior art at mechanism width (§2)**; the elements not found are the entry grammar of claim 1(a), the no-amount render, the forgiveness-only crossing, the two sub-rules and the amount-free origination line. Each claim is a composition, and none of its elements is claimed alone.\n\n**Specifically not claimed:** a running balance between two parties that crosses zero (RipplePay trust lines, 2004; LETS, 1983; Grassroots Bonds' mutual credit, 2026); one primitive serving prepayment and lending (Shapiro 2026); a target balance of zero; the co-signed IOU (Doorian Docs 2017); a note for a fixed amount (UCC §3-104); Certificate-Transparency logs and OpenTimestamps anchoring; a signed object carrying its own inclusion proof (RFC 9943; sigstore bundles; Keybase signature chains, 2014), including in a co-signed promise code (§12); non-transferability and goods ↔ cash conversion at face value (disclosed in §4.4–§4.5; narrowed by the third pass); an interest-free bilateral balance as such (a trust-line network setting); the larger-than-largest-repaid test (progressive lending) and banded lender views, except in the composition of claim 4.\n\n1. **A bilateral credit ledger whose balance never moves by time, with a conduct display that cannot see size, and one crossing into a gift ledger.** A method of recording obligations between two parties in which: (a) the two parties keep one running balance between them, held on both parties' devices and signed by both, denominated in a currency fixed when the balance opens, its sign stating which party currently owes, and no balance changes except by entries both parties sign recording value moving between them or a repayment, or by the unilateral release of the party who is owed; no entry type accrues or penalises, so that no balance changes with the passage of time; (b) the conduct of a party is displayed by a function that takes **no amount argument**, drawing one equal-width, colourless segment for each counterparty the party currently **owes** (a counterparty who owes the party drawing nothing), a segment drawn as a gap when the balance with that counterparty is owed past its deadline, the display being shown only in the context of a promise being made; and (c) a free release, by the party who is owed, of the **whole balance** owed by a counterparty is the only event that passes from this ledger into a separate gift or gratitude ledger held by the same system, repayment never passing, and a release of part of a balance being an ordinary entry.\n\n2. **A code without signed terms can never open an obligation (e′).** The method of claim 1, in which a code that carries no signed terms — a party's printed or otherwise static machine-readable code — resolves, when opened, only to the gift side of the system (giving thanks to that party); used within the ledger's application it may supply only the address of an entry authored and signed by the scanning party, and it binds the party it names to nothing; no parameter of such a code can open an obligation; and an obligation opens only from a code carrying its terms, generated for the transaction and labelled as a promise, which binds nothing until both parties have signed.\n\n3. **No one with a nonzero balance with you may vouch for your new key (f′).** The method of claim 1, in which a party who has lost a signing key recovers by the face-to-face signatures of counterparties with whom the party has settled balances, or of a guardian named in advance, **excluding as a voucher any counterparty with a nonzero balance with the party in either direction**, followed by a waiting period during which the old key may cancel the change, with every counterparty notified once, and with every balance carrying over unchanged to the new key.\n\n4. **An amount-free origination line.** The method of claim 1, in which, at the moment a new promise is being made and only to the party who would be owed, the display of claim 1(b) is accompanied by a line of text stating the number of counterparties the promisor currently owes and how many of those balances are overdue, a coarse band (not an amount) of the promisor's total owed across those balances, and whether the new value is larger than any the promisor has previously repaid, the line stating no amount and being shown to no other party and at no other time.\n\n*Prior art beside each claim:* claim 1(a) — RipplePay trust lines, LETS, Grassroots Bonds (the balance around zero); Doorian Docs, Community Forge signatures, DueTrace (co-signed entries); *murabaha* and the negotiable instrument for a fixed amount (UCC §3-104) (a fixed sum); 1(b) — credit-bureau payment grids, EigenTrust, eBay feedback (one mark per transaction, regardless of price), US 10,200,394 B2 (disclosure only); 1(c) — Qur'an 2:280, Rolling Jubilee, Undue Medical Debt, gift-tax treatment of forgiven loans. Claim 2 — EMVCo static and dynamic codes, KHQR, the UPI collect withdrawal, Pix Cobrança (a charge with a due date only as a dynamic code), static donation and tip codes. Claim 4 — progressive lending (Kumar 2012; Cecchi 2021), banded peer-lending listings, US 10,803,513 (disclosure only). Claim 3 — Buterin 2021, Argent, Apple recovery contacts, US 8,856,879 B2 (disclosure only), Schechter et al. 2009; and the interested-witness rule (Wills Act 1837, s.15) — excluding an attester with a stake is old practice, and the rule in key recovery is what is claimed.\n\n**Disclosed and not claimed, in addition to the list above:** the disclosed variants of §5.5 and §6.7; the gift-awaiting-thanks posting of §7.1; the once-per-pair-per-season cap; death and incapacity (§4.6); the currency rule (§4.4). Each is disclosed so that it is prior art; none is asserted as a contribution.\n\n**Non-assertion extends to** every mechanism disclosed in this paper, claimed or not, in any combination, and to every implementation of it.\n\n---\n\n## 16 · Predictions, registered before any instrument exists\n\nThe mechanism is unbuilt, so no prediction below can have been fitted to data. **The three predictions below were approved by the founder and are entered in the institution's public prediction register**; a correction after entry is a new register entry, never an edit. Two constraints bind the instrument: the institution never sees balance rows or amounts, so every count below must be reported by devices as an aggregate the user has agreed to share; and only adults take part as debtor or holder at launch.\n\n**The launch is staggered so that P-PM1 has a baseline.** The first season after launch runs **without** the annual invitation; the invitation is extended from the second season onward. A comparison season with and without the invitation at the same time is impossible — the invitation is one public statement on one date — so the first season is the baseline.\n\n| # | Prediction | Measure | Falsifier |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| **P-PM1** — the December freeze (Deuteronomy 15:9) | the annual invitation to forgive (§7.4) does **not** freeze lending | value entries that extend credit (entries after which the entering holder is owed more), per active holder, 15 December – 6 January, divided by the same holders' mean over the three preceding 23-day windows; the ratio in the first season with the invitation is compared with the ratio in the baseline season without it | a ratio **more than 10% lower** with the invitation than in the baseline season → the invitation reproduces the failure the prosbul repaired, and must be redesigned or withdrawn |\n| **P-PM2** — paid last | because a balance carries no late penalty, debtors with other penalty-bearing debts repay balances on this ledger **later** than those debts | self-reported repayment order in a structured survey of debtors who hold both kinds of debt, after one season | balances on this ledger repaid no later than penalty-bearing debts → the \"paid last\" limit of §17 is overstated |\n| **P-PM3** — rollover is visible | at a new value entry, holders shown a debtor whose total-owed band is higher than when that holder last extended value to them decline the entry or shrink it more often than holders shown the same or a lower band | acceptance and size of new value entries by band movement, device-aggregated | no difference → the fact line does not answer rollover, and §11.1's response fails |\n\nP-PM1 is the prediction the design owes: it was ruled into existence with the invitation it tests. P-PM2 predicts a harm to the design's own users and is included for that reason. P-PM3 tests the only answer the design has to its most serious counterexample. **P-PM1 has a known confound:** the two seasons differ in more than the invitation (a year of growth, a different economy, a different calendar of festivals), so a fall below the threshold is treated as a failure of the invitation unless a cause outside the ledger is shown, and the burden sits on the design, not on the test.\n\n---\n\n## 17 · Honest limits\n\n**No growth is per balance, not per person.** A person can owe more every week by rollover while every balance on their record is kept (§11.1). The total-owed band and the larger-than-kept comparison make this visible to the next holder; they do not prevent it, and a holder who does not read them learns nothing. A new debt that stays inside one band moves only the larger-than-kept comparison; a new debt equal to the largest ever kept moves neither.\n\n**Rolling over with the same lender merges into one balance.** The pair's balance simply rises by a co-signed entry; the lender sees it as a party, and everyone else sees it only through the band.\n\n**A co-signed entry can disguise a penalty.** The grammar has no penalty entry, but nothing stops a holder who is owed money past a deadline from asking for a value entry with a token amount received and a larger amount credited, and a debtor under pressure may sign it. The balance still did not move by time — it moved by a signature — but the effect is a penalty, and the ledger cannot tell the two apart. The receipt shows it to both parties; that is all.\n\n**Non-compounding is not cheap.** A fixed premium of 1/9 a week is about 578% a year simple. Flat-premium lending can be predatory — the Philippine \"5-6\" is flat and notorious — and nothing in this ledger stops a lender charging it on every entry. The ledger shows the discount on every receipt and **claims no protection against usury**. A pre-signing annualised disclosure was proposed and declined; whether a disclosure beyond the receipt is legally required is unanswered.\n\n**Without a late penalty, these balances are paid last.** A borrower with several debts pays the ones that grow first. Holders on this ledger bear that cost, and P-PM2 predicts it.\n\n**A signature proves the key, not consent.** On a phone shared by a family, or held by someone else, or signed under pressure, the ledger records a valid entry that no one freely made. Per-person profiles and PINs narrow this; nothing in the mechanism detects coercion. The same limit applies to a release: the design requires that forgiveness be free and cannot verify it.\n\n**A conduct instrument cannot prevent capacity harm.** The ring says whether balances were brought to zero, not whether a person can afford the next one. A person may borrow elsewhere, including against land, to repay here, and the ledger cannot see it. **What the ledger itself cannot do is take collateral**: there is no field for security and no entry that transfers anything but value between the two parties. That is a real and bounded claim about the record. It does not reach a side agreement: a lender who takes land by a separate agreement for the same loan is outside the ledger and is not prevented by it.\n\n**A visible gap is still pressure.** A gap shown to every future holder is a form of social collateral. The design limits it to promise context, fades it by a fixed maximum, and shows it only for a duty the person took on; it remains a cost of being late, and a cost is what a penalty is.\n\n**Anything shown can be captured.** A screenshot of the ring, the fact line or a promise code carries it out of promise context — into a job interview, a rental application, a family argument. The context rule governs the institution's surfaces only.\n\n**The fact line is reported by the party it describes.** It is computed from what the debtor's device presents. A balance never submitted to the log, or an entry made with another holder at the same moment, does not appear; the logged chain head makes a presented history hard to edit, not complete.\n\n**Recovery depends on counterparties' honesty.** A counterparty can decline to return a record that favours the person recovering — a repayment entry, say. The logged chain head proves that such a record exists, not what it says.\n\n**Equal segments favour one large creditor over many small ones.** A person who owes one lender $2,000 draws one segment; a vendor who owes five suppliers $10 each draws five. The ring counts creditors, which is the bust-out signal, and it therefore reads the small, spread-out debtor as more exposed than the concentrated one. The band is the only corrective.\n\n**Capital can buy crossings.** Only those who can lend can forgive, and a lender with small balances across many pairs can earn one crossing per pair per season by releasing each. The once-per-pair-per-season cap bounds this, and nothing else does. A release of a small remainder after partial repayment earns the same crossing as forgiving a large balance (§7.2).\n\n**Viewer-relative trust favours insiders.** A newcomer to a village, or a person whose dealings are with a different circle, shows fewer known counterparties to every viewer. The thin ring is never drawn as a lack, but the fact line will say less about them, and holders may lend to them less.\n\n**The denomination matters.** The no-growth property holds in the balance's currency. A balance in dollars repaid in riel, or the reverse, moves with the exchange rate, and the holder bears any depreciation. A currency change is recorded as a release and a new co-signed entry (§4.4); **a release immediately replaced by a new balance between the same two parties is a conversion, never a crossing** — it would satisfy the crossing's letter without being a gift in substance, so the rule excludes it.\n\n**Death is handled only as far as the ruling goes.** The holder can name a successor or a release on death in life; the ledger never releases on death automatically; claims against what a person left are the law's (§4.6). A holder who dies without naming either leaves a balance the ledger records and cannot collect.\n\n**The log proves order, not truth.** It cannot show that cash moved, that signers are distinct people, or that nothing was hidden by both parties (§12).\n\n**The moat is the log's age.** The institution's advantage over a copy of this design is the age of its anchored history. It is not a claim on any user's records, which users hold and take with them.\n\n**Adults only at launch.** Both debtor and holder must be adults. The institution's pilot shop serves mostly teenagers, so customer prepayment cannot be piloted there; the first pilot is lending among adult vendors and suppliers.\n\n**The invitation may freeze December lending.** Registered as P-PM1 because it is a live risk, not a formality, and the staggered launch exists to measure it.\n\n**Five guards are rules** (§13), and depend on the conduct of the institution or its clients.\n\n**Legal review precedes any launch.** Facilitating lending, reporting conduct, holding prepayments and the assignability of a claim at law are each regulated somewhere. A draft may precede legal review; a launch may not.\n\n**The census is bounded** by the apertures in §2, executed partly in both passes, searched the per-promise form rather than the balance form, and owes a third pass. A composition not found is not thereby new.\n\n---\n\n## 18 · Lineage and corpus cross-references\n\nThe mechanism descends from the shop notebook of an ordinary village stall, which keeps one running tab per customer; from *bay' salam* and *murabaha* in Islamic commercial law and the *qard hasan* benevolent loan; from the Local Exchange Trading Systems begun in 1983 and their successors in business mutual credit; from Ryan Fugger's peer-to-peer trust lines; from the Indian digital *khata* apps; from Korean electronic IOUs; from Certificate Transparency, key transparency and transparent signed statements; from social key recovery; and, on its gift side, from the oldest debt-forgiveness traditions on record, the seventh-year remission of Deuteronomy and the prosbul that repaired it, with Qur'an 2:280 as the plainest statement that releasing a debt is charity. §2 cites each.\n\nWithin this corpus it is **downstream** of *The Zero-Point Game℠*: the promise ledger is the third instance of that paper's signed-balance ledger, alongside Kiitos and Kiitti, with the same zero-centred shape at the scale of a pair, and differs from them in having no colour, no calendar reset and one door into the other two (§6.4). The forgiveness crossing answers a question that paper does not ask — what, if anything, may enter the gift ledger from exchange — and the answer is recorded here; a cross-reference to it rides that paper's next revision. It sits beside *HeartBank's Position on Community-Currency Design*, which argues that a community economy needs both money and time; this paper adds the record of what is owed in money. Its log arrangement is the one described in *Provenance-Carrying Retrieval* and relied on by *The Assembly That Holds the Brake*. Its code rule is the exchange-side counterpart of the gift-side scan in *The B-Tag and the Post-Payment Economy*. Its no-growth property shares one principle with *The Incommensurability-Preserving Coupler*, which runs money and time-given as one economy with no exchange window between them: an interest rate is an exchange rate between money and time-passing, and compounding leaves that window open with a meter on it. The two are the same principle in two domains, not one mechanism, and B-Promise is the weaker of the two: time may be priced here once, by both parties' consent (the premium fixed on an entry), and is never metered, where the Coupler never prices time at all.\n\n---\n\n## Coda\n\n*Grounding — canon.* AN 4.62 closes its list with a verse: knowing the happiness of debtlessness, and the happiness of possession and of use, a wise person sees that all of them together are not worth a sixteenth part of the happiness of blamelessness. *Lens — the institution's reading.* The ledger in this paper can help with the smaller happiness, a promise made and kept and seen to be kept. It cannot supply the larger one, and nothing in it is designed to try. What it can do is refuse to let a balance grow while no one is looking, and leave one door open for the person who is owed and decides not to collect.\n\n---\n\n## Terms\n\n| Term used here | Standard technical term |\n|---|---|\n| **B-Promise℠**; promise ledger | bilateral, both-signed peer-to-peer credit ledger (electronic IOU; customer prepayment and informal lending record) |\n| promise balance | zero-centred bilateral credit balance between two parties (trust line; bilateral mutual-credit balance) |\n| promise | the obligation one party owes another at a moment; a non-transferable bilateral obligation |\n| debtor (promisor) / holder | debtor (obligor) / creditor (obligee), determined by the sign of the balance |\n| a balance that never moves by time | non-accruing, non-compounding obligation with no late fee; changes only by co-signed value or repayment entries, or a creditor's unilateral release |\n| premium; discount | fixed markup or discount at the time value moves (flat finance charge; cf. *murabaha*) |\n| prepay at a discount | customer prepayment for goods at a discount; stored-value / advance purchase (cf. *bay' salam*) |\n| entry; co-signed entry | ledger transaction requiring both parties' digital signatures |\n| release | unilateral debt forgiveness (loan waiver) by the creditor |\n| promise ring | reputation or credit-history visualisation; payment-history display independent of loan amount |\n| segment / gap | per-creditor indicator; overdue (delinquency) indicator |\n| fact line | disclosure line: creditor and overdue counts, total-exposure band, largest-obligation comparison |\n| viewer-relative trust | personalised (local, viewer-seeded) trust metric computed client-side |\n| forgiveness crossing | debt forgiveness recorded as a charitable gift in a separate ledger |\n| gift awaiting thanks | a one-sided gift entry whose counter-entry posts only on the recipient's acknowledgement |\n| gift ledger; Zero-Point Game℠; B-Aura | peer-to-peer reciprocity (mutual-credit) ledger with an annual reset; reputation visualisation of it |\n| season | the gift ledger's annual period, 7 January to 7 January |\n| the annual invitation | voluntary debt-jubilee appeal (non-mandatory remission) |\n| printed / live code | code without / with signed terms; static / dynamic QR code (EMVCo point of initiation 11 / 12) |\n| recovery by vouching | social recovery; guardian- or trustee-based account recovery with a time delay |\n| the log; chain head; log proof | append-only Merkle transparency log (Certificate Transparency); per-user hash chain head; Merkle inclusion proof (transparency receipt) |\n| anchoring | blockchain timestamping (OpenTimestamps) and RFC 3161 trusted timestamping |\n| rollover (*bangvil luy*) | loan refinancing / debt rollover; borrowing to repay a loan |\n| bust-out ladder | bust-out fraud: building credit history on small loans before defaulting on a large one |\n| wash lending | circular (Sybil) lending to fabricate credit history |\n\n---\n\n## Author Contributions and AI Disclosure\n\nThon Ly conceived the ledger, its two use cases, the one balance per pair that crosses zero, the three-ring display, the seamless conversion, non-transferability, the annual invitation, the positioning and the human title, and ruled on every design choice recorded here. Miss Aquarius℠ — the name under which this corpus discloses its AI collaboration — proposed the no-growth property, the size-blind render, the forgiveness crossing, the code rule, the recovery structure and the log arrangement; drafted this paper and its revision; and ran both census passes through research agents, with every cited item re-verified before it reached this text or marked where it was not. An adversarial pass run before drafting produced the rollover counterexample of §11.1 and withdrew a claim the authors had made. An outside review by several reader models narrowed the claims and corrected the text; the reviewer models are not named. The underlying model substrate is not named. Editorial control is the author's.\n\n## Trademark Notice\n\n**B-Promise℠** names the institution's implementation of the promise ledger; the mechanism itself is dedicated to the public domain and may be implemented under any name. The promise balance, the promise ring, the fact line and *prepay at a discount* carry no mark. HeartBank®, Miss Aquarius℠ and Zero-Point Game℠ are marks of their respective holders. No mark is licensed by this publication.\n\n## Citations\n\n1. *Aṅguttara Nikāya* 4.62, *Ānaṇya Sutta* (Debtlessness), trans. Bhikkhu Sujato, SuttaCentral; Pāli root text, Mahāsaṅgīti edition.\n2. *Aṅguttara Nikāya* 6.45, *Iṇa Sutta* (Debt), SuttaCentral (confirmed in the census; not quoted).\n3. Qur'an 2:280, trans. Mustafa Khattab, *The Clear Quran*, quran.com.\n4. Deuteronomy 15:1–2 and 15:9, *The JPS Tanakh: Gender-Sensitive Edition*, Sefaria.\n5. Mishnah Sheviit 10:3 (the prozbul), trans. Joshua Kulp, *Mishnah Yomit*, Sefaria.\n6. Shapiro, E. (2026). \"Grassroots Bonds as a Foundation for Market Liquidity.\" arXiv:2603.13671 (v1, 14 March 2026).\n7. Dandekar, P., Goel, A., Govindan, R., and Post, I. (2011). \"Liquidity in Credit Networks: A Little Trust Goes a Long Way.\" *Proceedings of the 12th ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce*. doi:10.1145/1993574.1993597.\n8. Kamvar, S. D., Schlosser, M. T., and Garcia-Molina, H. (2003). \"The EigenTrust Algorithm for Reputation Management in P2P Networks.\" *WWW 2003*.\n9. Levien, R. Advogato trust metric (viewer-seeded, attack-resistant).\n10. Schechter, S., Egelman, S., and Reeder, R. W. (2009). \"It's Not What You Know, but Who You Know: A Social Approach to Last-Resort Authentication.\" *CHI 2009*.\n11. Buterin, V. (2021, 11 January). \"Why we need wide adoption of social recovery wallets.\"\n12. Laurie, B., Langley, A., and Kasper, E. (2013). RFC 6962, *Certificate Transparency*; Laurie, B., et al. (2021). RFC 9162, *Certificate Transparency Version 2.0*.\n13. Fassbender, J. *Bitcoin-Anchored Temporal Proof for Transparency Services*, Internet-Draft draft-fassbender-scitt-time-anchor (revision -05, August 2026; -07, 24 September 2026).\n14. Birkholz, H., Delignat-Lavaud, A., Fournet, C., Deshpande, Y., and Lasker, S. (2026, June). RFC 9943, *An Architecture for Trustworthy and Transparent Digital Supply Chains* (SCITT; receipts in the unprotected header of a transparent statement).\n15. Sigstore. Bundle format (a signed artefact with its transparency-log entry and inclusion proof, for offline verification).\n16. Keybase. Per-user signature chains in a global Merkle tree, with the root published to the Bitcoin blockchain (from June 2014).\n17. EMVCo. *EMV QR Code Specification for Payment Systems: Merchant-Presented Mode* (point of initiation method: 11 static, 12 dynamic).\n18. National Bank of Cambodia. KHQR specification (Bakong); interest-rate cap on microfinance lending (2017).\n19. Banco Central do Brasil. Pix, *Manual de Padrões para Iniciação do Pix* (Pix Cobrança: a charge with a due date carried by a dynamic QR code).\n20. National Payments Corporation of India. Circular of 29 July 2025 discontinuing person-to-person collect requests on UPI from 1 October 2025.\n21. Uniform Commercial Code §3-104(a) (negotiable instrument: \"a fixed amount of money, with or without interest\").\n22. eBay. Feedback system (one rating per transaction, regardless of price).\n23. Wills Act 1837 (England and Wales), s.15: gifts to an attesting witness to be void.\n24. Human Rights Watch (2025, 24 September). *Debt Traps: Predatory Microfinance Loans and the Exploitation of Cambodia's Indigenous Peoples.*\n25. Voice of America (2023). \"Cambodians face mounting pain from microfinance debt\" (reporting a LICADHO and Equitable Cambodia survey of 717 households in Kampong Speu province).\n26. Strike Debt. Rolling Jubilee (November 2012).\n27. Doorian Docs (KTNET and GiveTech, Korea; announced 29 December 2016, launched 16 January 2017).\n28. Fugger, R. RipplePay (2004–05); Linton, M. Local Exchange Trading Systems (1983); Sardex (2009); Grassroots Economics, Sarafu; OkCredit (2017); Khatabook (2018); Community Forge, *signatures* module.\n29. Patents cited for disclosure only: US 10,200,394 B2 · US 10,949,837 B1 · US 8,856,879 B2 · US 2017/0295023 A1 · US 2020/0119916 A1.\n30. Companion corpus papers (thonly.org/research): *The Zero-Point Game℠*; *The Currency That Cannot Be Spent Alone*; *The B-Tag and the Post-Payment Economy*; *Provenance-Carrying Retrieval*; *The Assembly That Holds the Brake*. Institutional position (heartbank.net): *HeartBank's Position on Community-Currency Design*.\n\n---\n\n*— End of defensive publication —*",
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- "text": "## Abstract\n\nThis paper compares, as structures, three things in two discrete theories of spacetime with three things in the Theravāda Abhidhamma. The theories are causal set theory and loop quantum gravity. The three things are **order**, **adjacency** and **ratio**. It is a lens and not a physics claim. No row predicts anything, and none says that a Buddhist text anticipated a theory of quantum gravity. For each row, a plain primer of the physics comes first, then the Abhidhamma material with its textual layer named in words, then the correspondence, and then the point where it breaks.\n\nFour rows survive an adversarial review run before drafting. A fifth was cut.\n\n1. **Order.** The *Paṭṭhāna*'s twenty-four conditions are **not** a partial order as a whole. Mutuality is symmetric. Co-nascence relates what a causal set leaves unrelated. Post-nascence runs backward. The object condition reaches the future and the time-free. What survives is a sub-relation defined over condition-*modes*, not whole conditions: the modes that always run from earlier-arising to later-arising (the five past-time conditions, pre-nascence, kamma across moments, and the pre-nascent modes of support, faculty, dissociation, presence and non-disappearance). They form an acyclic typed relation over which a strict order can be read, but not yet a causal set: the acyclicity comes from how the modes were selected, and the order sits on a clock the tradition assumes. The co-nascent and post-nascent modes, and the conditions that reach all three times, are typed structure that causal sets lack.\n2. **Grain and 3. boundary** (treated together as the adjacency row, the strongest). In loop quantum gravity, a spin-network link is the face two neighbouring grains of space share, and it carries a quantised area. In the Abhidhamma's sub-commentary, space is the non-mixing of touching neighbouring material groups (*kalāpa*), \"the limit of matter\", untouched by what it bounds. Both put the unit of spatial boundary at the adjacency between minimal units, and neither makes it one of the units. The row breaks in stated places: the dependence runs in opposite directions; the link is incident to both grains, while the delimiter is touched by neither; the Abhidhamma boundary is assigned no magnitude and is not an ultimate reality; kalāpas are matter in space while spin-network nodes are quanta of space; and the canonical layer's space is a cavity, not a boundary. The part that holds is the generic part (§9).\n4. **Ratio.** In the commentary and the manual, material phenomena other than the two intimations and the characteristics last 17 mind-moments (51 sub-moments). That is one clock, the mind-moment, and a multiplier, not two clocks. What survives is generic: a duration stated as a count of steps along a given succession. Every discrete clock shares that much. The features specific to causal sets (the longest chain, the statistics, an order that makes time rather than sitting on one) are all among the row's breaks.\n\nThe dropped row, *saṅkhāra* (the conditioned as a whole) against quantum causal histories, is reported along with the reason it was dropped.\n\n**Keywords:** causal set theory, loop quantum gravity, spin networks, area spectrum, quanta of space, partial order, Hasse diagram, discrete spacetime, relational space, Buddhist philosophy of space, Abhidhamma, Paṭṭhāna, kalāpa, paricchedarūpa, ākāsadhātu, Theravāda, Abhidharmakośa, momentariness.\n\n---\n\n## How to Read This Paper\n\nThis paper is written so that a reader who knows calculus, but no linear algebra, quantum mechanics or general relativity, can follow every step. Each physics section opens with a subsection marked **Physics primer**, which builds the idea from nothing. A reader who already knows the physics can skip those subsections. Everything else is written for the exhaustive reader: the Pāli is quoted, the textual layer of every Abhidhamma claim is named in words, and every correspondence ends with the place where it fails.\n\nFormulas are written in plain Unicode. Display formulas sit in monospace blocks. Where a formula is quoted, the source that derives it is cited.\n\n**Four textual layers are kept apart throughout.** They are named in words at each use:\n\n| Layer | Texts used here | Date (traditional or scholarly) |\n|---|---|---|\n| **canon** | *Dhammasaṅgaṇī*, *Vibhaṅga*, *Kathāvatthu*, *Paṭṭhāna* (Abhidhamma Piṭaka) | compiled over the last centuries BCE; the *Kathāvatthu* is traditionally dated to the Third Council |\n| **commentary** | *Visuddhimagga*, *Sammohavinodanī* (*Vibhaṅga* commentary), *Kathāvatthu* commentary | c. 5th century CE |\n| **manual** | *Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha* (Anuruddha) | variously dated; commonly c. 11th–12th century |\n| **sub-commentary** | *Abhidhammatthavibhāvinī-ṭīkā* (Sumaṅgala) | c. 12th century |\n\nA claim that holds only at a later layer is not a claim about the canon. Several rows below live, or die, on exactly that distinction.\n\n---\n\n## Terms\n\n| Term as the tradition writes it | Standard term used in this paper | Layer where it is defined |\n|---|---|---|\n| *paccaya*; *Paṭṭhāna* | condition; the canonical treatise on the 24 conditioning relations | canon (summarised in the manual, ch. 8) |\n| *anantara*, *samanantara* | proximity, contiguity (immediate succession of mind-moments) | canon |\n| *āsevana* | repetition | canon |\n| *natthi*, *vigata* | absence, disappearance | canon |\n| *sahajāta* | co-nascence (arising together) | canon |\n| *aññamañña* | mutuality | canon |\n| *purejāta* | pre-nascence (the condition arose earlier and still exists) | canon |\n| *pacchājāta* | post-nascence (the condition arises later than what it supports) | canon |\n| *sahajāta-*, *purejāta-*, *pacchājāta-* modes of *nissaya*, *indriya*, *vippayutta*, *atthi*, *avigata* | the co-nascent, pre-nascent and post-nascent modes (sub-types) of support, faculty, dissociation, presence and non-disappearance | canon (e.g. *Paṭṭhāna*: *atthipaccayena paccayo – sahajātaṃ, purejātaṃ …*); grouped in the manual, ch. 8 |\n| *kamma* (*nānākkhaṇika*) | volitional action (across different moments) | canon (*Paṭṭhāna*, e.g. *Kusalattika* §427: *nānākkhaṇikā – kusalā cetanā vipākānaṃ khandhānaṃ …*); the time classification is sub-commentarial |\n| *ārammaṇa* | object condition | canon |\n| *upanissaya*, *pakatūpanissaya* | decisive support; natural decisive support | canon |\n| *citta*, *cittakkhaṇa* | a moment of consciousness; a mind-moment | canon; the durations are commentarial |\n| *uppāda*, *ṭhiti*, *bhaṅga* | arising, presence, dissolution (the three sub-moments) | commentary and manual |\n| *rūpa-kalāpa* | smallest material cluster | commentary; systematised in the manual |\n| *suddhaṭṭhaka* | the \"pure octad\" (four great elements, colour, odour, taste, nutritive essence) | commentary and manual |\n| *ākāsadhātu* | the space element | canon |\n| *paricchedarūpa* | delimiting matter (space as the delimitation of material clusters) | manual and sub-commentary |\n| *anipphanna* | not concretely produced; having no intrinsic nature of its own | commentary (*Visuddhimagga*, *Sammohavinodanī*); manual |\n| *padaṭṭhāna* | proximate cause | commentary |\n| *paramāṇu* | the smallest unit on the commentarial size ladder | commentary |\n| *kālavimutta* | free of time (said of nibbāna and concepts) | manual; glossed in the sub-commentary |\n| *saṅkhāra*, *saṅkhata*, *asaṅkhata* | the conditioned; conditioned; unconditioned | canon |\n\n---\n\n## Findings disclosed\n\nThis paper is a study. It discloses no mechanism, so it carries findings and not claims. Each finding is stated in its surviving form, after the scope repairs of the 2026-09-28 revision, with its break beside it. The falsifiers are collected in §10.\n\n1. **Order (§3.3).** The *Paṭṭhāna*'s twenty-four conditions, taken whole, are not a partial order: mutuality makes 2-cycles, co-nascence relates what a causal order leaves unrelated, post-nascence runs from later to earlier, and the object condition reaches the future and the time-free. The condition-*modes* that always run from earlier-arising to later-arising form a relation *S*: proximity, contiguity, repetition, absence, disappearance, pre-nascence, kamma across moments, and the pre-nascent modes of support, faculty, dissociation, presence and non-disappearance. *S* is acyclic, and a strict order can be read over it. **Break:** *S* is acyclic because it was selected by an arising-time index the tradition assumes, so its acyclicity is not a finding about the text. Its transitive closure is the reader's construction, since the text asserts no composed relation. Local finiteness is unexamined. *S* alone conditions no arising, because every arising also needs co-nascent conditions. *S* relates events within one stream, plus the matter that conditions that stream, and joins streams only through the assumed index. So *S* is not a causal set in §3.1's sense, and the order it carries sits on a time where a causal set's order makes one.\n2. **Adjacency (§4.5, narrowed by §9).** Loop quantum gravity and the Theravāda sub-commentary both put the unit of spatial boundary at the adjacency between minimal units, and neither makes that boundary one of the units. On the question *what is between minimal units?*, the *Vibhāvinī*'s answer (a named, counted item of the material list, though not an ultimate reality) has the shape of loop quantum gravity's answer (a link), and not the shape of the Kashmiri Sarvāstivāda's (*nothing*). **Break:** the parts of the match that are specific to loop quantum gravity (a quantised magnitude on the boundary, volume derived from it) are the parts that fail. The dependence runs in opposite directions. The link is incident to both grains, while the delimiter is touched by neither. The delimiter is assigned no magnitude and is not an ultimate reality. Kalāpas are matter in space, and nodes are quanta of space. The canonical space element is a cavity, not a boundary. The shape that holds is also held by any cellular picture, and by the \"neither\" view of boundaries in the Western literature (§9).\n3. **Ratio (§5.3, narrowed by §9).** In the commentary and the manual, material phenomena other than the two intimations and the characteristics last seventeen mind-moments (fifty-one sub-moments), and the manual derives seventeen from the length of the longest cognitive process. The lifetime is one clock, the mind-moment, and a multiplier. What survives is generic: a duration is a count of steps along a given succession. **Break:** every discrete clock shares that much. The features specific to causal sets are the longest chain, a statistical relation to proper time, and an order that makes time rather than sitting on one. The Abhidhamma counts along one given stream, exactly, on a clock it assumes. So the specific part fails, and there is no second chain for a ratio to compare.\n4. **The dropped row (§6).** *Saṅkhāra* (the conditioned as a whole) set against quantum causal histories adds no structure beyond findings 1–3, and it maps a category that contains mind onto a structure that contains none. **Break:** the row would return if a structural feature of quantum causal histories were shown to have a *Paṭṭhāna* counterpart not already in findings 1–3.\n\n---\n\n## Prior Art and Non-Assertion Statement\n\nThis document is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0. **The authors and HeartBank® will not seek patent** on anything herein. Nothing here is a mechanism. The paper is a study, and its disclosures are the numbered findings under *Findings disclosed* above, each with its break stated beside it.\n\n**What is already public, and cited rather than claimed:**\n\n- **Causal-set becoming linked to a Buddhist school.** Rafael Sorkin, a founder of causal set theory, remarked in 2007 that the \"accretive time\" of his growth models \"seems close to that … of the 'Vibhajavadin' school within the Buddhist philosophical tradition\". Fay Dowker quoted the remark in 2022 and invited a scholar to examine the earliest records. This institution's sibling paper, *the-vibhajjavadin-view-of-time*, answers that invitation: the Pāli Vibhajjavāda is presentist, and so is the **foil** of causal-set growth, not its twin. This paper does not revisit that finding and does not contradict it.\n- **Causal sets as the discrete theory of order.** Bombelli, Lee, Meyer and Sorkin (1987); Rideout and Sorkin (2000) on sequential growth; Wüthrich and Callender (2017) on what kind of becoming a causal set allows.\n- **Quanta of space and the discrete area spectrum.** Rovelli and Smolin (1995); Ashtekar and Lewandowski (1997); Rovelli and Upadhya's primer (1998); Rovelli's Zakopane lectures (2011); Bianchi, Doná and Speziale (2011) on spin-network nodes as polyhedra.\n- **Syntheses of order and spin networks.** Markopoulou and Smolin (1997); Markopoulou (2000), *quantum causal histories*; Hawkins, Markopoulou and Sahlmann (2003).\n- **Buddhism read against physics in general.** Carlo Rovelli's *Helgoland* (2021) reads relational quantum mechanics beside Nāgārjuna. Popular and scholarly comparisons of Abhidhamma momentariness with quantum physics exist, among them *The Ephemeral Projector* (ResearchGate). A 2026-07-31 blog post, self-labelled AI-generated and without citations, compares causal set theory and the Abhidhamma in general terms (ekasiswanto.wordpress.com). The Grokipedia article \"Kalapa (atomism)\" compares the kalāpa's size to the Planck length. The Wikipedia article of the same name, read on the date of writing, does not.\n- **The scholarly expositions of the Abhidhamma material this paper reads.** None of these compares the material with physics. Each already expounds a textual point the rows depend on.\n - Y. Karunadasa, *Buddhist Analysis of Matter* (1967), chs. 5 and 7. It reads the space element as cavities and interstices, \"bounded or delimited space\", with *pariccheda* meaning both what delimits and what is delimited. It sets the Theravāda space element beside the Vaibhāṣika pair (unconditioned *ākāśa*; the conditioned *ākāśadhātu* of door, window, mouth and nose). It reports the *Kathāvatthu*'s two-trees argument. And it explains pre-nascence and post-nascence by the longer duration of matter than of mind. ⚠️ **It cuts against the adjacency row in one respect.** On its reading, the later scholiasts' classing of the space element as *anipphanna* means that it is \"neither *rūpa* … nor a *dhamma* … in the true sense\", \"nothing but the mere limitation of matter\". §4.4 and §4.6 carry this.\n - Bhikkhu Bodhi (gen. ed.), *A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma* (1993), ch. VI and ch. VIII. It sets out the sub-types (modes) of each condition, among them base-prenascence support, prenascence faculty (the five sensitivities, \"arisen at the static phase of the past bhavaṅga citta\"), and the prenascent and postnascent types of dissociation, presence and non-disappearance. It also states that non-concretely produced matter, the space element included, is \"not included among the ultimate realities\". Its introduction dates the seventeen-moment lifetime of matter, the three sub-moments and the kalāpa to the commentaries.\n - U Nārada Mūlapaṭṭhāna Sayadaw (with Thein Nyun), *Conditional Relations* (*Paṭṭhāna*), vol. I (PTS Translation Series 37, 1969). An English translation of the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana *Paṭṭhāna* with an introduction and charts that work through each condition's modes (for example, \"base-prenascence-dependence\"). It is the route for the canonical-layer check of row 1 that §11 lists as owed.\n - Alexander von Rospatt, *The Buddhist Doctrine of Momentariness: A Survey of the Origins and Early Phase of this Doctrine up to Vasubandhu* (1995). The standard study of the doctrine of moments. **Cited by its bibliographic record only: it was not reached for this revision**, so the paper does not characterise what it says about the seventeen-moment lifetime.\n- **The Indian debate on whether minimal material units touch** (*Abhidharmakośabhāṣya* ad I.43, cross-tradition, §4.3 below). It is the oldest neighbour of the adjacency row and predates every physics comparison by more than a millennium.\n\n**The census.** A quick novelty census ran on 2026-09-27. Its pre-registration was pushed publicly before any query was made: `thonly/publications` commit `7348ba2`, `timestamps/census/physics-lens-prereg.md`. The search covered the English web (including dharma sites and popular Buddhism-and-physics writing), and arXiv, Google Scholar, PhilPapers, GitHub and Google Patents by keyword. Thai, Burmese, Sinhala, Chinese, Japanese and Khmer sources were **not run**, and no books were read. The pre-registered control, the known comparison *The Ephemeral Projector*, was found.\n\n| Conjunct | Found | Verdict |\n|---|---|---|\n| (a) the *Paṭṭhāna*'s typed conditions against causal-set order | a general causal-set–Abhidhamma resonance (the AI-generated post; names no *Paṭṭhāna* condition) | **narrowed** at general width; the typed-relation comparison was not found |\n| (b) kalāpa against spin-network nodes | kalāpas compared with atoms, quanta and the Planck length in popular writing | **narrowed** at \"smallest unit\" width; the spin-network-specific comparison was not found |\n| (c) *paricchedarūpa* (space as the between) against area on spin-network links | the commentarial reading of space as delimitation is public; no comparison with loop quantum gravity | **not found in that aperture on that date** |\n| (d) *saṅkhāra* against quantum causal histories | — | not found; **dropped before drafting** (§6) |\n| (e) the 17-moment lifetime as a discrete-time ratio | Sorkin and Dowker link causal-set becoming to Buddhist momentariness | **narrowed** at general width; the chain-length reading of the ratio was not found |\n| the composition of rows in one structural map | — | **not found in that aperture on that date** |\n\n⛔ \"Not found in that aperture on that date\" is a statement about a search. It is not a claim of priority, and nothing in this paper is offered as new. As a study that makes no priority claim, this paper owes no further census before deposit (ruled 2026-09-28); a literature census could narrow or kill the rows above, and would be reported here as a revision.\n\n---\n\n## 1 · What Kind of Comparison This Is\n\nPhysics has two great theories that do not fit together. General relativity describes gravity as the smooth geometry of spacetime. Quantum theory describes everything else as discrete, probabilistic excitations. A theory of **quantum gravity** would describe what spacetime is at the smallest scale, where both matter. Two of the candidate programmes make spacetime itself discrete:\n\n- **Causal set theory** says spacetime, at bottom, is a set of events and a relation of *before*. Everything else, including distance and dimension, is to be recovered from counting.\n- **Loop quantum gravity** says space, at bottom, is a network of grains whose areas and volumes come in discrete steps.\n\nThe Theravāda Abhidhamma is also a discrete analysis. It resolves experience and matter into momentary phenomena (*dhamma*), connected by twenty-four typed conditioning relations. It gives matter a smallest cluster, and it gives space a definition.\n\nIt is therefore tempting to line the two up. That temptation has a long and mostly poor history, from *The Tao of Physics* onward, and this paper is built to resist it. Every row below is a **structural** comparison: it asks whether two frameworks share a *shape* (an order, an adjacency, a ratio), and it names exactly where the shape stops being shared. The Abhidhamma is an analysis of what can be known in experience. Quantum gravity is a theory of what spacetime is. Whether the two can be compared at all is the strongest objection to this paper, and §8 carries it rather than answering it.\n\n**The map, in one table:**\n\n```\n ROW PHYSICS SIDE ABHIDHAMMA SIDE SURVIVING FORM\n ─────────── ──────────────────────────────────── ───────────────────────────────────── ──────────────────────────────────\n 1 ORDER causal set: a locally finite the Paṭṭhāna's 24 typed conditions only the earlier→later MODES (S) are\n partial order (\"before\") (classified by manual + sub-comm.) acyclic, by selection: a strict order,\n not yet a causal set; the rest is\n typing a causal set lacks\n 2 GRAIN spin-network node: a quantum OF rūpa-kalāpa: smallest material survives only as what row 3\n space, with a volume cluster (matter IN space) presupposes; matter ≠ geometry\n 3 BOUNDARY spin-network link: the face two paricchedarūpa: the non-mixing of both put the unit of spatial\n grains share; carries quantised area touching neighbours; \"limit of matter\" boundary at the ADJACENCY, not in\n a unit (strongest row; the shared\n part is generic; seven breaks)\n 4 RATIO proper time ∝ length of the longest most matter lasts 17 mind-moments one clock and a multiplier; only\n chain between two events (51 sub-moments) the generic part survives: a\n duration as a count of steps\n ─ DROPPED ─ quantum causal histories saṅkhāra (the conditioned as a whole) category error; added no structure\n```\n\nRows 2 and 3 are one argument told from two ends, so they share one section (§4).\n\n---\n\n## 2 · A Note on Discreteness\n\nTwo different things are called *discrete* in this paper, and they must not be confused.\n\n- **Object discreteness.** The world is made of separate pieces, like grains of sand. The kalāpa is discrete in this sense, and so are the elements of a causal set.\n- **Spectral discreteness.** A *measured quantity* can take only values from a list with gaps, like the rungs of a ladder rather than a ramp. Loop quantum gravity is discrete in this sense. Rovelli warns explicitly (Zakopane lectures, §I.A) that its discreteness \"is not given by the fact that the grains of space … are discrete objects. Rather, it is given by the fact that the size of each grain is quantized in discrete steps.\"\n\nThe Abhidhamma has object discreteness in abundance: moments, clusters, sub-moments. Its quantities are restricted only as **counts** of discrete units: a duration is a whole number of sub-moments, and a size is a step on a ladder of powers of thirty-six (§4.2). It never quantises a magnitude that is not a count, and that is what spectral discreteness is. In particular, its delimiting space (manual and sub-commentary) is assigned no magnitude at all (§4.6). This single fact limits every row below.\n\n---\n\n## 3 · Row 1 — Order\n\n### 3.1 · Physics primer: partial orders and causal sets\n\n**A relation** is a rule that says, for any two things *x* and *y*, whether *x* stands in it to *y*. \"Is an ancestor of\" is a relation on people. Write it *x* ≺ *y*.\n\n**A partial order** is a relation with two properties:\n\n```\n irreflexive: never x ≺ x (nothing precedes itself)\n transitive: if x ≺ y and y ≺ z, then x ≺ z (ancestors of ancestors are ancestors)\n```\n\nTogether these make it **acyclic**: you can never follow the arrows and return to where you started. It is called *partial* because some pairs are not related either way. Two cousins are neither ancestor of the other.\n\n**A causal set** is a partial order on a set of events, with one more property, **local finiteness**: between any two related events, only finitely many events lie. The relation means \"can causally influence\". In relativity, two events are either causally related (one is in the other's past light cone) or **spacelike**: too far apart in space, for the time between them, for any signal to connect them. In a causal set, spacelike simply means *unrelated*.\n\n**Links and the Hasse diagram.** If *x* ≺ *y* and nothing lies between them, the pair is a **link** (mathematicians say *covering relation*). Drawing only the links, with later events higher, gives the **Hasse diagram**. Every other relation can be recovered by following links upward, since the order is transitive.\n\n```\n e f later events higher\n \\ /\n \\ /\n d only LINKS are drawn;\n / \\ a ≺ d, a ≺ e, a ≺ f, b ≺ e … follow by transitivity\n b c\n \\ / b and c are UNRELATED (spacelike):\n a neither can influence the other\n```\n\n**Order plus number.** Sorkin's slogan for the programme is *order + number = geometry*. Two classical theorems (Hawking, King and McCarthy 1976; Malament 1977) show that, for spacetimes that are past- and future-distinguishing, the causal order fixes the geometry up to a conformal factor, that is, up to a local scale. Causal set theory supplies the missing scale by **counting**. Events are scattered at random (a \"sprinkling\") with, on average, one event per unit of spacetime volume in Planck units, so the number of events in a region measures its volume.\n\n**Time as chain length.** A **chain** is a sequence *x*₁ ≺ *x*₂ ≺ … ≺ *x*ₙ. Between two related events, the length of the **longest** chain grows in proportion to the proper time between them: the time a clock carried from one to the other would read. The result holds asymptotically and in expectation, for random sprinklings into Minkowski space (Brightwell and Gregory 1991). In a causal set, a duration *is* a count of steps. §5 uses exactly this.\n\n**Growth.** In Rideout and Sorkin's sequential-growth models, the causal set is not given all at once. It grows, one element at a time, each new element born to the future of some existing ones. What is born stays. Sorkin reads this as a real becoming, a *growing block*: a past that accumulates and a future that does not yet exist.\n\n### 3.2 · The Abhidhamma side: twenty-four typed relations\n\nThe *Paṭṭhāna*, the last book of the Abhidhamma Piṭaka (canon), analyses how phenomena condition one another under twenty-four named conditions (*paccaya*). The manual (*Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha*, ch. 8) summarises them, and the sub-commentary (the *Vibhāvinī*) classifies each by the **time** its conditioning reaches. On the manual's ch. 8 it states:\n\n> *… anantarasamanantaraāsevananatthivigatavasena pañcannaṃ atītakālikānaṃ, kammapaccayassa atītavattamānavasena dvikālikassa, ārammaṇaadhipatiupanissayapaccayānaṃ tikālikānaṃ, itaresaṃ pannarasannaṃ paccuppannakālikānañca vasena kālattayavanto, nibbānapaññattivasena kālavimuttā ca …*\n>\n> … [things are] possessed of the three times by way of the five belonging to the past (proximity, contiguity, repetition, absence, disappearance), the kamma condition belonging to two times (past and present), the object, predominance and decisive-support conditions belonging to three times, and the remaining fifteen belonging to the present; **and free of time, by way of nibbāna and concepts** …\n\nThe count checks: 5 + 1 + 3 + 15 = 24. The tetrad sorts the conditions by the time their conditioning state may have, and the same sentence then sets the time-free (nibbāna and concepts) beside the three times. So the classification is not exhaustive of what can condition: the object condition, placed among the three-time conditions, also reaches the time-free.\n\nThe remaining fifteen are root (*hetu*), co-nascence, mutuality, support (*nissaya*), pre-nascence, post-nascence, result (*vipāka*), nutriment (*āhāra*), faculty (*indriya*), jhāna, path (*magga*), association (*sampayutta*), dissociation (*vippayutta*), presence (*atthi*) and non-disappearance (*avigata*). \"Belonging to the present\" means the conditioning state exists when the conditioned one does. It does not mean that the two arose together. Pre-nascence belongs to the present because its condition arose earlier and still stands. So \"present\" is not \"co-nascent\", and several of the fifteen have **modes**, which the canon itself names. The *Paṭṭhāna* gives the presence condition as *sahajātaṃ, purejātaṃ, pacchājātaṃ, āhāraṃ, indriyaṃ* (co-nascent, pre-nascent, post-nascent, nutriment, faculty), and the dissociation condition as *sahajātaṃ, purejātaṃ, pacchājātaṃ*. The manual groups the modes (ch. 8, CST §30–§34):\n\n| Condition | Co-nascent mode | Pre-nascent mode (condition arose earlier) | Post-nascent mode |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| support (*nissaya*) | mind with mind, the great elements with derived matter | the six bases for the seven consciousness elements, during the course of existence | — |\n| faculty (*indriya*) | the immaterial faculties for co-nascent mind and matter | the five sensitivities for the five kinds of sense consciousness | — (the material life faculty, for the matter of its own cluster, is a third, separate mode) |\n| dissociation (*vippayutta*) | mind for co-nascent matter; the base at rebirth-linking | the six bases, during the course of existence, *purejātavasena* | later mind for the earlier-arisen body |\n| presence, non-disappearance (*atthi*, *avigata*) | *sahajātaṃ* | *purejātaṃ* | *pacchājātaṃ* (edible food and material life are two further, separate modes) |\n\nThe manual names the pre-nascent mode in words for dissociation, presence and non-disappearance. For support and faculty the pre-nascent reading is the one the canon gives for the base (*vatthu kusalānaṃ khandhānaṃ nissayapaccayena paccayo*) and the one the standard modern exposition gives for the sensitivities (Bodhi 1993, ch. VIII: \"prenascence faculty\"). At rebirth-linking the base arises together with the mind and is co-nascent, which is why the manual limits the pre-nascent mode to the course of existence.\n\nA condition in the Abhidhamma is **typed**. The relation is not just \"*x* conditions *y*\", but \"*x* conditions *y* **as** object\", \"**as** kamma\", \"**as** co-nascent\", and so on. One pair can stand in several types at once.\n\n### 3.3 · The correspondence, and its surviving form\n\n**The whole is not a partial order.** Four features break it:\n\n| Feature | Text (layer) | Why it is not a partial order |\n|---|---|---|\n| **Mutuality** (*aññamañña*) | canon; manual ch. 8 | *x* conditions *y* and *y* conditions *x*: a 2-cycle. A partial order forbids cycles. |\n| **Co-nascence** (*sahajāta*) | canon; manual ch. 8 | relates what arises **together**. A causal order leaves simultaneous, unlinked events *unrelated* (spacelike). |\n| **Post-nascence** (*pacchājāta*) | manual ch. 8: *\"pacchājātā cittacetasikā dhammā purejātassa imassa kāyassa pacchājātavasena\"* — \"later-arisen consciousness and its concomitants [condition] this body, arisen earlier, by way of post-nascence\" | the condition arises **after** what it supports: ordered by arising, the arrow runs backward. |\n| **Object** (*ārammaṇa*) | manual ch. 3: mind-door objects may be *\"paccuppannamatītaṃ anāgataṃ kālavimuttañca\"* (present, past, future, and free of time); the sub-commentary glosses the time-free as *\"nibbānaṃ, paññatti ca\"* (nibbāna and concepts) | a future object conditions a present mind, and a time-free object is in no order at all. |\n\n**The surviving form.** Because several conditions have modes, the surviving relation is defined over condition-**modes**, not over whole conditions. Some modes always run from what arose **earlier** to what arises **later**:\n\n```\n the ACYCLIC SUB-RELATION S (defined over MODES)\n ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────\n anantara, samanantara the moment just ceased → the next moment\n āsevana a moment → the next, as repetition\n natthi, vigata the moment just ceased → the next (by its absence)\n purejāta an earlier-arisen, still-present base or object → a later-arising mind\n kamma (nānākkhaṇika) a past volition → its later result, across many moments\n pre-nascent MODES of the same earlier-arisen bases (and, for faculty, the five\n nissaya, indriya, sensitivities) → the later-arising consciousness, during the\n vippayutta, atthi, course of existence\n avigata\n```\n\nThe co-nascent and post-nascent modes of those five conditions stay out of S, and so does kamma's co-nascent mode.\n\n**Every one of the twenty-four, assigned:**\n\n| Where it goes | Conditions (or modes) |\n|---|---|\n| **in S** (whole condition) | proximity, contiguity, repetition, absence, disappearance, pre-nascence |\n| **in S** (one mode only) | kamma (across moments); support, faculty, dissociation, presence, non-disappearance (pre-nascent modes) |\n| **out**: co-nascent only | root, co-nascence, mutuality, result, jhāna, path, association; the co-nascent modes of kamma, support, faculty, dissociation, presence, non-disappearance, predominance and nutriment |\n| **out**: runs backward | post-nascence; the post-nascent modes of dissociation, presence and non-disappearance |\n| **out**: reaches three times, or the time-free | object, predominance (object mode), decisive support |\n| **out**: not sorted by arising here | nutriment (edible food); faculty and presence (material life), whose relata co-exist in one body without a stated arising order |\n\n**Why S is acyclic (a one-line proof).** Let *t*(*x*) be the moment at which phenomenon *x* arises. For every mode in S, *x* S *y* implies *t*(*x*) < *t*(*y*). Along any chain *x*₁ S *x*₂ S … S *x*ₙ, the arising times strictly increase, so the chain can never return to *x*₁. ⚠️ **This proof shows less than it seems to.** S was *selected* by the condition *t*(*x*) < *t*(*y*), so its acyclicity follows from the selection and is not a finding about the text. A strict order can be read over S, and its transitive closure is a partial order. But the closure is the reader's construction (see the next paragraph), and whether S meets the rest of §3.1's definition is taken up in §3.4.\n\n⚠️ **One condition was removed from S by the adversarial review.** The original list included *pakatūpanissaya* (natural decisive support). The sub-commentary classes decisive support as **tikālika**, reaching all three times (quoted above), and the manual's list of natural decisive supports includes present things (a person, climate, food, lodging). It is therefore not guaranteed to run earlier-to-later, and it is out.\n\n**A second, smaller correspondence: generators, not closure.** The manual and the sub-commentary present the conditions as primitive. Neither says that because *x* conditions *y* and *y* conditions *z*, *x* conditions *z*. Whether the *Paṭṭhāna* itself anywhere composes two conditions into a third is part of the canonical check this paper owes (§11); U Nārada's translation (1969), which works through the *Paṭṭhāna*'s own permutations, is the route for it. On the manual's presentation, the relations are **primitive**, like a causal set presented by its links rather than by its full transitive order. The likeness is partial. Proximity (*anantara*) holds only between immediate successors, so it is link-like in the strict Hasse sense. Kamma across moments, however, spans many intermediate moments and is still primitive, so S is a set of generating relations that is neither the Hasse diagram nor the full order.\n\nThe surviving form of the row, stated once:\n\n> **As the manual and the *Vibhāvinī* classify the *Paṭṭhāna*'s conditions, the condition-modes that always run from earlier-arising to later-arising (proximity, contiguity, repetition, absence, disappearance, pre-nascence, kamma across moments, and the pre-nascent modes of support, faculty, dissociation, presence and non-disappearance) form an acyclic typed relation over which a strict order, but not yet a causal set in §3.1's sense, can be read. The remaining conditions and modes (the co-nascent ones, the post-nascent ones, and the object, predominance and decisive-support conditions that reach all three times) are typed structure that a causal set does not have.**\n\n### 3.4 · Where it breaks\n\n- **Different kinds of order.** Causal sets keep their past: in sequential growth, what is born stays. The Theravāda is **presentist**: only present phenomena exist (the sibling paper, from *Kathāvatthu* §282–§304). S is an order of *conditioning*, not an order of *co-existing* elements. Its earlier relatum has usually ceased by the time the later arises. The sibling paper's phrase is **influence without existence**. So the two orders are not the same kind of thing, and this paper does not say they are.\n- **S borrows a clock.** The proof above uses *t*(*x*), an index of arising moments that the Abhidhamma assumes. S is acyclic **because** it respects a succession given in advance. In a causal set there is no succession apart from the order: the order *is* the time. The Abhidhamma's order sits on a time; the causal set's order makes one.\n- **S is not a causal set in §3.1's own sense.** Four gaps remain between S and that definition. (1) Acyclicity follows from the selection by *t*, as noted under the proof. (2) The transitive closure, which a partial order needs, adds exactly the composed relations the texts do not assert, so the closure is the reader's construction. (3) Local finiteness is unexamined: nothing here counts how many phenomena lie between two related ones, and the answer depends on the index *t* again. (4) S alone conditions no arising. Every arising also needs co-nascent conditions, which are outside S, so S is not a sufficient account of how anything comes to be. \"A strict order can be read over S\" is the whole of what survives.\n- **A forest of streams, joined only by the assumed index.** S relates moments within one mental continuum (proximity, contiguity, repetition, absence, disappearance), a body's bases to its own mind, and a past volition to its own results. Through the pre-nascent object mode it also links external matter to a mind that perceives it (the five objects for the five-door process, manual ch. 8, CST §19). Two minds that see one object therefore share a predecessor. But nothing in S orders a moment in one stream before a moment in another, so any order between streams comes from *t*, which no text defines as a global index. Co-nascence, moreover, presupposes that a mind and the matter it originates arise at once, a simultaneity that a causal set does not have: there, events with no causal relation are only *unrelated*. This bears on §3.5's third falsifier (a temporal order the tradition asserts that S cannot connect). It fires if the tradition asserts an order between moments of different streams. This revision found no text that does. A claim that one mind-moment occurs everywhere at once was checked and has no textual basis that this revision could find. So the falsifier is not shown to fire, but the surviving form holds only per stream, joined by *t*.\n- **Typing has no counterpart.** A causal set has one relation. The *Paṭṭhāna* has twenty-four, and its analytical power lies in the types. Loop-gravity syntheses add structure (spins, Hilbert spaces) to causal relations, but none of it corresponds to *object*, *predominance* or *kamma*. §6 returns to this.\n- **Mind is inside the relation.** Most *Paṭṭhāna* conditions have mental relata. Nothing in a causal set is mental.\n\n### 3.5 · What would falsify this row\n\n- **A textual case in which a member of S holds with the conditioned arising at or before the condition** (for example, a canonical or commentarial passage in which proximity or pre-nascence runs from a later to an earlier phenomenon). S would then not be acyclic, and the surviving form fails.\n- **A sub-commentarial or commentarial passage placing kamma's cross-moment conditioning on a present or future relatum.** This would remove kamma from S.\n- **A temporal order the tradition asserts that S cannot connect.** If the tradition orders two phenomena in time, and no chain in S links them, then S does not carry the tradition's own temporal order, and \"a strict order can be read over it\" reduces to a formality. (§3.4 applies this test to orders between streams.)\n\n---\n\n## 4 · Rows 2 and 3 — Grain and Boundary: Where Space Is\n\n### 4.1 · Physics primer: spin networks, and what \"area has a discrete spectrum\" means\n\n**Geometry is a field.** In general relativity, the gravitational field *is* the geometry of spacetime: it decides lengths, areas and volumes. There is no stage apart from it. If the gravitational field is quantised, then lengths, areas and volumes become quantum quantities, and quantum quantities typically come in steps.\n\n**What \"spectrum\" means.** In quantum theory, each measurable quantity is represented by an operator: a rule which, given the state of a system, yields the possible results of measuring it. The list of possible results is the quantity's **spectrum**. A spectrum is **discrete** if the possible results are separated by gaps. Think of a function that can only take values on the rungs of a ladder. An electron's energy in an atom has a discrete spectrum, and that is why atoms emit light at sharp colours. Loop quantum gravity finds that **area and volume** have discrete spectra (Rovelli and Smolin 1995; Ashtekar and Lewandowski 1997).\n\n**A spin network.** A quantum state of space in loop quantum gravity is described by a **graph**: points (**nodes**) joined by lines (**links**). Each link carries a label *j* called a **spin**, taking values *j* = ½, 1, 3/2, 2, …. Each node carries a second label, the **intertwiner**, which records how the links meeting there fit together.\n\n```\n j₁\n │\n j₄ ─────●───── j₂ ● a NODE: a grain (\"quantum\") of space\n │n each line: a LINK, labelled by a spin j\n j₃ the node's volume depends on j₁…j₄ and the intertwiner\n```\n\n**Area lives on links.** Take any surface. Its area is a sum over the links that pierce it:\n\n```\n A = 8πγ ℓ_P² Σ √( j (j + 1) ) sum over the links crossing the surface\n\n ℓ_P = √(ħG / c³) ≈ 1.6 × 10⁻³⁵ m the Planck length\n γ = the Barbero–Immirzi parameter, a dimensionless constant of the theory\n (γ ≈ 0.2375 from black-hole entropy counting, Domagala–Lewandowski\n and Meissner 2004; ≈ 0.274 under the later Ghosh–Mitra counting;\n the value depends on the state-counting convention)\n```\n\nThis is the formula for links that cross the surface transversally. When a node lies on the surface itself, the general formula adds further terms (Ashtekar and Lewandowski 1997). The smallest non-zero area is one link with *j* = ½:\n\n```\n A_min = 8πγ ℓ_P² √(3/4) = 4√3 π γ ℓ_P² ≈ 21.8 γ ℓ_P²\n```\n\nThere is nothing between zero and this value. That gap is what \"area has a discrete spectrum\" means.\n\n**Volume lives at nodes.** Each node has a volume, but volume is not an independent label. It is **computed** from the spins of the links meeting there and from the intertwiner, and it takes discrete values. A node where only three links meet has **zero** volume: the volume operator vanishes on gauge-invariant two- and three-valent nodes (Loll 1996, who also computed the four-valent spectrum). In the geometric picture below, the same fact reads simply: three faces whose area-vectors sum to zero must lie in one plane, and a flat shape has no volume. Volume needs at least four links.\n\n**Nodes are quanta of space, not things in space.** Rovelli (Zakopane lectures, §I.A): the quanta of gravity \"do not live in space, but give rise to space themselves.\" There is no background in which the network sits. \"Where\" means \"which node, adjacent to which\".\n\n**Grains and faces.** Bianchi, Doná and Speziale (2011) showed that a node can be read as a small polyhedron, a *quantum polyhedron*, whose faces are its links. The reading is semiclassical: coherent spin-network states represent semiclassical polyhedra, which is most reliable at large spins and least trustworthy at small spins, including the *j* = ½ where the smallest area sits. Adjacency is also definite only for a spin-network basis state on a fixed graph; a general quantum state of space is a superposition of graphs. Rovelli states the consequence plainly (Zakopane lectures, §II.F): \"Two grains *n* and *n′* are adjacent if there is a link *l* connecting the two, and in this case the area of the elementary surface separating the two grains is determined by the spin of the link joining *n* and *n′*.\"\n\n```\n ┌───────────────┐┌───────────────┐\n │ grain n ││ grain n′ │ the face they share IS the link l;\n │ (volume) ││ (volume) │ its area = 8πγℓ_P² √(j_l (j_l + 1))\n └───────────────┘└───────────────┘\n\n the same thing as a graph: n ●────────── j_l ──────────● n′\n```\n\n**In one sentence:** in loop quantum gravity, the boundary between two neighbouring grains of space is the adjacency itself, and it carries a quantised area.\n\n### 4.2 · The Abhidhamma side: the grain\n\n**The kalāpa is matter.** The smallest material cluster (*rūpa-kalāpa*) is not in the canonical Abhidhamma books. The *Dhammasaṅgaṇī* has no kalāpa vocabulary. The clusters appear in the commentary (the *Visuddhimagga* names the \"pure octad\", *suddhaṭṭhaka*, and the decads), and the manual systematises them into twenty-one kinds (*Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha* ch. 6: *\"kalāpā ekavīsati\"*). The simplest, the pure octad, is eight inseparable material phenomena: the four great elements (extension, cohesion, heat, motion) together with colour, odour, taste and nutritive essence.\n\n**The commentarial size ladder.** The *Vibhaṅga* commentary (*Sammohavinodanī*), in a passage teaching a monk to see small faults as large, gives a ladder of sizes:\n\n> *chattiṃsa paramāṇavo ekassa aṇuno pamāṇaṃ. Chattiṃsa aṇū ekāya tajjāriyā pamāṇaṃ. Chattiṃsa tajjāriyo eko rathareṇu.*\n>\n> Thirty-six *paramāṇu* make the measure of one *aṇu*; thirty-six *aṇu*, one *tajjārī*; thirty-six *tajjārī*, one *rathareṇu* [a mote of chariot dust].\n\nSo one *paramāṇu* is 1/36³ = **1/46,656** of a chariot-dust mote. The commentary describes the *paramāṇu* as *ākāsakoṭṭhāsika*, of the order of a portion of space, and says it is visible only to the divine eye. ⚠️ **The ladder is for the *paramāṇu*, not the kalāpa.** The commentary does not use the word kalāpa there. The identification of the two, common in modern summaries (including both encyclopedia articles cited above), is later exegesis.\n\n### 4.3 · The Abhidhamma side: the boundary, in four layers\n\n**Canon — a cavity.** The *Dhammasaṅgaṇī* (§637) defines the space element:\n\n> *Katamaṃ taṃ rūpaṃ ākāsadhātu? Yo ākāso ākāsagataṃ aghaṃ aghagataṃ vivaro vivaragataṃ asamphuṭṭhaṃ catūhi mahābhūtehi — idaṃ taṃ rūpaṃ ākāsadhātu.*\n>\n> What is the material phenomenon that is the space element? That which is space, belonging to space, void, belonging to the void, an opening, belonging to an opening, **untouched by the four great elements** — this is the space element.\n\nThe *Vibhaṅga*, also canon, gives examples of the internal space element: the ear-holes, the nostrils, the mouth, the passage by which food is swallowed, where it rests and where it leaves. **At the canonical layer, space is a cavity with extent**: a gap in matter, the kind of thing that has room in it.\n\n**Canon — not unconditioned.** The *Kathāvatthu* (VI.6, §460–462, verified in the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana text) refutes the thesis *\"ākāso asaṅkhato\"*, that space is unconditioned. One of its arguments is homely: *\"Udapāne khaññamāne anākāso ākāso hotīti? Āmantā.\"* When a well is dug, does what was not space become space? Yes. And when an empty jar is filled, space disappears. Something that can be made and unmade is not unconditioned. The commentary attributes the rejected thesis to the Uttarāpathakas and the Mahisāsakas (so spelled there). The Mahiṃsāsakas are one of the four Vibhajjavādin branches in Cousins's account (Cousins 2001), which the sibling paper uses. Once again, the branch that kept the Pāli canon argues against a sibling branch.\n\n**Commentary — three spaces, and a characterisation.** The *Kathāvatthu* commentary distinguishes three spaces:\n\n> *tividho ākāso — paricchedākāso, kasiṇugghāṭimākāso, ajaṭākāso … Tesu paricchedākāso saṅkhato, itare dve paññattimattā.*\n>\n> Space is threefold: delimiting space, the space left by removing a meditation disk, and unentangled [open] space … Of these, **delimiting space is conditioned; the other two are mere concepts.**\n\nThe *Visuddhimagga* (ch. XIV, CST ¶442) characterises the space element in its fourfold formula:\n\n> *Rūpaparicchedalakkhaṇā ākāsadhātu, rūpapariyantappakāsanarasā, rūpamariyādapaccupaṭṭhānā, asamphuṭṭhabhāvacchiddavivarabhāvapaccupaṭṭhānā vā, paricchinnarūpapadaṭṭhānā. Yāya paricchinnesu rūpesu idamito uddhamadho tiriyanti ca hoti.*\n>\n> The space element has the characteristic of delimiting matter; its function is to display the boundaries of matter; it is manifested as the confines of matter, or as the state of being untouched, as holes and openings; **its proximate cause is the matter delimited.** It is that by which one can say of delimited material things, \"this is above, below, around that.\"\n\nThe last sentence matters for §4.5. Direction and position are defined only **relative to delimited matter**.\n\n**Manual — not a constituent.** The *Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha* (ch. 6, the verse closing the section on kalāpas):\n\n> *Kalāpānaṃ pariccheda-lakkhaṇattā vicakkhaṇā; Na kalāpaṅgamiccāhu, ākāsaṃ lakkhaṇāni ca.*\n>\n> Because space has the characteristic of delimiting the kalāpas, and because of the nature of the characteristics, the wise do not call space, nor the characteristics, a constituent of a kalāpa.\n\nSpace is **between** kalāpas, never **in** one. The manual also classes this delimiting matter (*paricchedarūpa*) as **anipphanna**: not concretely produced, with no intrinsic nature of its own. The term is older than the manual; the *Visuddhimagga* and the *Sammohavinodanī* already use it. It is counted as one of the twenty-eight material phenomena, but the standard expositions do not count it among the ultimate realities (Bodhi 1993, ch. VI), and one reads it as \"nothing but the mere limitation of matter\" (Karunadasa 1967, ch. 5).\n\n**Sub-commentary — the non-mixing of touching neighbours.** The *Vibhāvinī*, on the same chapter:\n\n> *Cakkhudasakādiekekakalāpagatarūpānaṃ kalāpantarehi asaṃkiṇṇabhāvāpādanavasena paricchedakaṃ, tehi vā paricchijjamānaṃ, tesaṃ paricchedamattaṃ vā rūpaṃ paricchedarūpaṃ … Vijjamānepi ca kalāpantarabhūtehi kalāpantarabhūtānaṃ samphuṭṭhabhāve taṃtaṃrūpavivittatā rūpapariyanto ākāso. Yesañca so paricchedo, tehi sayaṃ asamphuṭṭhoyeva. Aññathā paricchinnatā na siyā tesaṃ rūpānaṃ byāpībhāvāpattito. Abyāpitā hi asamphuṭṭhatā.*\n>\n> Delimiting matter is what delimits the matter in each kalāpa (the eye-decad and the rest) by making it **unmixed with neighbouring kalāpas**; or what is delimited by them; or their mere delimitation … **Even where neighbouring kalāpas touch one another, space is the separateness of each one's matter, the limit of matter.** And it is itself untouched by the things it delimits. Otherwise those material things would not be delimited, since they would come to pervade one another. For non-pervasion is non-touching.\n\n```\n ┌────────────┐ ┊ ┌────────────┐\n │ kalāpa K₁ │ ┊ │ kalāpa K₂ │ K₁ and K₂ may TOUCH;\n │ (8+ rūpas) │ ┊ │ (8+ rūpas) │ space is the ┊ : their non-mixing,\n └────────────┘ ┊ └────────────┘ \"the limit of matter\"\n ↑\n paricchedarūpa — not a constituent of either (manual);\n untouched by what it bounds (sub-commentary);\n no nature of its own; no magnitude assigned (anipphanna);\n its proximate cause is the matter it delimits (commentary)\n```\n\n### 4.4 · An older neighbour: do minimal units touch? *(cross-tradition: Sarvāstivāda, in Sanskrit)*\n\nThe *Vibhāvinī*'s wording answers a question the Indian schools had argued for centuries. The *Abhidharmakośabhāṣya* (ad I.43, Pradhan ed., pp. 32–33) asks it directly:\n\n> *kiṃ punaḥ paramāṇavaḥ spṛśanty anyonyam āhosvin na / na spṛśantīti kāśmīrakāḥ / … yadi tāvat sarvātmanā spṛśeyur miśrībhaveyur dravyāṇi / athaikadeśena sāvayavāḥ prasajyeran / niravayavāś ca paramāṇavaḥ*\n>\n> Do atoms touch one another, or not? The Kashmiri masters say they do not touch. … If they touched with their whole selves, the substances would **mix**. If they touched with a part, they would have parts. But atoms are partless.\n\nThe same passage adds that contact means only arising *without interval*, and that \"their being without interval is just that there is nothing between them\" (*tad evaiṣāṃ nirantaratvaṃ yan madhye nāsti kiñcit*). ⚠️ *nirantaratvaṃ* is this paper's emendation: the GRETIL e-text reads *niruttaratvaṃ* [032|20]. The emendation follows the passage's own *nirantara* in the line before, and Pradhan's printed page was not checked. Bhadanta Vasumitra holds that they do not touch, and that we call it touching when there is no interval.\n\nTwo cautions before the comparison. First, the *Kośa*'s contact debate concerns **partless atoms** (*paramāṇu*). Its functional counterpart of the kalāpa is a different item, the smallest aggregate of eight substances (*aṣṭadravyaka*, ad II.22), the counterpart of the pure octad. So the comparison below is of the **role** of minimal units, and it does not identify the *Kośa*'s atom with the *Sammohavinodanī*'s *paramāṇu* (which §4.2 already keeps apart from the kalāpa). Second, the *Kośa* also has a conditioned space element. Besides unconditioned *ākāśa* (I.5), it names the cavity: *dvāravātāyanamukhanāsikādiṣu chidram ākāśadhātvākhyam* (I.28, [018|13]), \"the hole in a door, a window, the mouth, the nose and so on is called the space element\", which it says is light and darkness (*ālokatamasī kila*). That is a close parallel to the *Vibhaṅga*'s ear-holes and nostrils (§4.3).\n\nThe two traditions share the premise: **if minimal units truly touched, they would mix.** The *Vibhāvinī* keeps the premise by making touching conventional only: \"non-pervasion is non-touching\" (*abyāpitā hi asamphuṭṭhatā*). They draw different conclusions:\n\n| | Do the units touch? | What is between them? |\n|---|---|---|\n| Kashmiri Sarvāstivāda (*Kośa* ad I.43) | no | **nothing** (\"nothing between them\") |\n| Theravāda sub-commentary (*Vibhāvinī*) | conventionally yes; strictly no (non-pervasion is non-touching) | **something**: delimiting matter, the non-mixing — counted among the material phenomena, though *anipphanna* and not an ultimate reality |\n| Loop quantum gravity | grains share a face | **something**: the link, which carries area |\n\nOn this one question, the Theravāda answer and loop quantum gravity have the same *shape*: the between is not nothing. It is a named, counted item of the list (one of the twenty-eight material phenomena in one, a link in the other), and it is not itself one of the minimal units: not a kalāpa, not a node. The Kashmiri answer makes the between empty. ⚠️ Two limits on that shape. The Theravāda item is counted but is not an ultimate reality, and Karunadasa (1967) reads it as the mere limitation of matter, which moves it toward the Kashmiri *nothing*: what separates the two answers on that reading is that one names and counts the between and the other does not. And the two \"neither\" relations are opposite in incidence (§4.6, break 6). The Sarvāstivāda counts *ākāśa* among the unconditioned (I.5), which is the thesis the *Kathāvatthu* refutes, and separately names the conditioned cavity (I.28).\n\n### 4.5 · The correspondence, and its surviving form\n\n> **Both frameworks put the unit of spatial boundary at the adjacency between minimal units.** In loop quantum gravity, a spin-network link is the face that two neighbouring grains of space share. In the *Vibhāvinī*, space is the non-mixing of touching neighbouring kalāpas, \"the limit of matter\", untouched by what it bounds and a constituent of neither. In neither framework is the boundary itself one of the minimal units. In both, \"where\" is defined by adjacency and not by a background: Rovelli's quanta \"do not live in space\", and the *Visuddhimagga*'s space is \"that by which one can say of delimited material things, 'this is above, below, around that'\".\n\nThat is the whole of the claim. Everything else in this section limits it.\n\n**The grain row survives only through the boundary row.** Kalāpa against node, taken alone, is a comparison of a smallest-unit-of-matter with a smallest-unit-of-space. That is the general \"smallest unit\" comparison the census found common, and it fails on the matter/geometry distinction below. It earns a line in the table only because the boundary row presupposes minimal units with neighbours.\n\n### 4.6 · Where it breaks\n\n1. **The dependence runs in opposite directions.** In loop quantum gravity, the adjacency data come first: the spins on the links, with the intertwiners, determine the volumes of the nodes. In the Abhidhamma, the matter comes first: the space element's **proximate cause is the matter delimited** (*paricchinnarūpapadaṭṭhānā*, commentary). One builds the grain from its boundaries. The other derives the boundary from its grains.\n2. **Magnitude.** Loop-gravity area is observable and has a discrete spectrum, with a smallest non-zero value. Abhidhamma delimiting matter is *anipphanna*: it has no nature of its own, and no magnitude is assigned to it. (\"No magnitude\" is this paper's reading of *anipphanna*; no text says \"it has no size\" in those words.) There is no \"how much\" boundary between two kalāpas. The canonical cavity (break 4) does have extent, but no text measures it. The Abhidhamma boundary is object-discrete (it is one item between two items), but not spectrally discrete (§2).\n3. **Matter against geometry.** Kalāpas are matter *in* space. Their octad includes colour, odour and taste. Spin-network nodes are quanta *of* space and carry no qualities except geometry. The commentarial size ladder (§4.2) measures the *paramāṇu* against a chariot-dust mote, which presupposes a background of lengths. That is exactly the background loop quantum gravity denies.\n4. **Layer.** The correspondence holds at the **sub-commentary** layer. At the **canonical** layer, space is a cavity with extent: ear-holes, a well being dug, an opening. A cavity is volume-like, not face-like. So the canon's space corresponds, if to anything, to a region, not to a link. The between-kalāpas reading enters with the commentary's *paricchedākāsa* and is completed only in the manual and sub-commentary, more than a millennium after the canon was compiled.\n5. **Open space.** The commentary calls open space (*ajaṭākāsa*) a mere concept. Loop quantum gravity has no space without the network: a region with no nodes has no geometry at all. The two may look alike here, but the likeness is loose. One says that open space is a *designation*; the other says there is *nothing there to designate*.\n6. **Opposite incidence.** A spin-network link is a face **incident to both** grains: each grain's polyhedron has it as one of its own faces, and the area belongs to the geometry of both. The *Vibhāvinī*'s delimiter is **untouched by both** kalāpas (*tehi sayaṃ asamphuṭṭhoyeva*) and a constituent of neither. \"Belongs to neither neighbour\" covers both only because it is vague. Said exactly, the link is shared and the delimiter is excluded, which are opposite relations. What the two have in common is only that the boundary is not itself a minimal unit.\n7. **Counted, but not ultimate.** The delimiter is one of the twenty-eight material phenomena, but it is not an ultimate reality (Bodhi 1993), and on Karunadasa's reading (1967) it is \"nothing but the mere limitation of matter\". The link in loop quantum gravity is as real as anything in the theory. So the Theravāda \"something\" between kalāpas is a *named* something, not a real unit, and the row's contrast with the Kashmiri *nothing* rests on the naming and counting.\n\n### 4.7 · What would falsify this row\n\n- **A text, at any layer, that makes delimiting matter a constituent of a kalāpa**, or places space inside a cluster rather than between clusters. The manual's verse would then be contradicted within the tradition, and the \"between\" would lose its textual footing.\n- **A formulation of loop quantum gravity in which the area between adjacent grains is not carried by their adjacency.** For example, the polyhedral reading may not hold at small spins, since it is a semiclassical, coherent-state interpretation; or area might attach to nodes rather than links. The physics side of the correspondence would then go.\n- **A reading of the *Vibhāvinī* on which \"space\" is a gap with nothing in it** (the Kashmiri answer), rather than a counted *rūpa*. The §4.4 table would then collapse, and the row would reduce to the generic \"space is between\" of §9. ⚠️ This falsifier is **partly engaged** already. The *Vibhāvinī*'s own third gloss is \"their mere delimitation\" (*tesaṃ paricchedamattaṃ*), and Karunadasa reads the *anipphanna* class as \"nothing but the mere limitation of matter\". What keeps the row from collapsing is only that the tradition still lists and counts the item. If that counting were shown to be nominal and nothing more, the falsifier would fire.\n\n---\n\n## 5 · Row 4 — Ratio: Time as a Count\n\n### 5.1 · Physics primer: a duration is a number of steps\n\nRecall from §3.1 that in a causal set the proper time between two related events is proportional to the length of the longest chain between them. There is no clock apart from counting. Two durations can be compared by comparing chain lengths, and the ratio is meaningful even though no unit of time is ever introduced. (Converting to seconds needs the sprinkling density, one element per Planck volume. The ratio does not need it.)\n\n### 5.2 · The Abhidhamma side\n\n**Three sub-moments per mind-moment.** The manual (ch. 4): *\"Uppādaṭhitibhaṅgavasena khaṇattayaṃ ekacittakkhaṇaṃ nāma\"* — a mind-moment consists of three sub-moments: arising, presence, dissolution.\n\n**Seventeen mind-moments per material phenomenon.** The next line: *\"Tāni pana sattarasa cittakkhaṇāni rūpadhammānamāyu\"* — seventeen such mind-moments are the lifespan of material phenomena. The manual then shows where seventeen comes from. It is the length of the longest process by which a sense object is known: one past life-continuum moment, two vibrations of the life-continuum, and fourteen moments of the process itself: *\"cuddasa vīthicittuppādā, dve bhavaṅgacalanāni, pubbevātītakamekacittakkhaṇanti katvā sattarasa cittakkhaṇāni paripūrenti.\"* **Seventeen is a consistency condition.** A physical object must last as long as the longest process that cognises it.\n\n**Fifty-one sub-moments, with exceptions.** The sub-commentary: *\"Visuṃ visuṃ pana ekapaññāsa cittakkhaṇāni honti. Rūpadhammānanti viññattilakkhaṇarūpavajjānaṃ rūpadhammānaṃ\"* — counted separately, they are fifty-one; \"material phenomena\" means those other than the intimations and the characteristic phenomena. It then states the exceptions. The two intimations (bodily and vocal) last one mind-moment. Of the characteristics, arising and impermanence match the mind-moment's arising and dissolution sub-moments, and decay lasts forty-nine sub-moments. **There is no single material clock.**\n\n**The presence sub-moment is disputed inside the tradition.** The sub-commentary reports that \"some reject the presence moment of consciousness\" (*keci pana cittassa ṭhitikkhaṇaṃ paṭisedhenti*). The reason given is that the canonical *Yamaka* names only arising and dissolution: *\"bhaṅguppādāva kathitā, na ṭhitikkhaṇo\"*. The author names no one (*keci*, \"some\"). The cross-reference beside the passage, which locates the view in the *Vibhaṅga Mūlaṭīkā*, is an editorial parenthesis of the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana edition, not Sumaṅgala's. He then **rejects** the dissent, citing the *Vibhaṅga* commentary's \"three sub-moments each, by way of arising, presence and dissolution\". Without presence, this paper's arithmetic gives 17 × 2 = **34** in place of 17 × 3 = 51; the dissent itself states no count. The dissent would also leave decay's forty-nine sub-moments undefined, since that figure is counted with the presence sub-moment.\n\n**An absolute scale, rhetorically.** The *Vibhaṅga* commentary says of feeling, a mental factor present in every consciousness, that \"in the moment of a finger-snap it arises and ceases a hundred thousand *koṭi* times\" (*ekaccharakkhaṇe koṭisatasahassasaṅkhyā uppajjitvā nirujjhati*). Read with *koṭi* as ten million, that is 10¹² moments per finger-snap. If a finger-snap is taken as about a tenth of a second (this paper's assumption; the text gives no duration), a moment would be about 10⁻¹³ seconds, many orders of magnitude shorter than any timescale on which perception is measured. The figure is best read as rhetoric for \"unimaginably fast\", not as a measurement. But it means one cannot say the tradition offers **no** absolute unit. It offers one, and the offer cannot be taken literally.\n\n### 5.3 · The correspondence, and its surviving form\n\nThe Abhidhamma measures the lifetime of matter **in mind-moments**: a chain of seventeen mind-moments, linked by proximity (*anantara*), that runs through a mental stream. The chain has seventeen elements and sixteen proximity links. This paper counts the chain by its **elements**, as the manual does (*sattarasa cittakkhaṇāni*, seventeen moments), because each mind-moment is itself a stretch of time. A causal-set chain is conventionally counted by its links, since its elements are points; the difference of one does not matter at large counts, but it does at seventeen. So the lifetime is a duration stated as a count of steps along a chain, with no unit.\n\n> **The seventeen-moment lifetime of material phenomena, other than the two intimations and the characteristics (sub-commentary), is one clock and a multiplier, not two clocks. \"One clock\" is the mind-moment, not a single lifetime shared by all matter. What survives is generic: a duration stated as the count of steps along a given succession — here a chain of seventeen mind-moments — which every discrete clock shares, and which is the causal-set sense of time as chain length only in that generic part (§9).**\n\nThe row's name, *ratio*, needs one correction. The ratio is 17 : 1, a material lifetime against one mind-moment, but both terms are read off the **same** chain. There is no second chain to compare with the first. Matter has no chain of its own in S, so the row gives a ratio of durations, not a ratio of two chain lengths.\n\n### 5.4 · Where it breaks\n\n- **One clock.** A ratio between two *independent* clocks is an observable: it could come out differently. Here matter is timed by the mind's chain, and the number seventeen is fixed by the length of the cognitive process. The ratio is a definition that makes the system consistent, not a finding.\n- **Deterministic against statistical.** In a causal set, chain length tracks proper time only on average, over a random sprinkling. The Abhidhamma's count is exact.\n- **A privileged chain.** A causal set has no preferred chain: proper time belongs to the *longest* chain between two events, whichever it is. The Abhidhamma counts along one privileged sequence, a single mental stream.\n- **An order on a time, not an order that makes one.** §3.4 found that the Abhidhamma's order sits on a succession given in advance. A count of steps along a given succession is what every discrete clock does. The causal-set-specific part of \"time as chain length\" is that there is no succession apart from the order. That part is absent here (see §9).\n- **The count itself is contested.** Fifty-one depends on the presence sub-moment, which an anonymous dissent, reported and rejected by the sub-commentary, denies.\n- **No physics prediction.** A unitless ratio fixed by consistency cannot predict a physical measurement. The only empirical programme it could seed is in perception science (calibrate a mind-moment against one measurement, predict an independent one). That is a separate programme with its own pre-registration, and not a physics claim.\n\n### 5.5 · What would falsify this row\n\n- **A text stating the lifetime of matter in units independent of the mind-moment**, such as a count of material moments or an external measure. The \"one clock\" reading would fail, and the ratio would become an observable.\n- **A reading on which seventeen is observed rather than derived.** For example, a commentarial passage might present seventeen as reported meditative experience, independent of the cognitive-process arithmetic. The \"consistency condition\" reading would then weaken.\n\n---\n\n## 6 · The Row We Dropped, and Why\n\nThe first version of this lens had a fifth row: *saṅkhāra*, the conditioned as a whole (*sabbe saṅkhārā*, \"all conditioned things\"), against Fotini Markopoulou's **quantum causal histories**. That framework puts quantum state spaces on a causal set, and so joins causal order to quantum structure.\n\nIt was cut before drafting, for two reasons.\n\n1. **Category error.** *Saṅkhāra* includes the mental (*nāma*): consciousness, feeling, perception, volition. Nothing in a spin network or a quantum causal history models mind. A row that maps a category containing mind onto a structure that contains none is not a correspondence with a break. It is a correspondence that breaks everywhere.\n2. **No structure added.** Every structural feature the row could claim was already in rows 1–4: order in row 1, grains and adjacency in rows 2–3. The row said that the conditioned as a whole resembles order-plus-quanta as a whole. A resemblance with no new structure is decoration: a coherence that feels like evidence and is none.\n\n**The neighbour, stated accurately.** Markopoulou's 2000 paper assigns a finite-dimensional Hilbert space (a quantum state space) to each **event** and evolution operators between sets of events. The same paper already notes a problem: the evolution does not see the individual causal relations. It proposes, as an alternative, attaching the Hilbert spaces to the **edges** (the covering relations) and the operators to the events. On that reading, the state space on an edge from *p* to *q* is \"the state space of *p* as seen by *q*\". Hawkins, Markopoulou and Sahlmann (2003) then revised the definition. They put operator algebras on the events and made **each causal relation** carry a completely positive map, the most general quantum transformation, so that the evolution respects every individual relation.\n\nThere is an irony here, and it is recorded rather than used. Both moves make the **relation** a carrier of structure. That fits the *Paṭṭhāna*'s relation-first typing better than the original event-first definition did, but it does not rescue the row. A typed relation carrying a completely positive map is still not a relation of *object*, *predominance* or *kamma*.\n\n---\n\n## 7 · Why a Theravāda Space, and Not Nāgārjuna's\n\nThe best-known meeting of Buddhist thought and physics is Carlo Rovelli's reading of **Nāgārjuna** (cross-tradition: Madhyamaka) beside relational quantum mechanics, in *Helgoland*. On the relational view, a system has properties only relative to another system. On Nāgārjuna's, nothing has own-being (*svabhāva*): everything is empty of intrinsic existence. Rovelli finds the two congenial.\n\nThis paper does not use that pairing, for a reason of structure and not of loyalty. **Madhyamaka denies own-being (*svabhāva*) to every dharma**, so it admits no ultimately real units to put in adjacency. **The Theravāda Abhidhamma is realist about dharmas**: its moments, its material phenomena and its conditions are real events. A discrete theory needs discrete units and relations among them. The Theravāda supplies both, so it is the Buddhist framework that *can* be compared structurally with causal sets and spin networks. It is also the framework whose space can be put beside a link: space as the delimitation between real units. One point weakens the contrast and should be stated. The boundary at the centre of the adjacency row is the one Theravāda item defined as lacking own-nature (*anipphanna*). The units are real (*nipphanna*, concretely produced); their delimitation is not a unit. So the argument for the Theravāda over Madhyamaka rests on the **units**, not on the boundary: a discrete comparison needs real units, and only the Theravāda supplies them. The Madhyamaka comparison is a comparison of attitudes toward relation. It is real, but it is a different comparison.\n\n**The institution's ruling, stated plainly.** The institution publishing this paper has ruled, for its own purposes, that **delimiting space (*paricchedākāsa*) is conditioned; open space and the space of a removed meditation disk (*kasiṇa*) are concepts (*paññatti*); and only nibbāna is unconditioned.** The ruling follows the Theravāda reading of the space element as delimiting matter, and it declines the Sarvāstivāda reading of *ākāśa* as unconditioned. It follows the texts at each point. The canon's *Kathāvatthu* refutes \"space is unconditioned\" (VI.6). At the close of the same debate (§462) the Theravādin also declines to call space *conditioned* without qualification, and the commentary supplies the qualification: it is delimiting space that is conditioned, while open space and meditative space are mere concepts. A concept is not an unconditioned phenomenon, so nothing is left unconditioned but nibbāna. The Sarvāstivāda draws a comparable line: beside its unconditioned *ākāśa* (*Kośa* I.5), it names a conditioned space element, the cavity (I.28), as §4.4 records.\n\n---\n\n## 8 · The Strongest Objection, Carried\n\n**Objection.** \"The Abhidhamma is a phenomenology: an analysis of what appears in experience, made for the purpose of liberation. Quantum gravity is a theory of what spacetime is. The kalāpa contains colour, odour and taste, which are qualities of matter *as sensed*. The *Kathāvatthu* commentary says that space between two trees is known by the **mind**, from the absence of visible matter, not seen by the eye. A comparison of the two frameworks compares an account of knowing with an account of being. Any shared shape is a coincidence of two different questions.\"\n\n**What survives it.** Most of the objection stands, and the paper does not answer it away. Every row compares **formal shape**: an acyclic relation, a boundary located at an adjacency, a duration expressed as a count. Shape is the only thing two frameworks with different subject matter can share, and it is all this paper claims they share. The objection does not show that the shapes differ. It shows that shared shape proves nothing about shared subject matter, and the paper agrees. What the objection *does* remove is any reading of the lens as evidence that the Abhidhamma knew physics, or that physics vindicates the Abhidhamma. Neither reading was offered, and the objection makes sure neither can be taken.\n\n---\n\n## 9 · The Counter-Argument to This Paper's Strongest Claim\n\nThe strongest claim is the adjacency row (§4.5). Against it: **the idea that a boundary lives at the adjacency is not specific to loop quantum gravity.** It holds in any cellular picture of extended stuff: a cell complex, a Voronoi tessellation, a chessboard, and Regge calculus (Regge 1961), in which curved spacetime is approximated by flat simplices glued along shared faces, and the geometry is fixed by the edge lengths of neighbouring cells. The Western literature on boundaries has argued the ownership question directly. When two bodies touch, does the boundary belong to one of them (Bolzano), to neither (a view the literature traces to Leonardo), or is it two coincident boundaries, one belonging to each (Brentano)? (Varzi's survey; Casati and Varzi 1999, ch. 5.) The \"neither\" view is the nearest Western neighbour of the manual's \"a constituent of neither\". Brentano's is a contrast: his coincident boundaries are dependent parts of the bodies they bound, which is the opposite of the *Vibhāvinī*'s delimiter, untouched by both. Aristotle defined place as the innermost boundary of the containing body (*Physics* IV.4), a boundary account of *where* that is two millennia old and owes nothing to quanta. The *Kośa*'s debate (§4.4) shows the Indian schools arguing the same question in the first millennium. If the shared shape is generic, then the match with loop quantum gravity specifically is weaker than the table makes it look.\n\nWhat loop quantum gravity adds to the generic picture is that the adjacency carries a **quantised magnitude**, and that volume is **derived** from it. Those are exactly the two features the Abhidhamma lacks (§4.6, breaks 1 and 2). So the part of the row that is loop-quantum-gravity-specific is the part that fails, and the part that holds is generic. The row survives only in this form: *the Theravāda sub-commentary's answer to \"what is between minimal units?\" has the shape of the answer loop quantum gravity gives, and not the shape of the answer an earlier Indian school gave.* The paper does not refute the generic reading. It claims no more than that.\n\n**The same counter-argument, run on the ratio row (§5.3).** Against it: every discrete clock counts steps, so \"a duration is a count\" is not specific to causal sets. The causal-set-specific features are three: proper time is the length of the **longest** chain, whichever chain that is; the relation between chain length and proper time is **statistical**, holding on average over a random sprinkling; and there is **no succession apart from the order**, so the counting makes the time. All three are among §5.4's breaks, and §3.4 found that the Abhidhamma's order sits on a time rather than making one. So, as with the adjacency row, the causal-set-specific part is the part that fails, and what holds is generic: a duration stated as a count of steps along a given succession. The row survives only in that form.\n\n---\n\n## 10 · What Would Falsify These Findings — Collected\n\n| Row | The finding | Falsified by |\n|---|---|---|\n| 1 Order | the earlier→later sub-relation S, over condition-modes, is acyclic (by selection); a strict order, not yet a causal set, can be read over it; the rest is extra typing | a member of S with the conditioned arising at or before the condition, in any layer; cross-moment kamma with a present or future relatum; an asserted temporal order S cannot connect (for example, between two streams) |\n| 2–3 Adjacency | both put the unit of spatial boundary at the adjacency between minimal units, and neither makes it a unit; the shared part is generic | a text making delimiting matter a kalāpa constituent, or placing space inside a cluster; a formulation of loop quantum gravity in which area between adjacent grains is not carried by their adjacency; a reading of the *Vibhāvinī*'s space as mere absence (partly engaged, §4.7) |\n| 4 Ratio | one clock and a multiplier; only the generic part survives, a duration as a count of steps along a given succession | a text timing matter independently of mind-moments; seventeen shown to be observed rather than derived |\n| The dropped row | *saṅkhāra* ↔ quantum causal histories adds no structure | a structural feature of quantum causal histories with a *Paṭṭhāna* counterpart not already in rows 1–4 |\n\n---\n\n## 11 · Stake, and What Was and Was Not Done\n\n**The authors' stake.** The authors write from within the Theravāda. The institution publishing this paper grounds its values in the Pāli canon, has ruled the Theravāda reading of space over the Sarvāstivāda one, and uses the word *space* on an organisational map of its own. Nothing in this paper bears on that map, and the ruling was made so that the map would not borrow a predicate it should not have. There is a pull, for authors in this position, to see the tradition anticipate frontier physics. The founder's own question began as a hope that the Abhidhamma might hold the bridge between the discrete and the smooth. **The pull was acted on, and caught in several places.** The lens had five rows. An adversarial review run before any prose dropped one of them, treated rows 2 and 3 together, narrowed the order row, and removed a condition (*pakatūpanissaya*) from the surviving sub-relation. A later round of outside review, answered in this revision, caught the same pull in places the first review missed: summaries that dropped the qualifications their own sections carried, and a closing sentence that restored an identification §9 had withdrawn. The sibling paper's first framing made the same kind of error in the other direction and was reversed before drafting. The reversals are part of the result.\n\n**Done:**\n- The *Dhammasaṅgaṇī* (§637), the *Vibhaṅga* (space element), the *Kathāvatthu* (VI.6, §460–462; VI.7, §463–464) and its commentary, the *Visuddhimagga* (ch. XIV, ¶442; the kalāpa passages), the *Sammohavinodanī* (the size ladder; the finger-snap), the *Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha* (chs. 3, 4, 6, 8) and the *Abhidhammatthavibhāvinī-ṭīkā* (on chs. 3, 4, 6, 8), all read in the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana edition;\n- the *Abhidharmakośabhāṣya* ad I.43 read in the GRETIL Sanskrit (after Pradhan);\n- Rovelli's Zakopane lectures, the Rovelli–Upadhya primer, Markopoulou (2000) and Hawkins–Markopoulou–Sahlmann (2003) read in full; Sorkin (2007) and Dowker (2022/2023) read in full for the sibling paper;\n- the census run as described;\n- in the 2026-09-28 revision: Karunadasa (1967, chs. 5 and 7) and Bodhi (1993, the introduction and chs. VI and VIII) read for the passages cited; U Nārada (1969) consulted only for its treatment of the conditions' modes; the *Abhidharmakośabhāṣya* ad I.28 and II.22 read in the GRETIL Sanskrit; the *Paṭṭhāna* searched as described under *Not done*.\n\n**Not done:**\n- **The *Paṭṭhāna* itself was not read in full.** The conditions are characterised here through the manual and the sub-commentary. In this revision the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana *Paṭṭhāna* was searched for specific passages only: kamma across moments (*Kusalattika* §427), and the modes of presence, dissociation and support. A canonical-layer check of row 1, including whether the *Paṭṭhāna* anywhere composes two conditions, is owed; U Nārada's translation (1969) is the route.\n- The *Vibhaṅga Mūlaṭīkā*, to which the edition's cross-reference points, was not read. The dissent on the presence sub-moment is known only as the *Vibhāvinī* reports it.\n- Von Rospatt (1995) was not reached, and Casati and Varzi (1999) was cited through Varzi's survey, not read.\n- The later commentarial and modern literature on kalāpas (in Burmese, Thai and Sinhala traditions) was not read.\n- Vasubandhu's *Viṃśikā* critique of partless atoms, and Aristotle's *Physics* IV, were cited from standard knowledge and not re-read for this paper.\n- No physics was calculated, and no physicist has reviewed the primers. They were checked against the cited sources only.\n- The census was quick and English-only. The full census has not been run.\n\n---\n\n## 12 · Honest Limits\n\n- **This is a lens.** No row predicts a measurement, and no row can. The comparison is of formal shapes, and shared shape is not evidence of shared subject matter (§8).\n- **Two of the four rows are weak by their own account.** The grain row survives only as a presupposition of the boundary row. The ratio row is a definition, not a finding.\n- **The strongest row lives at a late layer.** The adjacency correspondence holds for the sub-commentary (c. 12th century), not for the canon, whose space is a cavity.\n- **The physics is secondary, and simplified.** The primers state standard results and cite their sources. They omit the dynamics of both theories, which are unsettled, and the area formula is given for transversal crossings only.\n- **Rows 2 and 3 presuppose three things the physics does not settle.** The area spectrum used is the **kinematical** one; whether it survives the imposition of the constraints is disputed. Definite adjacency holds only for a **spin-network basis state on a fixed graph**; a general state superposes graphs. And the grains-and-faces picture is the **semiclassical** polyhedral reading, least trustworthy at the small spins where the smallest area sits.\n- **Row 1 is not a causal set.** S is acyclic by selection, its transitive closure is the reader's construction, its local finiteness is unexamined, it alone conditions no arising, and it orders moments only within a stream, joined across streams by an index no text defines (§3.4).\n- **Translations are the authors'.** Where a Pāli or Sanskrit term has a contested rendering (*anipphanna*, *kālavimutta*, *ākāsakoṭṭhāsika*), the rendering chosen is a reading, not a settled equivalence.\n- **Edition.** Paragraph numbers follow the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana edition. The Pali Text Society's numbering differs; passages should be located by title and quotation.\n- **The census aperture was narrow.** Buddhism-and-physics comparison is a large, poorly indexed literature, much of it in books and in languages not searched. Absence from the search is weak evidence.\n\n---\n\n## 13 · Close\n\nThe *Kathāvatthu* commentary gives a small example. A person looks at two trees. The eye sees the trees. The mind, finding no matter between them, knows \"space\". Loop quantum gravity, asked where the space is between two grains, also answers *between*, and puts a number on it, which the text does not. The shared part is the generic one (§9). The two answers share that shape and have two subjects. This paper records the shape and marks the boundary between the subjects, which, as in the text it reads, belongs to neither side.\n\n---\n\n## Cross-Venue References\n\n| Venue | Identifier |\n|---|---|\n| Primary canonical | <https://thonly.org/research/abhidhamma-and-discrete-quantum-gravity> |\n| GitHub | <https://github.com/thonly/publications/blob/main/defensive-publications/abhidhamma-and-discrete-quantum-gravity.md> |\n| Sibling paper | <https://thonly.org/research/the-vibhajjavadin-view-of-time> |\n| Census pre-registration (public) | `thonly/publications` commit `7348ba2`, `timestamps/census/physics-lens-prereg.md` |\n\n---\n\n## Acknowledgments\n\nThe authors thank the Vipassana Research Institute for the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana texts; the GRETIL project and the editors of its *Abhidharmakośabhāṣya* e-text; and the physicists whose lectures and primers are written to be read by people outside the field. The reading of the sources, the adversarial review and the drafting were done with Miss Aquarius, the name under which this institution discloses its AI collaboration.\n\n---\n\n## Citations\n\n**Physics**\n\n1. Bombelli, L., Lee, J., Meyer, D. & Sorkin, R.D. (1987). \"Space-time as a causal set.\" *Physical Review Letters* 59: 521.\n2. Brightwell, G. & Gregory, R. (1991). \"Structure of random discrete spacetime.\" *Physical Review Letters* 66(3): 260–263.\n3. Rideout, D.P. & Sorkin, R.D. (2000). \"A classical sequential growth dynamics for causal sets.\" *Physical Review D* 61: 024002. arXiv:gr-qc/9904062.\n4. Sorkin, R.D. (2007). \"Relativity theory does not imply that the future already exists: a counterexample.\" In V. Petkov (ed.), *Relativity and the Dimensionality of the World*, Springer. arXiv:gr-qc/0703098.\n5. Dowker, F. (2022/2023). \"Causal Set Quantum Gravity and the Hard Problem of Consciousness.\" arXiv:2209.07653.\n6. Wüthrich, C. & Callender, C. (2017). \"What Becomes of a Causal Set?\" *British Journal for the Philosophy of Science* 68(3): 907–925. arXiv:1502.00018.\n7. Rovelli, C. & Smolin, L. (1995). \"Discreteness of area and volume in quantum gravity.\" *Nuclear Physics B* 442: 593–622; erratum B456: 753. arXiv:gr-qc/9411005.\n8. Ashtekar, A. & Lewandowski, J. (1997). \"Quantum theory of geometry I: Area operators.\" *Classical and Quantum Gravity* 14: A55–A82. arXiv:gr-qc/9602046.\n9. Loll, R. (1996). \"Spectrum of the volume operator in quantum gravity.\" *Nuclear Physics B* 460: 143–154. arXiv:gr-qc/9511030.\n10. Rovelli, C. & Upadhya, P. (1998). \"Loop quantum gravity and quanta of space: a primer.\" arXiv:gr-qc/9806079.\n11. Rovelli, C. (2011). \"Zakopane lectures on loop gravity.\" arXiv:1102.3660.\n12. Bianchi, E., Doná, P. & Speziale, S. (2011). \"Polyhedra in loop quantum gravity.\" *Physical Review D* 83: 044035. arXiv:1009.3402.\n13. Markopoulou, F. & Smolin, L. (1997). \"Causal evolution of spin networks.\" *Nuclear Physics B* 508: 409–430. arXiv:gr-qc/9702025.\n14. Markopoulou, F. (2000). \"Quantum causal histories.\" *Classical and Quantum Gravity* 17: 2059–2072. arXiv:hep-th/9904009.\n15. Hawkins, E., Markopoulou, F. & Sahlmann, H. (2003). \"Evolution in quantum causal histories.\" *Classical and Quantum Gravity* 20: 3839. arXiv:hep-th/0302111.\n16. Rovelli, C. (2021). *Helgoland*. Riverhead / Allen Lane (Italian ed. Adelphi, 2020). Chapter on Nāgārjuna.\n17. Hawking, S.W., King, A.R. & McCarthy, P.J. (1976). \"A new topology for curved space–time which incorporates the causal, differential, and conformal structures.\" *Journal of Mathematical Physics* 17(2): 174–181.\n18. Malament, D.B. (1977). \"The class of continuous timelike curves determines the topology of spacetime.\" *Journal of Mathematical Physics* 18(7): 1399–1404.\n19. Regge, T. (1961). \"General relativity without coordinates.\" *Il Nuovo Cimento* 19: 558–571.\n20. Domagala, M. & Lewandowski, J. (2004). \"Black-hole entropy from quantum geometry.\" *Classical and Quantum Gravity* 21: 5233–5244. arXiv:gr-qc/0407051.\n21. Meissner, K.A. (2004). \"Black-hole entropy in loop quantum gravity.\" *Classical and Quantum Gravity* 21: 5245–5252. arXiv:gr-qc/0407052.\n22. Ghosh, A. & Mitra, P. (2005). \"An improved estimate of black hole entropy in the quantum geometry approach.\" *Physics Letters B* 616: 114.\n\n**Pāli and Sanskrit sources** (Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana edition, VRI `tipitaka-xml`, unless noted)\n\n23. *Dhammasaṅgaṇī* §637 (`abh01m.mul`).\n24. *Vibhaṅga*, *Dhātuvibhaṅga*, the space element (`abh02m.mul`).\n25. *Kathāvatthu* VI.6 *Ākāsakathā*, §460–462; VI.7, §463 (`abh03m3.mul`).\n26. *Kathāvatthu-aṭṭhakathā* on VI.6–7 (`abh03a.att`).\n27. Buddhaghosa. *Visuddhimagga* ch. XIV, ¶442 (the space element), and the kalāpa passages of the second volume (`e0101n.mul`, `e0102n.mul`).\n28. *Sammohavinodanī* (*Vibhaṅga-aṭṭhakathā*): the size ladder (gloss on *aṇumattesu vajjesu*); the finger-snap figure for feeling (`abh02a.att`).\n29. Anuruddha. *Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha* chs. 3, 4, 6, 8 (`abh07t`, bound with the sub-commentary).\n30. Sumaṅgala. *Abhidhammatthavibhāvinī-ṭīkā* on chs. 3, 4, 6, 8 (`abh07t`).\n31. Vasubandhu. *Abhidharmakośabhāṣya* ad I.5, I.28, I.43 and II.22, ed. P. Pradhan (2nd ed., 1975), pp. 32–33 for I.43; GRETIL e-text (line references in square brackets are GRETIL's page|line).\n32. *Paṭṭhāna*, *Kusalattika*, *pañhāvāra* (`abh03m7.mul`): §427 (kamma across moments); the modes of the presence, dissociation and support conditions.\n\n**Other neighbours**\n\n33. Ly, T. & Miss Aquarius (2026). \"Causal Set Theory, the Growing Block, and the Buddhist Debate on the Three Times.\" <https://thonly.org/research/the-vibhajjavadin-view-of-time>.\n34. *The Ephemeral Projector — A Comparative Analysis of Quantum Mechanics and Abhidhamma.* ResearchGate 397427972.\n35. \"Causal Set Theory and Abhidhamma: A Dialogue…\", ekasiswanto.wordpress.com, 2026-07-31 (self-labelled AI-generated).\n36. \"Kalapa (atomism).\" Grokipedia and Wikipedia, read 2026-09-27.\n37. Capra, F. (1975). *The Tao of Physics*. Shambhala.\n38. Aristotle. *Physics* IV.4 (place as the innermost boundary of the container).\n39. Vasubandhu. *Viṃśikā*, vv. 11–14 (the critique of partless atoms). Not re-read for this paper.\n40. Cousins, L.S. (2001). \"On the Vibhajjavādins: The Mahiṃsāsaka, Dhammaguttaka, Kassapiya and Tambapaṇṇiya branches of the ancient Theriyas.\" *Buddhist Studies Review* 18(2): 131–182.\n41. Karunadasa, Y. (1967). *Buddhist Analysis of Matter*. Colombo: Department of Cultural Affairs. (Chs. 5 and 7 read for this revision.)\n42. Bodhi, Bhikkhu (gen. ed.) (1993). *A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma: The Abhidhammattha Sangaha of Ācariya Anuruddha*. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society.\n43. Nārada, U (Mūlapaṭṭhāna Sayadaw), assisted by Thein Nyun (1969). *Conditional Relations (Paṭṭhāna)*, vol. I. Pali Text Society Translation Series 37. London: Luzac for the PTS.\n44. von Rospatt, A. (1995). *The Buddhist Doctrine of Momentariness: A Survey of the Origins and Early Phase of this Doctrine up to Vasubandhu*. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. (Bibliographic record only; not reached.)\n45. Varzi, A. \"Boundary.\" *Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy* (read 2026-09-28).\n46. Casati, R. & Varzi, A. (1999). *Parts and Places: The Structures of Spatial Representation*. MIT Press, ch. 5. (Cited through Varzi's survey; not read.)",
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+ "text": "## Abstract\n\nThis paper compares, as structures, three things in two discrete theories of spacetime with three things in the Theravāda Abhidhamma. The theories are causal set theory and loop quantum gravity. The three things are **order**, **adjacency** and **ratio**. It is a lens and not a physics claim. No row predicts anything, and none says that a Buddhist text anticipated a theory of quantum gravity. For each row, a plain primer of the physics comes first, then the Abhidhamma material with its textual layer named in words, then the correspondence, and then the point where it breaks.\n\nFour rows survive an adversarial review run before drafting. A fifth was cut.\n\n1. **Order.** The *Paṭṭhāna*'s twenty-four conditions are **not** a partial order as a whole. Mutuality is symmetric. Co-nascence relates what a causal set leaves unrelated. Post-nascence runs backward. The object condition reaches the future and the time-free. What survives is a sub-relation defined over condition-*modes*, not whole conditions: the modes that always run from earlier-arising to later-arising (the five past-time conditions, pre-nascence, kamma across moments, and the pre-nascent modes of support, faculty, dissociation, presence and non-disappearance). They form an acyclic typed relation over which a strict order can be read, but not yet a causal set: the acyclicity comes from selecting the modes by an index of arising time. The remaining modes and conditions are typed structure that causal sets lack. Across streams there is no shared clock, but there is order, and S carries some of it: a past volition conditions its own kamma-born colour, which another stream sees (§3.4).\n2. **Grain and 3. boundary** (treated together as the adjacency row, the strongest). In loop quantum gravity, a spin-network link is the face two neighbouring grains of space share, and it carries a quantised area. In the Abhidhamma's sub-commentary, space is the non-mixing of touching neighbouring material groups (*kalāpa*), \"the limit of matter\", untouched by what it bounds. Both put the unit of spatial boundary at the adjacency between minimal units, and neither makes it one of the units. The tradition says why the between is matter's alone: mind has no shape (§4.5). The row breaks in stated places: the dependence runs in opposite directions; the link is incident to both grains, while the delimiter is touched by neither; the Abhidhamma boundary is assigned no magnitude and is not an ultimate reality; kalāpas are matter in space while spin-network nodes are quanta of space; and the canonical layer's space is a cavity, not a boundary. The part that holds is the generic part (§9).\n4. **Ratio.** In the commentary and the manual, most material phenomena last 17 mind-moments (51 sub-moments); the tradition also records sixteen and a third, and sixteen. Where a stream of mind is present, the commentary dates its matter on that stream's own mind-moments without making mind the matter's condition. Where none is present, as in the mindless beings (*asaññasatta*), no text counts matter in mind-moments; their material series is timed in aeons, and the aeon (*kappa*) meets the mind-moment only as divergence. What survives of the causal-set comparison is generic: a duration stated as a count of steps. A per-kalāpa count taken as the same in every frame would conflict with muon time dilation, but the texts state no such count. They name the finger-snap without timing it, and give the rate of mind as round lower bounds in four works.\n\nThe dropped row, *saṅkhāra* (the conditioned as a whole) against quantum causal histories, is reported along with the reason it was dropped.\n\n**Keywords:** causal set theory, loop quantum gravity, spin networks, area spectrum, quanta of space, partial order, Hasse diagram, discrete spacetime, relational space, Buddhist philosophy of space, Abhidhamma, Paṭṭhāna, kalāpa, paricchedarūpa, ākāsadhātu, Theravāda, Abhidharmakośa, momentariness, asaññasatta, time dilation, muon lifetime, cosmic time, preorder, Lean 4, formal verification.\n\n---\n\n## How to Read This Paper\n\nThis paper is written so that a reader who knows calculus, but no linear algebra, quantum mechanics or general relativity, can follow every step. Each physics section opens with a subsection marked **Physics primer**, which builds the idea from nothing. A reader who already knows the physics can skip those subsections. Everything else is written for the exhaustive reader: the Pāli is quoted, the textual layer of every Abhidhamma claim is named in words, and every correspondence ends with the place where it fails.\n\nFormulas are written in plain Unicode. Display formulas sit in monospace blocks. Where a formula is quoted, the source that derives it is cited.\n\n**Four textual layers are kept apart throughout**, with a grammar and a modern exegete used for single points. They are named in words at each use, and every Pāli passage added in the 2026-09-30 revision is cited by its Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana file and line (for example `abh07t.nrf.xml:1485`) in the VRI `tipitaka-xml` text at commit `05d5d3c`:\n\n| Layer | Texts used here | Date (traditional or scholarly) |\n|---|---|---|\n| **canon** | *Dhammasaṅgaṇī*, *Vibhaṅga*, *Dhātukathā*, *Kathāvatthu*, *Paṭṭhāna* (Abhidhamma Piṭaka); for §5 also the *Brahmajāla Sutta* (DN 1), the *Saṃyutta*'s chapter on the beginningless round (SN 15), and the *Milindapañha*, canonical in this edition only | compiled over the last centuries BCE; the *Kathāvatthu* is traditionally dated to the Third Council |\n| **commentary** | *Visuddhimagga*, *Sammohavinodanī* (*Vibhaṅga* commentary), *Atthasālinī* (*Dhammasaṅgaṇī* commentary), the *Kathāvatthu* and *Paṭṭhāna* commentaries; for §5 also the commentaries on the *Dīgha*, *Saṃyutta*, *Aṅguttara* and *Suttanipāta* | c. 5th century CE |\n| **manual** | *Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha* (Anuruddha) | variously dated; commonly c. 11th–12th century |\n| **sub-commentary** | *Abhidhammatthavibhāvinī-ṭīkā* (Sumaṅgala); also the *Mūlaṭīkā* on the *Vibhaṅga* and on the *Paṭṭhāna* with their *Anuṭīkā*s, the *Dhammasaṅgaṇī Anuṭīkā*, the *Dīgha* and *Aṅguttara* sub-commentaries and the *Sāratthadīpanī* (on the Vinaya) | c. 12th century for the *Vibhāvinī*; the *Mūlaṭīkā* is earlier, since the *Vibhāvinī* names its author (*Mūlaṭīkākārādayo*, `abh07t.nrf.xml:5553`) |\n| **grammar** | *Payogasiddhi*, a Pāli grammar, used in §5.2 for one unit only | medieval |\n| **modern exegesis** | Ledi Sayadaw, *Paramatthadīpanī* (on the manual) and *Paṭṭhānuddesa-dīpanī* | c. 1900 |\n\nA claim that holds only at a later layer is not a claim about the canon. Several rows below live, or die, on exactly that distinction.\n\n---\n\n## Terms\n\n| Term as the tradition writes it | Standard term used in this paper | Layer where it is defined |\n|---|---|---|\n| *paccaya*; *Paṭṭhāna* | condition; the canonical treatise on the 24 conditioning relations | canon (summarised in the manual, ch. 8) |\n| *anantara*, *samanantara* | proximity, contiguity (immediate succession of mind-moments) | canon |\n| *āsevana* | repetition | canon |\n| *natthi*, *vigata* | absence, disappearance | canon |\n| *sahajāta* | co-nascence (arising together) | canon |\n| *aññamañña* | mutuality | canon |\n| *purejāta* | pre-nascence (the condition arose earlier and still exists) | canon |\n| *pacchājāta* | post-nascence (the condition arises later than what it supports) | canon |\n| *sahajāta-*, *purejāta-*, *pacchājāta-* modes of *nissaya*, *indriya*, *vippayutta*, *atthi*, *avigata* | the co-nascent, pre-nascent and post-nascent modes (sub-types) of support, faculty, dissociation, presence and non-disappearance | canon (e.g. *Paṭṭhāna*: *atthipaccayena paccayo – sahajātaṃ, purejātaṃ …*); grouped in the manual, ch. 8 |\n| *kamma* (*nānākkhaṇika*) | volitional action (across different moments) | canon (*Paṭṭhāna*, e.g. *Kusalattika* §427: *nānākkhaṇikā – kusalā cetanā vipākānaṃ khandhānaṃ …*); the time classification is sub-commentarial |\n| *ārammaṇa* | object condition | canon |\n| *upanissaya*, *pakatūpanissaya* | decisive support; natural decisive support | canon |\n| *citta*, *cittakkhaṇa* | a moment of consciousness; a mind-moment | canon; the durations are commentarial |\n| *uppāda*, *ṭhiti*, *bhaṅga* | arising, presence, dissolution (the three sub-moments) | commentary and manual |\n| *rūpa-kalāpa* | smallest material cluster | commentary; systematised in the manual |\n| *suddhaṭṭhaka* | the \"pure octad\" (four great elements, colour, odour, taste, nutritive essence) | commentary and manual |\n| *ākāsadhātu* | the space element | canon |\n| *paricchedarūpa* | delimiting matter (space as the delimitation of material clusters) | manual and sub-commentary |\n| *anipphanna* | not concretely produced; having no intrinsic nature of its own | commentary (*Visuddhimagga*, *Sammohavinodanī*); manual |\n| *padaṭṭhāna* | proximate cause | commentary |\n| *paramāṇu* | the smallest unit on the commentarial size ladder | commentary |\n| *kālavimutta* | free of time (said of nibbāna and concepts) | manual; glossed in the sub-commentary |\n| *saṅkhāra*, *saṅkhata*, *asaṅkhata* | the conditioned; conditioned; unconditioned | canon |\n| *sampayutta*; *ekuppādanirodha* | conjoined (mind with its mental factors); one in arising and ceasing | canon; the formula is the manual's (ch. 2 §1) |\n| *asaññasatta*, *asaññābhava* | non-percipient (mindless) beings; non-percipient existence, of one aggregate (matter) only | canon (DN 1; *Vibhaṅga*; *Dhātukathā*; *Kathāvatthu* III.11); commentary; manual |\n| *indriyabaddha*, *anindriyabaddha* | bound to faculties (in a living body); bound to no being | commentary (*Atthasālinī*) |\n| *utusamuṭṭhāna rūpa* | temperature-born matter, produced by the fire element inside and outside beings | manual (ch. 6) |\n| *kappa* | aeon, world-cycle | canon (SN 15) |\n| *accharāsaṅghāta*; *mattā* | a finger-snap; a mora (the time of a short vowel) | commentary; grammar |\n| *santati*, *santāna* | series, continuity (of material or mental phenomena) | commentary |\n| *saṇṭhāna* | shape (had by matter, lacked by mind) | commentary (*Paṭṭhāna*); sub-commentary |\n\n---\n\n## Findings disclosed\n\nThis paper is a study. It discloses no mechanism, so it carries findings and not claims. Each finding is stated in its surviving form, after the scope repairs of the 2026-09-28 and 2026-09-30 revisions, with its break beside it. The falsifiers are collected in §10.\n\n1. **Order (§3.3–§3.4).** The *Paṭṭhāna*'s twenty-four conditions, taken whole, are not a partial order: mutuality makes 2-cycles, co-nascence relates what a causal order leaves unrelated, post-nascence runs from later to earlier, and the object condition reaches the future and the time-free. The condition-*modes* that always run from earlier-arising to later-arising form a relation *S* (proximity, contiguity, repetition, absence, disappearance, pre-nascence, kamma across moments, and the pre-nascent modes of support, faculty, dissociation, presence and non-disappearance), over which a strict order can be read. *S* also orders moments of different streams, with no shared clock, through kamma-born colour seen by another stream; mind-born colour gives a second route through a co-nascent edge outside *S*, and that route too is strict. **Break:** *S* is acyclic because it was selected by an index of arising time; its closure, and every cross-stream composition, is the reader's; local finiteness is unexamined; and *S* alone conditions no arising. So *S* is not a causal set.\n2. **Adjacency (§4.5, narrowed by §9).** Loop quantum gravity and the Theravāda sub-commentary both put the unit of spatial boundary at the adjacency between minimal units, and neither makes that boundary one of the units. On *what is between minimal units?*, the *Vibhāvinī*'s answer (a named, counted item of the material list, though not an ultimate reality) has the shape of loop quantum gravity's (a link), not the Kashmiri Sarvāstivāda's (*nothing*). The tradition gives its own reason why the between is matter's alone: mind has no shape. **Break:** the parts of the match specific to loop quantum gravity (a quantised magnitude on the boundary, volume derived from it) are the parts that fail. The dependence runs in opposite directions; the link is incident to both grains, the delimiter touched by neither; the delimiter has no magnitude and is not an ultimate reality; kalāpas are matter in space, nodes quanta of space; the canonical space element is a cavity. The shape that holds is also held by any cellular picture and by the \"neither\" view of boundaries (§9), and the matter–mind asymmetry is the chain-against-antichain shape.\n3. **Ratio (§5.3, narrowed by §9).** Material phenomena other than the two intimations and the characteristics last seventeen mind-moments (fifty-one sub-moments) in the commentary and the manual; the tradition also records sixteen and a third, and sixteen (§5.2). Where a stream is present, the commentary dates its mind-born and kamma-born matter on its own mind-moments without making mind that matter's condition. Where none is present, no text counts matter in mind-moments: the mindless beings' material series is timed by kamma's momentum in aeons, and a sub-commentary makes the mind-moment a unit. What survives of the comparison is generic: a duration is a count of steps. **Break:** every discrete clock shares that much; the longest chain and the statistics fail, and whether a stream's order makes its time is left open (§3.4). A per-kalāpa count taken as the same in every frame would conflict with muon time dilation, but the texts state none, and let a series' duration vary (§5.4). The aeon meets the mind-moment only as divergence.\n4. **The dropped row (§6).** *Saṅkhāra* (the conditioned as a whole) set against quantum causal histories adds no structure beyond findings 1–3, and it maps a category that contains mind onto a structure that contains none. **Break:** the row would return if a structural feature of quantum causal histories were shown to have a *Paṭṭhāna* counterpart not already in findings 1–3.\n5. **The scale of the mind-moment (§5.2).** The texts name the finger-snap, the unit of their rate of mind, by a gesture and, in a grammar, as a mora or an eye-blink, without giving it a duration. They state the rate as round lower bounds in four works, of 10¹², 10¹⁰ and 10⁷ mind-moments per snap or more, and as a heap of rice grains; none states a ceiling. **Break:** any figure in seconds is the reader's conversion. The texts deny discernment of the succession to the reasoner and to \"others\", not to the wise or the Buddha. A text giving the snap a duration, or the rate an upper bound, would change this finding.\n\n---\n\n## Prior Art and Non-Assertion Statement\n\nThis document is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0. **The authors and HeartBank® will not seek patent** on anything herein. Nothing here is a mechanism. The paper is a study, and its disclosures are the numbered findings under *Findings disclosed* above, each with its break stated beside it.\n\n**What is already public, and cited rather than claimed:**\n\n- **Causal-set becoming linked to a Buddhist school.** Rafael Sorkin, a founder of causal set theory, remarked in 2007 that the \"accretive time\" of his growth models \"seems close to that … of the 'Vibhajavadin' school within the Buddhist philosophical tradition\". Fay Dowker quoted the remark in 2022 and invited a scholar to examine the earliest records. This institution's sibling paper, *the-vibhajjavadin-view-of-time*, answers that invitation: the Pāli Vibhajjavāda is presentist, and so is the **foil** of causal-set growth, not its twin. This paper does not revisit that finding and does not contradict it.\n- **Causal sets as the discrete theory of order.** Bombelli, Lee, Meyer and Sorkin (1987); Rideout and Sorkin (2000) on sequential growth; Wüthrich and Callender (2017) on what kind of becoming a causal set allows.\n- **Quanta of space and the discrete area spectrum.** Rovelli and Smolin (1995); Ashtekar and Lewandowski (1997); Rovelli and Upadhya's primer (1998); Rovelli's Zakopane lectures (2011); Bianchi, Doná and Speziale (2011) on spin-network nodes as polyhedra.\n- **Syntheses of order and spin networks.** Markopoulou and Smolin (1997); Markopoulou (2000), *quantum causal histories*; Hawkins, Markopoulou and Sahlmann (2003).\n- **Time dilation of moving lifetimes, measured.** Rossi and Hall (1941), on the decay of cosmic-ray mesotrons (muons) by momentum; Bailey et al. (1977), on muons circulating in the CERN storage ring. §5.4 uses both against one reading of the seventeen-moment lifetime.\n- **This institution's own earlier work, cited rather than repeated.** The paper *Twenty-Four Kinds of Because* (§4.7) finds that no *Paṭṭhāna* condition joins two mental continua and that two people have no shared clock; §3.4 below narrows that from the other side, since no shared clock is not no order. The Lean 4 repository `SiliconWat/formal-abhidhamma` (CC0; software concept DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23067241) holds the machine check cited in §4.5 and the run that supplied three of §5.2's four lower bounds.\n- **Why the between is matter's and not mind's.** The *Paṭṭhāna* commentary and sub-commentaries give the reason (mind has no shape), and Ledi Sayadaw's *Paṭṭhānuddesa-dīpanī* (c. 1900) states the contrast outright (§4.5). This paper claims nothing in it.\n- **Buddhism read against physics in general.** Carlo Rovelli's *Helgoland* (2021) reads relational quantum mechanics beside Nāgārjuna. Popular and scholarly comparisons of Abhidhamma momentariness with quantum physics exist, among them *The Ephemeral Projector* (ResearchGate). A 2026-07-31 blog post, self-labelled AI-generated and without citations, compares causal set theory and the Abhidhamma in general terms (ekasiswanto.wordpress.com). The Grokipedia article \"Kalapa (atomism)\" compares the kalāpa's size to the Planck length. The Wikipedia article of the same name, read on the date of writing, does not.\n- **The scholarly expositions of the Abhidhamma material this paper reads.** None of these compares the material with physics. Each already expounds a textual point the rows depend on.\n - Y. Karunadasa, *Buddhist Analysis of Matter* (1967), chs. 5 and 7. It reads the space element as cavities and interstices, \"bounded or delimited space\", with *pariccheda* meaning both what delimits and what is delimited. It sets the Theravāda space element beside the Vaibhāṣika pair (unconditioned *ākāśa*; the conditioned *ākāśadhātu* of door, window, mouth and nose). It reports the *Kathāvatthu*'s two-trees argument. And it explains pre-nascence and post-nascence by the longer duration of matter than of mind. ⚠️ **It cuts against the adjacency row in one respect.** On its reading, the later scholiasts' classing of the space element as *anipphanna* means that it is \"neither *rūpa* … nor a *dhamma* … in the true sense\", \"nothing but the mere limitation of matter\". §4.4 and §4.6 carry this.\n - Bhikkhu Bodhi (gen. ed.), *A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma* (1993), ch. VI and ch. VIII. It sets out the sub-types (modes) of each condition, among them base-prenascence support, prenascence faculty (the five sensitivities, \"arisen at the static phase of the past bhavaṅga citta\"), and the prenascent and postnascent types of dissociation, presence and non-disappearance. It also states that non-concretely produced matter, the space element included, is \"not included among the ultimate realities\". Its introduction dates the seventeen-moment lifetime of matter, the three sub-moments and the kalāpa to the commentaries.\n - U Nārada Mūlapaṭṭhāna Sayadaw (with Thein Nyun), *Conditional Relations* (*Paṭṭhāna*), vol. I (PTS Translation Series 37, 1969). An English translation of the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana *Paṭṭhāna* with an introduction and charts that work through each condition's modes (for example, \"base-prenascence-dependence\"). It is the route for the canonical-layer check of row 1 that §11 lists as owed.\n - Alexander von Rospatt, *The Buddhist Doctrine of Momentariness: A Survey of the Origins and Early Phase of this Doctrine up to Vasubandhu* (1995). The standard study of the doctrine of moments. **Cited by its bibliographic record only: it was not reached for this revision**, so the paper does not characterise what it says about the seventeen-moment lifetime.\n- **The Indian debate on whether minimal material units touch** (*Abhidharmakośabhāṣya* ad I.43, cross-tradition, §4.3 below). It is the oldest neighbour of the adjacency row and predates every physics comparison by more than a millennium.\n\n**The census.** A quick novelty census ran on 2026-09-27. Its pre-registration was pushed publicly before any query was made: `thonly/publications` commit `7348ba2`, `timestamps/census/physics-lens-prereg.md`. The search covered the English web (including dharma sites and popular Buddhism-and-physics writing), and arXiv, Google Scholar, PhilPapers, GitHub and Google Patents by keyword. Thai, Burmese, Sinhala, Chinese, Japanese and Khmer sources were **not run**, and no books were read. The pre-registered control, the known comparison *The Ephemeral Projector*, was found.\n\n| Conjunct | Found | Verdict |\n|---|---|---|\n| (a) the *Paṭṭhāna*'s typed conditions against causal-set order | a general causal-set–Abhidhamma resonance (the AI-generated post; names no *Paṭṭhāna* condition) | **narrowed** at general width; the typed-relation comparison was not found |\n| (b) kalāpa against spin-network nodes | kalāpas compared with atoms, quanta and the Planck length in popular writing | **narrowed** at \"smallest unit\" width; the spin-network-specific comparison was not found |\n| (c) *paricchedarūpa* (space as the between) against area on spin-network links | the commentarial reading of space as delimitation is public; no comparison with loop quantum gravity | **not found in that aperture on that date** |\n| (d) *saṅkhāra* against quantum causal histories | — | not found; **dropped before drafting** (§6) |\n| (e) the 17-moment lifetime as a discrete-time ratio | Sorkin and Dowker link causal-set becoming to Buddhist momentariness | **narrowed** at general width; the chain-length reading of the ratio was not found |\n| the composition of rows in one structural map | — | **not found in that aperture on that date** |\n\n⛔ \"Not found in that aperture on that date\" is a statement about a search. It is not a claim of priority, and nothing in this paper is offered as new. As a study that makes no priority claim, this paper owes no further census before deposit (ruled 2026-09-28); a literature census could narrow or kill the rows above, and would be reported here as a revision.\n\n---\n\n## 1 · What Kind of Comparison This Is\n\nPhysics has two great theories that do not fit together. General relativity describes gravity as the smooth geometry of spacetime. Quantum theory describes everything else as discrete, probabilistic excitations. A theory of **quantum gravity** would describe what spacetime is at the smallest scale, where both matter. Two of the candidate programmes make spacetime itself discrete:\n\n- **Causal set theory** says spacetime, at bottom, is a set of events and a relation of *before*. Everything else, including distance and dimension, is to be recovered from counting.\n- **Loop quantum gravity** says space, at bottom, is a network of grains whose areas and volumes come in discrete steps.\n\nThe Theravāda Abhidhamma is also a discrete analysis. It resolves experience and matter into momentary phenomena (*dhamma*), connected by twenty-four typed conditioning relations. It gives matter a smallest cluster, and it gives space a definition.\n\nIt is therefore tempting to line the two up. That temptation has a long and mostly poor history, from *The Tao of Physics* onward, and this paper is built to resist it. Every row below is a **structural** comparison: it asks whether two frameworks share a *shape* (an order, an adjacency, a ratio), and it names exactly where the shape stops being shared. The Abhidhamma is an analysis of what can be known in experience. Quantum gravity is a theory of what spacetime is. Whether the two can be compared at all is the strongest objection to this paper, and §8 carries it rather than answering it.\n\n**The map, in one table:**\n\n```\n ROW PHYSICS SIDE ABHIDHAMMA SIDE SURVIVING FORM\n ─────────── ──────────────────────────────────── ───────────────────────────────────── ──────────────────────────────────\n 1 ORDER causal set: a locally finite the Paṭṭhāna's 24 typed conditions only the earlier→later MODES (S) are\n partial order (\"before\") (classified by manual + sub-comm.) acyclic, by selection: a strict order,\n not yet a causal set; S also orders\n across streams (kamma-born colour);\n the rest is typing a causal set lacks\n 2 GRAIN spin-network node: a quantum OF rūpa-kalāpa: smallest material survives only as what row 3\n space, with a volume cluster (matter IN space) presupposes; matter ≠ geometry\n 3 BOUNDARY spin-network link: the face two paricchedarūpa: the non-mixing of both put the unit of spatial\n grains share; carries quantised area touching neighbours; \"limit of matter\" boundary at the ADJACENCY, not in\n a unit (strongest row; the shared\n part is generic; seven breaks)\n 4 RATIO proper time ∝ length of the longest most matter lasts 17 mind-moments dated on a stream's own moments where\n chain between two events (51 sub-moments) there is one, a UNIT where there is\n none; only the generic part survives:\n a duration as a count\n ─ DROPPED ─ quantum causal histories saṅkhāra (the conditioned as a whole) category error; added no structure\n```\n\nRows 2 and 3 are one argument told from two ends, so they share one section (§4).\n\n---\n\n## 2 · A Note on Discreteness\n\nTwo different things are called *discrete* in this paper, and they must not be confused.\n\n- **Object discreteness.** The world is made of separate pieces, like grains of sand. The kalāpa is discrete in this sense, and so are the elements of a causal set.\n- **Spectral discreteness.** A *measured quantity* can take only values from a list with gaps, like the rungs of a ladder rather than a ramp. Loop quantum gravity is discrete in this sense. Rovelli warns explicitly (Zakopane lectures, §I.A) that its discreteness \"is not given by the fact that the grains of space … are discrete objects. Rather, it is given by the fact that the size of each grain is quantized in discrete steps.\"\n\nThe Abhidhamma has object discreteness in abundance: moments, clusters, sub-moments. Its quantities are restricted only as **counts** of discrete units: a duration is a whole number of sub-moments, and a size is a step on a ladder of powers of thirty-six (§4.2). It never quantises a magnitude that is not a count, and that is what spectral discreteness is. In particular, its delimiting space (manual and sub-commentary) is assigned no magnitude at all (§4.6). This single fact limits every row below.\n\n---\n\n## 3 · Row 1 — Order\n\n### 3.1 · Physics primer: partial orders and causal sets\n\n**A relation** is a rule that says, for any two things *x* and *y*, whether *x* stands in it to *y*. \"Is an ancestor of\" is a relation on people. Write it *x* ≺ *y*.\n\n**A partial order** is a relation with two properties:\n\n```\n irreflexive: never x ≺ x (nothing precedes itself)\n transitive: if x ≺ y and y ≺ z, then x ≺ z (ancestors of ancestors are ancestors)\n```\n\nTogether these make it **acyclic**: you can never follow the arrows and return to where you started. It is called *partial* because some pairs are not related either way. Two cousins are neither ancestor of the other.\n\n**A causal set** is a partial order on a set of events, with one more property, **local finiteness**: between any two related events, only finitely many events lie. The relation means \"can causally influence\". In relativity, two events are either causally related (one is in the other's past light cone) or **spacelike**: too far apart in space, for the time between them, for any signal to connect them. In a causal set, spacelike simply means *unrelated*.\n\n**Links and the Hasse diagram.** If *x* ≺ *y* and nothing lies between them, the pair is a **link** (mathematicians say *covering relation*). Drawing only the links, with later events higher, gives the **Hasse diagram**. Every other relation can be recovered by following links upward, since the order is transitive.\n\n```\n e f later events higher\n \\ /\n \\ /\n d only LINKS are drawn;\n / \\ a ≺ d, a ≺ e, a ≺ f, b ≺ e … follow by transitivity\n b c\n \\ / b and c are UNRELATED (spacelike):\n a neither can influence the other\n```\n\n**Order plus number.** Sorkin's slogan for the programme is *order + number = geometry*. Two classical theorems (Hawking, King and McCarthy 1976; Malament 1977) show that, for spacetimes that are past- and future-distinguishing, the causal order fixes the geometry up to a conformal factor, that is, up to a local scale. Causal set theory supplies the missing scale by **counting**. Events are scattered at random (a \"sprinkling\") with, on average, one event per unit of spacetime volume in Planck units, so the number of events in a region measures its volume.\n\n**Time as chain length.** A **chain** is a sequence *x*₁ ≺ *x*₂ ≺ … ≺ *x*ₙ. Between two related events, the length of the **longest** chain grows in proportion to the proper time between them: the time a clock carried from one to the other would read. The result holds asymptotically and in expectation, for random sprinklings into Minkowski space (Brightwell and Gregory 1991). In a causal set, a duration *is* a count of steps. §5 uses exactly this.\n\n**Growth.** In Rideout and Sorkin's sequential-growth models, the causal set is not given all at once. It grows, one element at a time, each new element born to the future of some existing ones. What is born stays. Sorkin reads this as a real becoming, a *growing block*: a past that accumulates and a future that does not yet exist.\n\n### 3.2 · The Abhidhamma side: twenty-four typed relations\n\nThe *Paṭṭhāna*, the last book of the Abhidhamma Piṭaka (canon), analyses how phenomena condition one another under twenty-four named conditions (*paccaya*). The manual (*Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha*, ch. 8) summarises them, and the sub-commentary (the *Vibhāvinī*) classifies each by the **time** its conditioning reaches. On the manual's ch. 8 it states:\n\n> *… anantarasamanantaraāsevananatthivigatavasena pañcannaṃ atītakālikānaṃ, kammapaccayassa atītavattamānavasena dvikālikassa, ārammaṇaadhipatiupanissayapaccayānaṃ tikālikānaṃ, itaresaṃ pannarasannaṃ paccuppannakālikānañca vasena kālattayavanto, nibbānapaññattivasena kālavimuttā ca …*\n>\n> … [things are] possessed of the three times by way of the five belonging to the past (proximity, contiguity, repetition, absence, disappearance), the kamma condition belonging to two times (past and present), the object, predominance and decisive-support conditions belonging to three times, and the remaining fifteen belonging to the present; **and free of time, by way of nibbāna and concepts** …\n\nThe count checks: 5 + 1 + 3 + 15 = 24. The tetrad sorts the conditions by the time their conditioning state may have, and the same sentence then sets the time-free (nibbāna and concepts) beside the three times. So the classification is not exhaustive of what can condition: the object condition, placed among the three-time conditions, also reaches the time-free.\n\nThe remaining fifteen are root (*hetu*), co-nascence, mutuality, support (*nissaya*), pre-nascence, post-nascence, result (*vipāka*), nutriment (*āhāra*), faculty (*indriya*), jhāna, path (*magga*), association (*sampayutta*), dissociation (*vippayutta*), presence (*atthi*) and non-disappearance (*avigata*). \"Belonging to the present\" means the conditioning state exists when the conditioned one does. It does not mean that the two arose together. Pre-nascence belongs to the present because its condition arose earlier and still stands. So \"present\" is not \"co-nascent\", and several of the fifteen have **modes**, which the canon itself names. The *Paṭṭhāna* gives the presence condition as *sahajātaṃ, purejātaṃ, pacchājātaṃ, āhāraṃ, indriyaṃ* (co-nascent, pre-nascent, post-nascent, nutriment, faculty), and the dissociation condition as *sahajātaṃ, purejātaṃ, pacchājātaṃ*. The manual groups the modes (ch. 8, CST §30–§34):\n\n| Condition | Co-nascent mode | Pre-nascent mode (condition arose earlier) | Post-nascent mode |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| support (*nissaya*) | mind with mind, the great elements with derived matter | the six bases for the seven consciousness elements, during the course of existence | — |\n| faculty (*indriya*) | the immaterial faculties for co-nascent mind and matter | the five sensitivities for the five kinds of sense consciousness | — (the material life faculty, for the matter of its own cluster, is a third, separate mode) |\n| dissociation (*vippayutta*) | mind for co-nascent matter; the base at rebirth-linking | the six bases, during the course of existence, *purejātavasena* | later mind for the earlier-arisen body |\n| presence, non-disappearance (*atthi*, *avigata*) | *sahajātaṃ* | *purejātaṃ* | *pacchājātaṃ* (edible food and material life are two further, separate modes) |\n\nThe manual names the pre-nascent mode in words for dissociation, presence and non-disappearance. For support and faculty the pre-nascent reading is the one the canon gives for the base (*vatthu kusalānaṃ khandhānaṃ nissayapaccayena paccayo*) and the one the standard modern exposition gives for the sensitivities (Bodhi 1993, ch. VIII: \"prenascence faculty\"). At rebirth-linking the base arises together with the mind and is co-nascent, which is why the manual limits the pre-nascent mode to the course of existence.\n\nA condition in the Abhidhamma is **typed**. The relation is not just \"*x* conditions *y*\", but \"*x* conditions *y* **as** object\", \"**as** kamma\", \"**as** co-nascent\", and so on. One pair can stand in several types at once.\n\n### 3.3 · The correspondence, and its surviving form\n\n**The whole is not a partial order.** Four features break it:\n\n| Feature | Text (layer) | Why it is not a partial order |\n|---|---|---|\n| **Mutuality** (*aññamañña*) | canon; manual ch. 8 | *x* conditions *y* and *y* conditions *x*: a 2-cycle. A partial order forbids cycles. |\n| **Co-nascence** (*sahajāta*) | canon; manual ch. 8 | relates what arises **together**. A causal order leaves simultaneous, unlinked events *unrelated* (spacelike). |\n| **Post-nascence** (*pacchājāta*) | manual ch. 8: *\"pacchājātā cittacetasikā dhammā purejātassa imassa kāyassa pacchājātavasena\"* — \"later-arisen consciousness and its concomitants [condition] this body, arisen earlier, by way of post-nascence\" | the condition arises **after** what it supports: ordered by arising, the arrow runs backward. |\n| **Object** (*ārammaṇa*) | manual ch. 3: mind-door objects may be *\"paccuppannamatītaṃ anāgataṃ kālavimuttañca\"* (present, past, future, and free of time); the sub-commentary glosses the time-free as *\"nibbānaṃ, paññatti ca\"* (nibbāna and concepts) | a future object conditions a present mind, and a time-free object is in no order at all. |\n\n**The surviving form.** Because several conditions have modes, the surviving relation is defined over condition-**modes**, not over whole conditions. Some modes always run from what arose **earlier** to what arises **later**:\n\n```\n the ACYCLIC SUB-RELATION S (defined over MODES)\n ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────\n anantara, samanantara the moment just ceased → the next moment\n āsevana a moment → the next, as repetition\n natthi, vigata the moment just ceased → the next (by its absence)\n purejāta an earlier-arisen, still-present base or object → a later-arising mind\n kamma (nānākkhaṇika) a past volition → its later result, across many moments\n pre-nascent MODES of the same earlier-arisen bases (and, for faculty, the five\n nissaya, indriya, sensitivities) → the later-arising consciousness, during the\n vippayutta, atthi, course of existence\n avigata\n```\n\nThe co-nascent and post-nascent modes of those five conditions stay out of S, and so does kamma's co-nascent mode.\n\n**Every one of the twenty-four, assigned:**\n\n| Where it goes | Conditions (or modes) |\n|---|---|\n| **in S** (whole condition) | proximity, contiguity, repetition, absence, disappearance, pre-nascence |\n| **in S** (one mode only) | kamma (across moments); support, faculty, dissociation, presence, non-disappearance (pre-nascent modes) |\n| **out**: co-nascent only | root, co-nascence, mutuality, result, jhāna, path, association; the co-nascent modes of kamma, support, faculty, dissociation, presence, non-disappearance, predominance and nutriment |\n| **out**: runs backward | post-nascence; the post-nascent modes of dissociation, presence and non-disappearance |\n| **out**: reaches three times, or the time-free | object, predominance (object mode), decisive support |\n| **out**: not sorted by arising here | nutriment (edible food); faculty and presence (material life), whose relata co-exist in one body without a stated arising order |\n\n**Why S is acyclic (a one-line proof).** Let *t*(*x*) be the moment at which phenomenon *x* arises. For every mode in S, *x* S *y* implies *t*(*x*) < *t*(*y*). Along any chain *x*₁ S *x*₂ S … S *x*ₙ, the arising times strictly increase, so the chain can never return to *x*₁. ⚠️ **This proof shows less than it seems to.** S was *selected* by the condition *t*(*x*) < *t*(*y*), so its acyclicity follows from the selection and is not a finding about the text. A strict order can be read over S, and its transitive closure is a partial order. But the closure is the reader's construction (see the next paragraph), and whether S meets the rest of §3.1's definition is taken up in §3.4.\n\n⚠️ **One condition was removed from S by the adversarial review.** The original list included *pakatūpanissaya* (natural decisive support). The sub-commentary classes decisive support as **tikālika**, reaching all three times (quoted above), and the manual's list of natural decisive supports includes present things (a person, climate, food, lodging). It is therefore not guaranteed to run earlier-to-later, and it is out.\n\n**A second, smaller correspondence: generators, not closure.** The manual and the sub-commentary present the conditions as primitive. Neither says that because *x* conditions *y* and *y* conditions *z*, *x* conditions *z*. Whether the *Paṭṭhāna* itself anywhere composes two conditions into a third is part of the canonical check this paper owes (§11); U Nārada's translation (1969), which works through the *Paṭṭhāna*'s own permutations, is the route for it. On the manual's presentation, the relations are **primitive**, like a causal set presented by its links rather than by its full transitive order. The likeness is partial. Proximity (*anantara*) holds only between immediate successors, so it is link-like in the strict Hasse sense. Kamma across moments, however, spans many intermediate moments and is still primitive, so S is a set of generating relations that is neither the Hasse diagram nor the full order.\n\nThe surviving form of the row, stated once:\n\n> **As the manual and the *Vibhāvinī* classify the *Paṭṭhāna*'s conditions, the condition-modes that always run from earlier-arising to later-arising (proximity, contiguity, repetition, absence, disappearance, pre-nascence, kamma across moments, and the pre-nascent modes of support, faculty, dissociation, presence and non-disappearance) form an acyclic typed relation over which a strict order, but not yet a causal set in §3.1's sense, can be read. The remaining conditions and modes (the co-nascent ones, the post-nascent ones, and the object, predominance and decisive-support conditions that reach all three times) are typed structure that a causal set does not have.**\n\n### 3.4 · Where it breaks\n\n- **Different kinds of order.** Causal sets keep their past: in sequential growth, what is born stays. The Theravāda is **presentist**: only present phenomena exist (the sibling paper, from *Kathāvatthu* §282–§304). S is an order of *conditioning*, not an order of *co-existing* elements. Its earlier relatum has usually ceased by the time the later arises. The sibling paper's phrase is **influence without existence**. So the two orders are not the same kind of thing, and this paper does not say they are.\n- **S is selected by an index the texts do not define.** The proof above uses *t*(*x*), an index of arising moments read off the texts' *earlier-arisen* and *later-arising*, and S is acyclic **because** it was selected by it. The texts make time a designation on phenomena, \"a mere concept\" (*paññattimattako*, *Atthasālinī*, `abh01a.att.xml:3721`), used \"only on the occurrence of phenomena\" (*dhammānaṃ pavattimeva ca upādāya kālavohāro*, *Paṭṭhāna Mūlaṭīkā*, `abh03t.tik.xml:4309`), and define no index across streams. In a causal set there is no time apart from the order. Whether a stream's succession stands to its time in that way, or presupposes one, this paper leaves open; its proof needs *t* either way.\n- **S is not a causal set in §3.1's own sense.** Four gaps remain between S and that definition. (1) Acyclicity follows from the selection by *t*, as noted under the proof. (2) The transitive closure, which a partial order needs, adds exactly the composed relations the texts do not assert, so the closure is the reader's construction. (3) Local finiteness is unexamined: nothing here counts how many phenomena lie between two related ones, and the answer depends on the index *t* again. (4) S alone conditions no arising. Every arising also needs co-nascent conditions, which are outside S, so S is not a sufficient account of how anything comes to be. \"A strict order can be read over S\" is the whole of what survives.\n- **Typing has no counterpart.** A causal set has one relation. The *Paṭṭhāna* has twenty-four, and its analytical power lies in the types. Loop-gravity syntheses add structure (spins, Hilbert spaces) to causal relations, but none of it corresponds to *object*, *predominance* or *kamma*. §6 returns to this.\n- **Mind is inside the relation.** Most *Paṭṭhāna* conditions have mental relata. Nothing in a causal set is mental.\n\n**Order between streams.** The sibling paper *Twenty-Four Kinds of Because* (§4.7) finds that no condition joins two mental continua and that two people have no shared clock. No shared clock is not no order, and S itself carries some. Kamma across moments runs from a past volition to its results, and the canon counts matter among them (*nānākkhaṇikā – kusalā cetanā vipākānaṃ khandhānaṃ kaṭattā ca rūpānaṃ kammapaccayena paccayo*, *Paṭṭhāna*, `abh03m7.mul.xml:6065`; manual ch. 8 §17, `abh07t.nrf.xml:2865`). Kamma-produced matter includes visible form (*rūpaṃ kammassa katattā rūpāyatanaṃ*, *Dhammasaṅgaṇī* §652, `abh01m.mul.xml:5549`), and every kamma-born cluster carries the inseparable eight, colour (*vaṇṇa*) among them (manual ch. 6 §46, §27, `abh07t.nrf.xml:2273`, `:2169`). Colour is a pre-nascent object for the five-door process of whoever sees it (*pañcārammaṇāni ca pañcaviññāṇavīthiyā purejātavasena*, manual ch. 8 §19, `abh07t.nrf.xml:2873`). Both edges are in S. A second route runs through mind-born matter: a mind originates matter by co-nascence (*cittacetasikā dhammā aññamaññaṃ sahajātarūpānañca*, ch. 8 §28, `abh07t.nrf.xml:2909`), at its own arising sub-moment (*Sammohavinodanī*, `abh02a.att.xml:409`), and mind-born octads carry colour too (ch. 6 §47, `abh07t.nrf.xml:2277`).\n\n```\n stream A … a₀ ·········· a₁ ──── a₂ ──── a₃ … proximity (in S)\n │ kamma, across │ co-nascent: arises WITH a₂\n ▼ moments (in S) ▼ (NOT in S)\n matter kamma-born colour mind-born colour each lasts 17 mind-moments\n │ │\n │ pre-nascent object: arose EARLIER, still present (in S)\n ▼ ▼\n stream B … b₁ ──────────────────── b₂ … eye-consciousnesses that see them\n\n t(a₀) < t(colour) < t(b₁): an order ACROSS streams, carried by S alone\n t(a₂) = t(colour) < t(b₂): the same kind of order, through one edge S excludes\n```\n\nThe carrier is the colour, never the bodily intimation, which lasts one mind-moment (§5.2) and is not visible. Three limits apply. (1) Each route is the reader's composition of two edges the texts state separately. (2) The mind-born route lives only in the larger relation of S with the co-nascent modes, whose reflexive-transitive closure is a preorder, not a partial order: mutuality relates co-nascent phenomena both ways (ch. 8 §29, including the base and the resultant mind at rebirth-linking, *paṭisandhikkhaṇe vatthuvipākā aññamaññaṃ*, `abh07t.nrf.xml:2913`). But its cycles all lie inside co-nascent clusters (a mind with its factors, the great elements of one cluster, the base with the resultant mind), none of which spans two streams, and every S edge raises the arising time, so the order it gives between streams is strict. \"Preorder\" describes the whole relation, not its cross-stream part. (3) Neither route makes S a causal set. As a lens only, this is relativity's shape rather than a causal set's: no global clock, yet a causal order between separate places, carried here by matter as there by signals. Nothing here bounds a speed, and the co-nascent cycles have no light-cone counterpart.\n\nCo-nascence also presupposes a simultaneity, of a mind and the matter it originates, that a causal set lacks; a claim that one mind-moment occurs everywhere at once was checked and found no textual basis. For §3.5's third falsifier the result is mixed. S connects the kamma route, but the mind-born pair (*a*₂ before *b*₂) is an order the texts' own definitions imply and S alone cannot connect, so the falsifier is engaged in a narrowed form: S carries part of the order between streams, not all of it.\n\n### 3.5 · What would falsify this row\n\n- **A textual case in which a member of S holds with the conditioned arising at or before the condition** (for example, a canonical or commentarial passage in which proximity or pre-nascence runs from a later to an earlier phenomenon). S would then not be acyclic, and the surviving form fails.\n- **A sub-commentarial or commentarial passage placing kamma's cross-moment conditioning on a present or future relatum.** This would remove kamma from S.\n- **A temporal order the tradition asserts that S cannot connect.** If the tradition orders two phenomena in time, and no chain in S links them, then S does not carry the tradition's own temporal order, and \"a strict order can be read over it\" reduces to a formality. (§3.4 applies this test between streams and finds it engaged in a narrowed form: S carries the kamma-born route, and the mind-born pair is an implied order that S alone cannot connect. What remains open is a within-stream order that S cannot connect.)\n\n---\n\n## 4 · Rows 2 and 3 — Grain and Boundary: Where Space Is\n\n### 4.1 · Physics primer: spin networks, and what \"area has a discrete spectrum\" means\n\n**Geometry is a field.** In general relativity, the gravitational field *is* the geometry of spacetime: it decides lengths, areas and volumes. There is no stage apart from it. If the gravitational field is quantised, then lengths, areas and volumes become quantum quantities, and quantum quantities typically come in steps.\n\n**What \"spectrum\" means.** In quantum theory, each measurable quantity is represented by an operator: a rule which, given the state of a system, yields the possible results of measuring it. The list of possible results is the quantity's **spectrum**. A spectrum is **discrete** if the possible results are separated by gaps. Think of a function that can only take values on the rungs of a ladder. An electron's energy in an atom has a discrete spectrum, and that is why atoms emit light at sharp colours. Loop quantum gravity finds that **area and volume** have discrete spectra (Rovelli and Smolin 1995; Ashtekar and Lewandowski 1997).\n\n**A spin network.** A quantum state of space in loop quantum gravity is described by a **graph**: points (**nodes**) joined by lines (**links**). Each link carries a label *j* called a **spin**, taking values *j* = ½, 1, 3/2, 2, …. Each node carries a second label, the **intertwiner**, which records how the links meeting there fit together.\n\n```\n j₁\n │\n j₄ ─────●───── j₂ ● a NODE: a grain (\"quantum\") of space\n │n each line: a LINK, labelled by a spin j\n j₃ the node's volume depends on j₁…j₄ and the intertwiner\n```\n\n**Area lives on links.** Take any surface. Its area is a sum over the links that pierce it:\n\n```\n A = 8πγ ℓ_P² Σ √( j (j + 1) ) sum over the links crossing the surface\n\n ℓ_P = √(ħG / c³) ≈ 1.6 × 10⁻³⁵ m the Planck length\n γ = the Barbero–Immirzi parameter, a dimensionless constant of the theory\n (γ ≈ 0.2375 from black-hole entropy counting, Domagala–Lewandowski\n and Meissner 2004; ≈ 0.274 under the later Ghosh–Mitra counting;\n the value depends on the state-counting convention)\n```\n\nThis is the formula for links that cross the surface transversally. When a node lies on the surface itself, the general formula adds further terms (Ashtekar and Lewandowski 1997). The smallest non-zero area is one link with *j* = ½:\n\n```\n A_min = 8πγ ℓ_P² √(3/4) = 4√3 π γ ℓ_P² ≈ 21.8 γ ℓ_P²\n```\n\nThere is nothing between zero and this value. That gap is what \"area has a discrete spectrum\" means.\n\n**Volume lives at nodes.** Each node has a volume, but volume is not an independent label. It is **computed** from the spins of the links meeting there and from the intertwiner, and it takes discrete values. A node where only three links meet has **zero** volume: the volume operator vanishes on gauge-invariant two- and three-valent nodes (Loll 1996, who also computed the four-valent spectrum). In the geometric picture below, the same fact reads simply: three faces whose area-vectors sum to zero must lie in one plane, and a flat shape has no volume. Volume needs at least four links.\n\n**Nodes are quanta of space, not things in space.** Rovelli (Zakopane lectures, §I.A): the quanta of gravity \"do not live in space, but give rise to space themselves.\" There is no background in which the network sits. \"Where\" means \"which node, adjacent to which\".\n\n**Grains and faces.** Bianchi, Doná and Speziale (2011) showed that a node can be read as a small polyhedron, a *quantum polyhedron*, whose faces are its links. The reading is semiclassical: coherent spin-network states represent semiclassical polyhedra, which is most reliable at large spins and least trustworthy at small spins, including the *j* = ½ where the smallest area sits. Adjacency is also definite only for a spin-network basis state on a fixed graph; a general quantum state of space is a superposition of graphs. Rovelli states the consequence plainly (Zakopane lectures, §II.F): \"Two grains *n* and *n′* are adjacent if there is a link *l* connecting the two, and in this case the area of the elementary surface separating the two grains is determined by the spin of the link joining *n* and *n′*.\"\n\n```\n ┌───────────────┐┌───────────────┐\n │ grain n ││ grain n′ │ the face they share IS the link l;\n │ (volume) ││ (volume) │ its area = 8πγℓ_P² √(j_l (j_l + 1))\n └───────────────┘└───────────────┘\n\n the same thing as a graph: n ●────────── j_l ──────────● n′\n```\n\n**In one sentence:** in loop quantum gravity, the boundary between two neighbouring grains of space is the adjacency itself, and it carries a quantised area.\n\n### 4.2 · The Abhidhamma side: the grain\n\n**The kalāpa is matter.** The smallest material cluster (*rūpa-kalāpa*) is not in the canonical Abhidhamma books. The *Dhammasaṅgaṇī* has no kalāpa vocabulary. The clusters appear in the commentary (the *Visuddhimagga* names the \"pure octad\", *suddhaṭṭhaka*, and the decads), and the manual systematises them into twenty-one kinds (*Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha* ch. 6: *\"kalāpā ekavīsati\"*). The simplest, the pure octad, is eight inseparable material phenomena: the four great elements (extension, cohesion, heat, motion) together with colour, odour, taste and nutritive essence.\n\n**The commentarial size ladder.** The *Vibhaṅga* commentary (*Sammohavinodanī*), in a passage teaching a monk to see small faults as large, gives a ladder of sizes:\n\n> *chattiṃsa paramāṇavo ekassa aṇuno pamāṇaṃ. Chattiṃsa aṇū ekāya tajjāriyā pamāṇaṃ. Chattiṃsa tajjāriyo eko rathareṇu.*\n>\n> Thirty-six *paramāṇu* make the measure of one *aṇu*; thirty-six *aṇu*, one *tajjārī*; thirty-six *tajjārī*, one *rathareṇu* [a mote of chariot dust].\n\nSo one *paramāṇu* is 1/36³ = **1/46,656** of a chariot-dust mote. The commentary describes the *paramāṇu* as *ākāsakoṭṭhāsika*, of the order of a portion of space, and says it is visible only to the divine eye. ⚠️ **The ladder is for the *paramāṇu*, not the kalāpa.** The commentary does not use the word kalāpa there. The identification of the two, common in modern summaries (including both encyclopedia articles cited above), is later exegesis.\n\n### 4.3 · The Abhidhamma side: the boundary, in four layers\n\n**Canon — a cavity.** The *Dhammasaṅgaṇī* (§637) defines the space element:\n\n> *Katamaṃ taṃ rūpaṃ ākāsadhātu? Yo ākāso ākāsagataṃ aghaṃ aghagataṃ vivaro vivaragataṃ asamphuṭṭhaṃ catūhi mahābhūtehi — idaṃ taṃ rūpaṃ ākāsadhātu.*\n>\n> What is the material phenomenon that is the space element? That which is space, belonging to space, void, belonging to the void, an opening, belonging to an opening, **untouched by the four great elements** — this is the space element.\n\nThe *Vibhaṅga*, also canon, gives examples of the internal space element: the ear-holes, the nostrils, the mouth, the passage by which food is swallowed, where it rests and where it leaves. **At the canonical layer, space is a cavity with extent**: a gap in matter, the kind of thing that has room in it.\n\n**Canon — not unconditioned.** The *Kathāvatthu* (VI.6, §460–462, verified in the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana text) refutes the thesis *\"ākāso asaṅkhato\"*, that space is unconditioned. One of its arguments is homely: *\"Udapāne khaññamāne anākāso ākāso hotīti? Āmantā.\"* When a well is dug, does what was not space become space? Yes. And when an empty jar is filled, space disappears. Something that can be made and unmade is not unconditioned. The commentary attributes the rejected thesis to the Uttarāpathakas and the Mahisāsakas (so spelled there). The Mahiṃsāsakas are one of the four Vibhajjavādin branches in Cousins's account (Cousins 2001), which the sibling paper uses. Once again, the branch that kept the Pāli canon argues against a sibling branch.\n\n**Commentary — three spaces, and a characterisation.** The *Kathāvatthu* commentary distinguishes three spaces:\n\n> *tividho ākāso — paricchedākāso, kasiṇugghāṭimākāso, ajaṭākāso … Tesu paricchedākāso saṅkhato, itare dve paññattimattā.*\n>\n> Space is threefold: delimiting space, the space left by removing a meditation disk, and unentangled [open] space … Of these, **delimiting space is conditioned; the other two are mere concepts.**\n\nThe *Visuddhimagga* (ch. XIV, CST ¶442) characterises the space element in its fourfold formula:\n\n> *Rūpaparicchedalakkhaṇā ākāsadhātu, rūpapariyantappakāsanarasā, rūpamariyādapaccupaṭṭhānā, asamphuṭṭhabhāvacchiddavivarabhāvapaccupaṭṭhānā vā, paricchinnarūpapadaṭṭhānā. Yāya paricchinnesu rūpesu idamito uddhamadho tiriyanti ca hoti.*\n>\n> The space element has the characteristic of delimiting matter; its function is to display the boundaries of matter; it is manifested as the confines of matter, or as the state of being untouched, as holes and openings; **its proximate cause is the matter delimited.** It is that by which one can say of delimited material things, \"this is above, below, around that.\"\n\nThe last sentence matters for §4.5. Direction and position are defined only **relative to delimited matter**.\n\n**Manual — not a constituent.** The *Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha* (ch. 6, the verse closing the section on kalāpas):\n\n> *Kalāpānaṃ pariccheda-lakkhaṇattā vicakkhaṇā; Na kalāpaṅgamiccāhu, ākāsaṃ lakkhaṇāni ca.*\n>\n> Because space has the characteristic of delimiting the kalāpas, and because of the nature of the characteristics, the wise do not call space, nor the characteristics, a constituent of a kalāpa.\n\nSpace is **between** kalāpas, never **in** one. The manual also classes this delimiting matter (*paricchedarūpa*) as **anipphanna**: not concretely produced, with no intrinsic nature of its own. The term is older than the manual; the *Visuddhimagga* and the *Sammohavinodanī* already use it. It is counted as one of the twenty-eight material phenomena, but the standard expositions do not count it among the ultimate realities (Bodhi 1993, ch. VI), and one reads it as \"nothing but the mere limitation of matter\" (Karunadasa 1967, ch. 5).\n\n**Sub-commentary — the non-mixing of touching neighbours.** The *Vibhāvinī*, on the same chapter:\n\n> *Cakkhudasakādiekekakalāpagatarūpānaṃ kalāpantarehi asaṃkiṇṇabhāvāpādanavasena paricchedakaṃ, tehi vā paricchijjamānaṃ, tesaṃ paricchedamattaṃ vā rūpaṃ paricchedarūpaṃ … Vijjamānepi ca kalāpantarabhūtehi kalāpantarabhūtānaṃ samphuṭṭhabhāve taṃtaṃrūpavivittatā rūpapariyanto ākāso. Yesañca so paricchedo, tehi sayaṃ asamphuṭṭhoyeva. Aññathā paricchinnatā na siyā tesaṃ rūpānaṃ byāpībhāvāpattito. Abyāpitā hi asamphuṭṭhatā.*\n>\n> Delimiting matter is what delimits the matter in each kalāpa (the eye-decad and the rest) by making it **unmixed with neighbouring kalāpas**; or what is delimited by them; or their mere delimitation … **Even where neighbouring kalāpas touch one another, space is the separateness of each one's matter, the limit of matter.** And it is itself untouched by the things it delimits. Otherwise those material things would not be delimited, since they would come to pervade one another. For non-pervasion is non-touching.\n\n```\n ┌────────────┐ ┊ ┌────────────┐\n │ kalāpa K₁ │ ┊ │ kalāpa K₂ │ K₁ and K₂ may TOUCH;\n │ (8+ rūpas) │ ┊ │ (8+ rūpas) │ space is the ┊ : their non-mixing,\n └────────────┘ ┊ └────────────┘ \"the limit of matter\"\n ↑\n paricchedarūpa — not a constituent of either (manual);\n untouched by what it bounds (sub-commentary);\n no nature of its own; no magnitude assigned (anipphanna);\n its proximate cause is the matter it delimits (commentary)\n```\n\n### 4.4 · An older neighbour: do minimal units touch? *(cross-tradition: Sarvāstivāda, in Sanskrit)*\n\nThe *Vibhāvinī*'s wording answers a question the Indian schools had argued for centuries. The *Abhidharmakośabhāṣya* (ad I.43, Pradhan ed., pp. 32–33) asks it directly:\n\n> *kiṃ punaḥ paramāṇavaḥ spṛśanty anyonyam āhosvin na / na spṛśantīti kāśmīrakāḥ / … yadi tāvat sarvātmanā spṛśeyur miśrībhaveyur dravyāṇi / athaikadeśena sāvayavāḥ prasajyeran / niravayavāś ca paramāṇavaḥ*\n>\n> Do atoms touch one another, or not? The Kashmiri masters say they do not touch. … If they touched with their whole selves, the substances would **mix**. If they touched with a part, they would have parts. But atoms are partless.\n\nThe same passage adds that contact means only arising *without interval*, and that \"their being without interval is just that there is nothing between them\" (*tad evaiṣāṃ nirantaratvaṃ yan madhye nāsti kiñcit*). ⚠️ *nirantaratvaṃ* is this paper's emendation: the GRETIL e-text reads *niruttaratvaṃ* [032|20]. The emendation follows the passage's own *nirantara* in the line before, and Pradhan's printed page was not checked. Bhadanta Vasumitra holds that they do not touch, and that we call it touching when there is no interval.\n\nTwo cautions before the comparison. First, the *Kośa*'s contact debate concerns **partless atoms** (*paramāṇu*). Its functional counterpart of the kalāpa is a different item, the smallest aggregate of eight substances (*aṣṭadravyaka*, ad II.22), the counterpart of the pure octad. So the comparison below is of the **role** of minimal units, and it does not identify the *Kośa*'s atom with the *Sammohavinodanī*'s *paramāṇu* (which §4.2 already keeps apart from the kalāpa). Second, the *Kośa* also has a conditioned space element. Besides unconditioned *ākāśa* (I.5), it names the cavity: *dvāravātāyanamukhanāsikādiṣu chidram ākāśadhātvākhyam* (I.28, [018|13]), \"the hole in a door, a window, the mouth, the nose and so on is called the space element\", which it says is light and darkness (*ālokatamasī kila*). That is a close parallel to the *Vibhaṅga*'s ear-holes and nostrils (§4.3).\n\nThe two traditions share the premise: **if minimal units truly touched, they would mix.** The *Vibhāvinī* keeps the premise by making touching conventional only: \"non-pervasion is non-touching\" (*abyāpitā hi asamphuṭṭhatā*). They draw different conclusions:\n\n| | Do the units touch? | What is between them? |\n|---|---|---|\n| Kashmiri Sarvāstivāda (*Kośa* ad I.43) | no | **nothing** (\"nothing between them\") |\n| Theravāda sub-commentary (*Vibhāvinī*) | conventionally yes; strictly no (non-pervasion is non-touching) | **something**: delimiting matter, the non-mixing — counted among the material phenomena, though *anipphanna* and not an ultimate reality |\n| Loop quantum gravity | grains share a face | **something**: the link, which carries area |\n\nOn this one question, the Theravāda answer and loop quantum gravity have the same *shape*: the between is not nothing. It is a named, counted item of the list (one of the twenty-eight material phenomena in one, a link in the other), and it is not itself one of the minimal units: not a kalāpa, not a node. The Kashmiri answer makes the between empty. ⚠️ Two limits on that shape. The Theravāda item is counted but is not an ultimate reality, and Karunadasa (1967) reads it as the mere limitation of matter, which moves it toward the Kashmiri *nothing*: what separates the two answers on that reading is that one names and counts the between and the other does not. And the two \"neither\" relations are opposite in incidence (§4.6, break 6). The Sarvāstivāda counts *ākāśa* among the unconditioned (I.5), which is the thesis the *Kathāvatthu* refutes, and separately names the conditioned cavity (I.28).\n\n### 4.5 · The correspondence, and its surviving form\n\n> **Both frameworks put the unit of spatial boundary at the adjacency between minimal units.** In loop quantum gravity, a spin-network link is the face that two neighbouring grains of space share. In the *Vibhāvinī*, space is the non-mixing of touching neighbouring kalāpas, \"the limit of matter\", untouched by what it bounds and a constituent of neither. In neither framework is the boundary itself one of the minimal units. In both, \"where\" is defined by adjacency and not by a background: Rovelli's quanta \"do not live in space\", and the *Visuddhimagga*'s space is \"that by which one can say of delimited material things, 'this is above, below, around that'\".\n\nThat is the whole of the claim. The next paragraphs give the tradition's reason for it; everything else in this section limits it.\n\n**Why the between is matter's, and never mind's.** The tradition gives the reason, from the commentary on. The *Paṭṭhāna* commentary calls successive mind-moments contiguous \"thoroughly without interval, because of the absence of shape\" (*saṇṭhānābhāvato suṭṭhu anantarāti samanantarā*, `abh03a.att.xml:7697`). Its *Mūlaṭīkā* spells this out: mental phenomena, lacking shape as material phenomena have it, and with condition and conditioned never standing together, admit no division \"this is below, above, across from that\" (*rūpadhammānaṃ viya saṇṭhānābhāvato paccayapaccayuppannānaṃ sahāvaṭṭhānābhāvato ca \"idamito heṭṭhā uddhaṃ tiriya\"nti vibhāgābhāvā*, `abh03t.tik.xml:4305`), which is the *Visuddhimagga*'s formula for what space does for matter (§4.3). Its *Anuṭīkā* ties the absence of division to shapelessness (`abh05t.nrf.xml:4637`), and the *Vibhāvinī* defines contiguity by it (*saṇṭhānābhāvena suṭṭhu anantarapaccayo samanantarapaccayo*, `abh07t.nrf.xml:6653`). Ledi Sayadaw draws the contrast in so many words: between two material clusters, even bound together in a stone pillar, \"there is an interval, an opening; not so between the earlier and later two groups of mind and mental factors\", which, having no shape, have no delimiter and no interval at all (*dvinnaṃ rūpakalāpānaṃ majjhe antaraṃ nāma vivaraṃ nāma atthiyeva. Na tathā purimapacchimānaṃ dvinnaṃ cittacetasika kalāpānaṃ majjhe*, *Paṭṭhānuddesa-dīpanī*, `e0501n.nrf.xml:229`).\n\nThe two reasons reach differently. Within one stream both hold: no two moments are present at once (\"even for Buddhas, two minds do not occur together\", *buddhānampi hi dve cittāni ekato nappavattanti*, *Suttanipāta* commentary, `s0505a.att.xml:685`), and what is present together in one moment, consciousness with its factors, is conjoined, \"one in arising and ceasing, one in object and base\" (*ekuppādanirodhā ca, ekālambaṇavatthukā*, manual ch. 2 §1, `abh07t.nrf.xml:329`), the opposite of the non-mixing that defines the delimiter. Across streams, where moments of two minds can be present at once, the second reason does not apply and shapelessness must do the work; these passages speak of succession within a stream and do not discuss that case.\n\nOnly the within-stream precondition has been checked by machine, in Lean 4, in the public repository `SiliconWat/formal-abhidhamma` (CC0; software concept DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23067241), file `kala/Time.lean` with the definitions in `kala/Axioms.lean` (commit `deb9dec`):\n\n```\n a stream s: moments, a successor map, and a clock tick : Moment → ℤ\n one_at_a_time : tick a = tick b → a = b (A1: tick is injective)\n a kalāpa k: birth : ℤ ; k present at t := birth ≤ t < birth + 17\n between k₁ k₂ t := k₁ present at t ∧ k₂ present at t (co-presence only)\n\n theorem mind_has_no_between (s) (t) : ¬ ∃ a b, a ≠ b ∧ tick a = t ∧ tick b = t\n theorem matter_can_have_a_between : ∃ k₁ k₂, k₁ ≠ k₂ ∧ between k₁ k₂ 5 (a witness)\n```\n\nWhat the check reaches is small. `mind_has_no_between` is the one-at-a-time axiom restated as the injectivity of `tick`; it never mentions `between`, which is defined only on kalāpas and only as co-presence. Kalāpas carry a birth on an integer line in mind-moment units and are attached to no stream. Nothing in the model touches, adjoins or has a shape, so neither the row's adjacency nor the shapelessness reason is formalised. The run script, re-run for this revision, checks these two and five more theorems in the file, and each of six deliberate breaks of the axioms (among them dropping the one-at-a-time axiom) makes the build fail. The file is exploratory, outside the repository's pre-registration, and its model is the authors'. The asymmetry is also a known shape: a stream is a chain (§3.1), and kalāpas present together play the part of an **antichain**, a set of elements none of which precedes another; that the between belongs to the antichain adds nothing specific to loop quantum gravity (§9).\n\n**The grain row survives only through the boundary row.** Kalāpa against node, taken alone, is a comparison of a smallest-unit-of-matter with a smallest-unit-of-space. That is the general \"smallest unit\" comparison the census found common, and it fails on the matter/geometry distinction below. It earns a line in the table only because the boundary row presupposes minimal units with neighbours.\n\n### 4.6 · Where it breaks\n\n1. **The dependence runs in opposite directions.** In loop quantum gravity, the adjacency data come first: the spins on the links, with the intertwiners, determine the volumes of the nodes. In the Abhidhamma, the matter comes first: the space element's **proximate cause is the matter delimited** (*paricchinnarūpapadaṭṭhānā*, commentary). One builds the grain from its boundaries. The other derives the boundary from its grains.\n2. **Magnitude.** Loop-gravity area is observable and has a discrete spectrum, with a smallest non-zero value. Abhidhamma delimiting matter is *anipphanna*: it has no nature of its own, and no magnitude is assigned to it. (\"No magnitude\" is this paper's reading of *anipphanna*; no text says \"it has no size\" in those words.) There is no \"how much\" boundary between two kalāpas. The canonical cavity (break 4) does have extent, but no text measures it. The Abhidhamma boundary is object-discrete (it is one item between two items), but not spectrally discrete (§2).\n3. **Matter against geometry.** Kalāpas are matter *in* space. Their octad includes colour, odour and taste. Spin-network nodes are quanta *of* space and carry no qualities except geometry. The commentarial size ladder (§4.2) measures the *paramāṇu* against a chariot-dust mote, which presupposes a background of lengths. That is exactly the background loop quantum gravity denies.\n4. **Layer.** The correspondence holds at the **sub-commentary** layer. At the **canonical** layer, space is a cavity with extent: ear-holes, a well being dug, an opening. A cavity is volume-like, not face-like. So the canon's space corresponds, if to anything, to a region, not to a link. The between-kalāpas reading enters with the commentary's *paricchedākāsa* and is completed only in the manual and sub-commentary, more than a millennium after the canon was compiled.\n5. **Open space.** The commentary calls open space (*ajaṭākāsa*) a mere concept. Loop quantum gravity has no space without the network: a region with no nodes has no geometry at all. The two may look alike here, but the likeness is loose. One says that open space is a *designation*; the other says there is *nothing there to designate*.\n6. **Opposite incidence.** A spin-network link is a face **incident to both** grains: each grain's polyhedron has it as one of its own faces, and the area belongs to the geometry of both. The *Vibhāvinī*'s delimiter is **untouched by both** kalāpas (*tehi sayaṃ asamphuṭṭhoyeva*) and a constituent of neither. \"Belongs to neither neighbour\" covers both only because it is vague. Said exactly, the link is shared and the delimiter is excluded, which are opposite relations. What the two have in common is only that the boundary is not itself a minimal unit.\n7. **Counted, but not ultimate.** The delimiter is one of the twenty-eight material phenomena, but it is not an ultimate reality (Bodhi 1993), and on Karunadasa's reading (1967) it is \"nothing but the mere limitation of matter\". The link in loop quantum gravity is as real as anything in the theory. So the Theravāda \"something\" between kalāpas is a *named* something, not a real unit, and the row's contrast with the Kashmiri *nothing* rests on the naming and counting.\n\n### 4.7 · What would falsify this row\n\n- **A text, at any layer, that makes delimiting matter a constituent of a kalāpa**, or places space inside a cluster rather than between clusters. The manual's verse would then be contradicted within the tradition, and the \"between\" would lose its textual footing.\n- **A formulation of loop quantum gravity in which the area between adjacent grains is not carried by their adjacency.** For example, the polyhedral reading may not hold at small spins, since it is a semiclassical, coherent-state interpretation; or area might attach to nodes rather than links. The physics side of the correspondence would then go.\n- **A text on which two moments of one mental stream are present at once, on which mental phenomena have shape, or on which space delimits mental phenomena.** The tradition's reason in §4.5 (matter has a between, mind has none) would then fail, and the Lean check would describe the authors' model and not the texts.\n- **A reading of the *Vibhāvinī* on which \"space\" is a gap with nothing in it** (the Kashmiri answer), rather than a counted *rūpa*. The §4.4 table would then collapse, and the row would reduce to the generic \"space is between\" of §9. ⚠️ This falsifier is **partly engaged** already. The *Vibhāvinī*'s own third gloss is \"their mere delimitation\" (*tesaṃ paricchedamattaṃ*), and Karunadasa reads the *anipphanna* class as \"nothing but the mere limitation of matter\". What keeps the row from collapsing is only that the tradition still lists and counts the item. If that counting were shown to be nominal and nothing more, the falsifier would fire.\n\n---\n\n## 5 · Row 4 — Ratio: Time as a Count\n\n### 5.1 · Physics primer: a duration is a number of steps\n\nRecall from §3.1 that in a causal set the proper time between two related events is proportional to the length of the longest chain between them. There is no clock apart from counting. Two durations can be compared by comparing chain lengths, and the ratio is meaningful even though no unit of time is ever introduced. (Converting to seconds needs the sprinkling density, one element per Planck volume. The ratio does not need it.)\n\n### 5.2 · The Abhidhamma side\n\n**Three sub-moments per mind-moment.** The manual (ch. 4 §8, `abh07t.nrf.xml:1229`): *\"Uppādaṭhitibhaṅgavasena khaṇattayaṃ ekacittakkhaṇaṃ nāma\"* — a mind-moment consists of three sub-moments: arising, presence, dissolution.\n\n**Seventeen mind-moments per material phenomenon.** The next line: *\"Tāni pana sattarasa cittakkhaṇāni rūpadhammānamāyū\"* — seventeen such mind-moments are the lifespan of material phenomena. The manual then shows where seventeen comes from. It is the length of the longest process by which a sense object is known: one past life-continuum moment, two vibrations of the life-continuum, and fourteen moments of the process itself: *\"cuddasa vīthicittuppādā, dve bhavaṅgacalanāni, pubbevātītakamekacittakkhaṇanti katvā sattarasa cittakkhaṇāni paripūrenti\"* (§11, `:1241`). **Seventeen is a consistency condition.** A physical object must last as long as the longest process that cognises it.\n\nThe commentary gives the same figure in its own words: while matter persists, sixteen minds arise and cease, and it ceases with the seventeenth (*rūpe dharanteyeva soḷasa cittāni uppajjitvā nirujjhanti. Taṃ pana sattarasamena cittena saddhiṃ nirujjhati*, *Sammohavinodanī*, `abh02a.att.xml:413`). Its simile has a short-legged and a long-legged man walking together, sixteen steps to one, and its lesson is stated first: \"matter cannot go on leaving mind behind, nor mind leaving matter; the going of both is of one measure\" (*rūpaṃ pana arūpaṃ arūpaṃ vā rūpaṃ ohāya pavattituṃ na sakkonti. Dvinnampi ekappamāṇāva pavatti*, `abh02a.att.xml:417`).\n\n**Fifty-one sub-moments, with exceptions.** The sub-commentary: *\"Visuṃ visuṃ pana ekapaññāsa cittakkhaṇāni honti. Rūpadhammānanti viññattilakkhaṇarūpavajjānaṃ rūpadhammānaṃ\"* — counted separately, they are fifty-one; \"material phenomena\" means those other than the intimations and the characteristic phenomena (`abh07t.nrf.xml:4837`). It then states the exceptions. The two intimations (bodily and vocal) last one mind-moment. Of the characteristics, arising and impermanence match the mind-moment's arising and dissolution sub-moments, and decay lasts forty-nine sub-moments. **There is no single material clock.**\n\n**Seventeen, sixteen and a third, or sixteen: the count is disputed.** The *Sammohavinodanī* holds two rules. It first dates kamma-born matter by one stated \"because it came in the [older] commentary\" (*aṭṭhakathāyaṃ āgatattā vuttaṃ*): matter arisen at one mind's arising sub-moment ceases at another's (`abh02a.att.xml:421`), sixteen mind-moments and a third. It then rejects that rule as conflicting with the canonical *Yamaka* (*imāya pāḷiyā virujjhati*, `:429`) and replaces it with seventeen: matter arisen with the rebirth-linking mind ceases with the seventeenth, and matter arisen at that mind's presence sub-moment ceases at the arising of the eighteenth (`:433`). The *Vibhaṅga Mūlaṭīkā* reads the passage so (`abh02t.tik.xml:305`), and finds both the seventeen and the older \"sixteen and a third\" (*yā ca aṭṭhakathāyaṃ tatiyabhāgādhikasoḷasacittakkhaṇāyukatā*, `:309`) at odds with the commentary's own account of death and rebirth-linking, in which eleven mind-moments of an object's life have passed and five remain (`abh02a.att.xml:2889`; `e0102n.mul.xml:4045`). Its *Anuṭīkā* concludes \"sixteen only\" (`abh02t.tik.xml:4933`), and four lines later speaks of \"sixteen or seventeen\" (*soḷasahi sattarasahi vā cittakkhaṇehi*, `:4937`). The *Vibhāvinī* reports the sixteen as the view of \"some\" (*keci*) and rejects it as without substance (*tayidamasāraṃ*), citing the replacement rule, and reads any sixteen as a count of the moments fit to condition mind (`abh07t.nrf.xml:4845`); Ledi Sayadaw finds that rejection \"not good\" (*taṃ na sundaraṃ*, `e0301n.nrf.xml:2745`). Seventeen is the manual's figure and the *Vibhāvinī*'s, not a settled one.\n\n**The presence sub-moment is disputed too.** The *Vibhāvinī* reports that \"some reject the presence moment of consciousness\" (*keci pana cittassa ṭhitikkhaṇaṃ paṭisedhenti*), because the canonical *Yamaka* names only arising and dissolution (*bhaṅguppādāva kathitā, na ṭhitikkhaṇo*, `abh07t.nrf.xml:4833`). It names no one; the cross-reference to the *Vibhaṅga Mūlaṭīkā* beside the passage is the edition's. The *Mūlaṭīkā* does raise the question in its own voice, on the same ground: \"whether it exists or not is to be examined\" (*so ca atthi natthīti vicāretabbo*, `abh02t.tik.xml:313`). Sumaṅgala **rejects** the dissent, citing the commentary's three sub-moments. Without presence, this paper's arithmetic gives 17 × 2 = **34** in place of 51 (the dissent states no count), and decay's forty-nine sub-moments would be undefined.\n\n**An absolute scale, named but not timed.** The *Vibhaṅga* commentary says of feeling, a mental factor present in every consciousness, that \"in the moment of a finger-snap it arises and ceases a hundred thousand *koṭi* times\" (*ekaccharakkhaṇe koṭisatasahassasaṅkhyā uppajjitvā nirujjhati*, `abh02a.att.xml:533`). The texts say what a finger-snap *is* without giving it a duration. The *Aṅguttara* commentary names it by a gesture, \"the mere making of a sound by striking two fingers\" (*dve aṅguliyo paharitvā saddakaraṇamattanti attho*, `s0401a.att.xml:1119`). A Pāli grammar, the *Payogasiddhi*, makes it the unit of vowel length: \"the short time is the time called a finger-snap or an eye-blink; by it the short vowel has one measure\" (*rassakālo nāma accharāsaṅghāto akkhinimmilanasaṅkhāto vā kālo, tena ekamatto rasso*, `e0807n.nrf.xml:205`). Each fixes a **unit of reckoning**, not a number of seconds. This paper takes a finger-snap as about a tenth of a second, and that assumption is its own.\n\nThe texts state the rate of mind itself as **round lower bounds in four works**, not as one number:\n\n| Work (layer) | Locus | Words | Reading |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| *Saṃyutta* commentary, on SN 12.61 (commentary) | `s0302a.att.xml:1463` | *ekasmiñhi accharākkhaṇe anekāni cittakoṭisatasahassāni uppajjanti* | many × 10¹² mind-moments per snap |\n| *Milindapañha*, quoted on the next line of the same commentary | `s0518m.nrf.xml:2838`; `s0302a.att.xml:1467` | *ekaccharākkhaṇe pavattacittassa ettakā vīhī lakkhaṃ ṭhapīyamānā … parikkhayaṃ pariyādānaṃ gaccheyyuṃ* | more minds in a snap than grains in over a hundred cartloads of rice |\n| *Sāratthadīpanī*, on the Vinaya (sub-commentary) | `vin01t2.tik.xml:341` | *accharāsaṅghātamatte khaṇe anekakoṭisahassacittappavattisambhavato* | many × 10¹⁰ per snap |\n| *Dhammasaṅgaṇī Anuṭīkā* (sub-commentary) | `abh04t.nrf.xml:821` | *accharāsaṅghātakkhaṇena anekakoṭisaṅkhāya cittuppattiyā* | many × 10⁷ per snap |\n\nThe readings take *koṭi* as 10⁷, *satasahassa* as 10⁵ and *sahassa* as 10³; *aneka*, \"not one\", makes each a floor. Read strictly as \"at least two\", it would put the first floor at 2 × 10¹², above the commentary's own flat 10¹² for feeling, which arises and ceases with its mind; so either *aneka* is not a strict floor of two, or two of Buddhaghosa's commentaries differ by a factor of two. This paper reads the figures as round orders of magnitude. None of the four works states a ceiling. On the tenth-of-a-second assumption, the floors put a mind-moment at or below about 10⁻¹³ to 10⁻⁸ seconds, far below any timescale on which perception is measured.\n\nThe texts deny that this succession is seen by the reasoner and by \"others\", not by everyone. The *Dīgha* commentary says the speculative reasoner of DN 1 \"does not see the breaking up of mind\" (*cittassa bhedaṃ na passati*), because each mind-moment ceases only after conditioning the next, and so takes mind to fly on elsewhere like a bird (`s0101a.att.xml:2245`): a diagnosis of his error. The *Sāratthadīpanī* says the order of a Buddha's teaching \"is not discerned by others\", while the order of several monks' questions \"is discerned by one so wise\" (*pucchanavāro tādisassa paññavato paññāyati … Buddhānaṃ pana desanāvāro aññesaṃ na paññāyateva*, `vin01t2.tik.xml:341`), and the *Vibhaṅga Anuṭīkā* reserves true knowledge of the elements to the Tathāgata (*nānādhātūsu tathāgatasseva yathābhūtañāṇaṃ*, `abh02t.tik.xml:4937`). So the tradition does give the mind-moment an outside scale, the snap, and the offer cannot be taken as a measurement. (Three of the four floors were supplied by the refuter of the formal-abhidhamma run *rate-of-mind control*, 2026-09-30, `runs/2026-09-30-rate-of-mind-control/RUN.md`.)\n\n### 5.3 · The correspondence, and its surviving form\n\nThe Abhidhamma measures the lifetime of matter **in mind-moments**. This paper counts the lifetime by its **elements**, as the manual does (*sattarasa cittakkhaṇāni*, seventeen moments), because each mind-moment is itself a stretch of time. A causal-set chain is conventionally counted by its links, since its elements are points; the difference of one does not matter at large counts, but it does at seventeen.\n\n**Two cases, which the texts treat differently.** An earlier version of this paper had matter \"timed by the mind's chain\". The texts support that where a stream exists, and not where none does.\n\n- **Where a stream exists, its own mind-moments date its matter.** The *Sammohavinodanī* has kamma-born matter arise at each of the three sub-moments of every mind (*ekekassa cittassa tīsu tīsu khaṇesu samatiṃsa samatiṃsa kammajarūpāni uppajjanti*, `abh02a.att.xml:421`), dates mind-born and kamma-born matter from the mind it arises with to the seventeenth (`:429`–`:433`, §5.2), and ends the kamma-born series with the death-mind (*tato paṭṭhāya kammajarūpapaveṇī na pavattati*, `:425`). Mind dates this matter without conditioning it: after rebirth-linking, kamma-born matter goes on \"without mind, from kamma alone\" (*vinā cittena kammatova kaṭattārūpānaṃ pavatti hotīti*, *Paṭṭhāna* commentary, `abh03a.att.xml:7857`).\n- **Where no stream exists, no text counts matter in mind-moments.** The mindless beings (*asaññasatta*) are matter without mind. At the canonical layer the *Dhātukathā* makes theirs an existence of **one** aggregate (*ekavokārabhavo ekena khandhena … saṅgahito*, `abh03m1.mul.xml:421`; the *Vibhaṅga* lists it, `abh02m.mul.xml:3685`), and the *Kathāvatthu* (III.11) refutes an opponent who read DN 1's line that these deities fall away \"when perception arises\" (*saññuppādā ca pana te devā tamhā kāyā cavanti*, `s0101m.mul.xml:487`) as proof of perception among them (`abh03m3.mul.xml:5797`). The *Paṭṭhāna* commentary calls it the place of matter, where \"material phenomena arise without even a rebirth-linking mind as a mental condition\" (*paṭisandhicittamattampi arūpapaccayaṃ vinā rūpadhammāva uppajjanti*, `abh03a.att.xml:7861`). The manual gives them no occurrence of mind at all (*sabbathāpi cittappavatti natthevāti*, `abh07t.nrf.xml:1485`; also `:1957`, `:2349`) and a lifespan of five hundred aeons (`:1693`), and the *Dīgha* sub-commentary answers \"for how long?\" in aeons: \"at most five hundred great aeons\", by the momentum of the kamma, like an arrow from a bow (*ukkaṃsato pañca mahākappasatānipi tiṭṭhanti asaññasattā. Jhānavegeti asaññasamāpattiparikkhate kammavege*, `s0101t.tik.xml:2053`). Matter outside every being is the same case: temperature produces matter \"internally and externally\" (*ajjhattañca bahiddhā ca*, manual ch. 6 §35, `abh07t.nrf.xml:2213`), and what lies outside one's continuum is external \"whether bound to faculties or not\" (*indriyabaddhā vā anindriyabaddhā vā*, *Atthasālinī*, `abh01a.att.xml:3485`), like the two trees of §13.\n\nSo the general statement of seventeen is not tied to a present mind. The *Vibhāvinī* glosses the manual's \"seventeen mind-moments\" as \"moments like the moments of seventeen minds\" (*sattarasannaṃ cittānaṃ khaṇāni viya khaṇāni*, `abh07t.nrf.xml:4837`; likewise \"one mind-moment\", `:4849`), and Ledi Sayadaw calls the division of one moment into mind's and matter's a conceptual construction (*kappanāvasena*, `e0301n.nrf.xml:2749`). That is the reading of the seventeen as a **unit of reckoning**, a duration counted in mind-moment lengths. It is not the only reading open: the *Vibhaṅga Anuṭīkā* derives matter's longer life from its being made known by mind, in sixteen or seventeen mind-moments (`abh02t.tik.xml:4937`), which leaves the reading that the count describes matter as cognised, and says nothing of matter no mind cognises.\n\n> **Where a stream exists, the texts date its mind-born and kamma-born matter on its own mind-moments, sub-moment by sub-moment, without making mind that matter's condition. Where none exists, no text counts matter in mind-moments: the mindless beings' material series is timed by kamma's momentum in aeons, and a sub-commentary makes the mind-moment a unit. What survives of the causal-set comparison is generic: a duration stated as a count of steps (§9).**\n\nThe row's name, *ratio*, needs one correction. The ratio is 17 : 1, a material lifetime against one mind-moment, but both terms are measured in the **same** unit. Matter has no chain of its own in S, so the row gives a ratio of durations, not a ratio of two chain lengths.\n\n**A second reckoning, and how the texts relate it.** Asked how long an aeon (*kappa*) is, the Buddha answers that it is not easy to count in \"so many years, or so many hundreds of years …\" (*so na sukaro saṅkhātuṃ ettakāni vassāni iti vā, ettakāni vassasatāni iti vā*) and gives the simile of a mountain a league on each side, wiped with a cloth once a century, which would wear away before the aeon ends (SN 15.5, `s0302m.mul.xml:3529`–`:3533`; past aeons are \"not easy to count\", SN 15.8, `:3565`). The aeon is not counted in years; the simile sets it against a process timed in centuries. The texts do relate it to the mind-moment, in the mindless beings' case, and the relation is divergence. Since \"the usage 'time' rests only on the occurrence of phenomena\", the *Paṭṭhāna Mūlaṭīkā* finds \"no time-interval\" between the death before that existence and the rebirth-linking after it, for \"the occurrence of matter makes no interval in the occurrence of mind, because it is another series\" (*kālantaratā natthi … na ca rūpadhammappavatti arūpadhammappavattiyā antaraṃ karoti aññasantānattā*, `abh03t.tik.xml:4309`); its *Anuṭīkā* names the objection this answers, \"how then is it said, 'having passed five hundred aeons'?\" (`abh05t.nrf.xml:4641`). The *Paṭṭhāna* commentary had already rejected a view of \"the teachers\" that contiguity means nearness in time, because the attainment before cessation is still the contiguity condition of the fruition after it, and granted that \"there is no nearness in time there\" (*kālānantaratā natthi*, `abh03a.att.xml:7697`); the *Vibhāvinī* follows it and counts the rebirth-linking that arises \"even after a time-interval\" from the mindless existence the same way (*kālantarepi*, `abh07t.nrf.xml:6653`). Ledi Sayadaw: \"between two minds, in the non-percipient existence, the person stands without mind for five hundred aeons\" (*dvinnaṃ cittānaṃ antare asaññasattabhave pañcakappasatāni puggalo acittako tiṭṭhati*, `e0501n.nrf.xml:233`). The two reckonings meet and do not agree: five hundred aeons in one, no interval in the other. As a lens only, the pair recalls relativity's proper time along a worldline and the cosmic time of the expanding (FLRW) cosmologies; nothing in the likeness is a prediction. For this row the divergence settles one point: the aeon is not a second chain for the seventeen to be compared with.\n\n### 5.4 · Where it breaks\n\n- **One unit, not two clocks.** A ratio between two *independent* clocks is an observable: it could come out differently. Here both terms are counted in one unit, and seventeen is fixed by the length of the cognitive process. The ratio is a definition that makes the system consistent, not a finding.\n- **Deterministic against statistical.** In a causal set, chain length tracks proper time only on average, over a random sprinkling. The Abhidhamma's count is exact.\n- **No chain is selected, on the usual reading.** A causal set's proper time belongs to the *longest* chain between two events, whichever it is. A stream is one moment at a time, so between two of its moments the longest chain is the only one, and the *Aṅguttara* sub-commentary gives every mind the same moment (*sabbassapi cittassa samānakhaṇattā*, `s0401t.tik.xml:1666`). The *Milindapañha* grades seven kinds of mind, from those that \"arise heavily and go on slowly\" (*garukaṃ uppajjati dandhaṃ pavattati*) to a Buddha's, quicker \"by an incalculable degree\" (`s0518m.nrf.xml:2842`–`:2870`), without saying whether the moment or the process is quicker; the *Sāratthadīpanī* reads a Buddha's speed as a brief dwelling in the life-continuum (*bhavaṅgaparivāso lahuko*, `vin01t2.tik.xml:341`), not a shorter moment. On those readings \"longest\" selects nothing; read as moment lengths, the Milinda's grades would narrow this break.\n- **Order and time.** A count of steps along a given succession is what every discrete clock does. The causal-set-specific part of \"time as chain length\" is that there is no time apart from the order. Whether a stream's succession is its time in that sense is left open in §3.4, so this feature is neither claimed nor denied here.\n- **The count itself is contested.** Seventeen is disputed by the *Vibhaṅga Mūlaṭīkā* and its *Anuṭīkā*, and fifty-one depends on the presence sub-moment, which the *Mūlaṭīkā* questions and the *Vibhāvinī* defends (§5.2).\n- **Time dilation: a collision with a reading the texts do not state.** Rossi and Hall (1941) found the lower-momentum group of cosmic-ray mesotrons (muons) decaying about three times faster than the higher, measuring at Denver and at Echo Lake, Colorado; Bailey et al. (1977) found muons stored in the CERN ring at a Lorentz factor of about 29.3 living about twenty-nine times their lifetime at rest. So a **per-kalāpa count taken as the same in every frame**, whether as each perceiver's count or as one Newtonian unit, would conflict with universal dilation. The texts state neither: the manual counts an object's age in the moments of the process that perceives it (ch. 4 §10, `abh07t.nrf.xml:1237`), but the *Vibhāvinī* glosses that count as a unit (`abh07t.nrf.xml:4849`, §5.3). A muon, moreover, is a series (*santati*), not a kalāpa, and the texts let a series' duration vary: \"as series, phenomena are short-lived or long-lived as opposing or favourable conditions meet; by their own characteristic they are of one measure\" (*pabandhavasena hi … parittakālā dīghakālā ca honti, sabhāvalakkhaṇavasena pana ekaparicchedā*, *Dhammasaṅgaṇī Anuṭīkā*, `abh04t.nrf.xml:821`). They also make an interval only within its own series (`abh03t.tik.xml:4309`). So the measured muon meets no textual claim directly: what conflicts with dilation is an unmeasured, frame-independent per-kalāpa count; the place of a duration within its series is textual; physics adds the Lorentz factor. The verdict is a **collision with a reading**, never *agreement*.\n- **No physics prediction.** A unitless ratio fixed by consistency cannot predict a physical measurement. The only empirical programme it could seed is in perception science (calibrate a mind-moment against one measurement, predict an independent one). That is a separate programme with its own pre-registration, and not a physics claim.\n\n### 5.5 · What would falsify this row\n\n- **A text stating the lifetime of matter in units independent of the mind-moment**, such as a count of material moments or an external measure. The \"one unit\" reading would fail, and the ratio would become an observable.\n- **A text that counts the mindless beings' matter, or matter outside every being, in some present mind's moments** (a perceiver's, say). The two cases of §5.3 would collapse into one, and a per-perceiver count, with its collision with time dilation (§5.4), would become the texts' own.\n- **A text that counts the aeon in mind-moments**, or relates the two reckonings otherwise than by the divergence of §5.3. The aeon might then supply a second chain for the ratio.\n- **A reading on which seventeen is observed rather than derived.** For example, a commentarial passage might present seventeen as reported meditative experience, independent of the cognitive-process arithmetic. The \"consistency condition\" reading would then weaken.\n\n---\n\n## 6 · The Row We Dropped, and Why\n\nThe first version of this lens had a fifth row: *saṅkhāra*, the conditioned as a whole (*sabbe saṅkhārā*, \"all conditioned things\"), against Fotini Markopoulou's **quantum causal histories**. That framework puts quantum state spaces on a causal set, and so joins causal order to quantum structure.\n\nIt was cut before drafting, for two reasons.\n\n1. **Category error.** *Saṅkhāra* includes the mental (*nāma*): consciousness, feeling, perception, volition. Nothing in a spin network or a quantum causal history models mind. A row that maps a category containing mind onto a structure that contains none is not a correspondence with a break. It is a correspondence that breaks everywhere.\n2. **No structure added.** Every structural feature the row could claim was already in rows 1–4: order in row 1, grains and adjacency in rows 2–3. The row said that the conditioned as a whole resembles order-plus-quanta as a whole. A resemblance with no new structure is decoration: a coherence that feels like evidence and is none.\n\n**The neighbour, stated accurately.** Markopoulou's 2000 paper assigns a finite-dimensional Hilbert space (a quantum state space) to each **event** and evolution operators between sets of events. The same paper already notes a problem: the evolution does not see the individual causal relations. It proposes, as an alternative, attaching the Hilbert spaces to the **edges** (the covering relations) and the operators to the events. On that reading, the state space on an edge from *p* to *q* is \"the state space of *p* as seen by *q*\". Hawkins, Markopoulou and Sahlmann (2003) then revised the definition. They put operator algebras on the events and made **each causal relation** carry a completely positive map, the most general quantum transformation, so that the evolution respects every individual relation.\n\nThere is an irony here, and it is recorded rather than used. Both moves make the **relation** a carrier of structure. That fits the *Paṭṭhāna*'s relation-first typing better than the original event-first definition did, but it does not rescue the row. A typed relation carrying a completely positive map is still not a relation of *object*, *predominance* or *kamma*.\n\n---\n\n## 7 · Why a Theravāda Space, and Not Nāgārjuna's\n\nThe best-known meeting of Buddhist thought and physics is Carlo Rovelli's reading of **Nāgārjuna** (cross-tradition: Madhyamaka) beside relational quantum mechanics, in *Helgoland*. On the relational view, a system has properties only relative to another system. On Nāgārjuna's, nothing has own-being (*svabhāva*): everything is empty of intrinsic existence. Rovelli finds the two congenial.\n\nThis paper does not use that pairing, for a reason of structure and not of loyalty. **Madhyamaka denies own-being (*svabhāva*) to every dharma**, so it admits no ultimately real units to put in adjacency. **The Theravāda Abhidhamma is realist about dharmas**: its moments, its material phenomena and its conditions are real events. A discrete theory needs discrete units and relations among them. The Theravāda supplies both, so it is the Buddhist framework that *can* be compared structurally with causal sets and spin networks. It is also the framework whose space can be put beside a link: space as the delimitation between real units. One point weakens the contrast and should be stated. The boundary at the centre of the adjacency row is the one Theravāda item defined as lacking own-nature (*anipphanna*). The units are real (*nipphanna*, concretely produced); their delimitation is not a unit. So the argument for the Theravāda over Madhyamaka rests on the **units**, not on the boundary: a discrete comparison needs real units, and only the Theravāda supplies them. The Madhyamaka comparison is a comparison of attitudes toward relation. It is real, but it is a different comparison.\n\n**The institution's ruling, stated plainly.** The institution publishing this paper has ruled, for its own purposes, that **delimiting space (*paricchedākāsa*) is conditioned; open space and the space of a removed meditation disk (*kasiṇa*) are concepts (*paññatti*); and only nibbāna is unconditioned.** The ruling follows the Theravāda reading of the space element as delimiting matter, and it declines the Sarvāstivāda reading of *ākāśa* as unconditioned. It follows the texts at each point. The canon's *Kathāvatthu* refutes \"space is unconditioned\" (VI.6). At the close of the same debate (§462) the Theravādin also declines to call space *conditioned* without qualification, and the commentary supplies the qualification: it is delimiting space that is conditioned, while open space and meditative space are mere concepts. A concept is not an unconditioned phenomenon, so nothing is left unconditioned but nibbāna. The Sarvāstivāda draws a comparable line: beside its unconditioned *ākāśa* (*Kośa* I.5), it names a conditioned space element, the cavity (I.28), as §4.4 records.\n\n---\n\n## 8 · The Strongest Objection, Carried\n\n**Objection.** \"The Abhidhamma is a phenomenology: an analysis of what appears in experience, made for the purpose of liberation. Quantum gravity is a theory of what spacetime is. The kalāpa contains colour, odour and taste, which are qualities of matter *as sensed*. The *Kathāvatthu* commentary says that space between two trees is known by the **mind**, from the absence of visible matter, not seen by the eye. A comparison of the two frameworks compares an account of knowing with an account of being. Any shared shape is a coincidence of two different questions.\"\n\n**What survives it.** Most of the objection stands, and the paper does not answer it away. Every row compares **formal shape**: an acyclic relation, a boundary located at an adjacency, a duration expressed as a count. Shape is the only thing two frameworks with different subject matter can share, and it is all this paper claims they share. The objection does not show that the shapes differ. It shows that shared shape proves nothing about shared subject matter, and the paper agrees. What the objection *does* remove is any reading of the lens as evidence that the Abhidhamma knew physics, or that physics vindicates the Abhidhamma. Neither reading was offered, and the objection makes sure neither can be taken.\n\n---\n\n## 9 · The Counter-Argument to This Paper's Strongest Claim\n\nThe strongest claim is the adjacency row (§4.5). Against it: **the idea that a boundary lives at the adjacency is not specific to loop quantum gravity.** It holds in any cellular picture of extended stuff: a cell complex, a Voronoi tessellation, a chessboard, and Regge calculus (Regge 1961), in which curved spacetime is approximated by flat simplices glued along shared faces, and the geometry is fixed by the edge lengths of neighbouring cells. The Western literature on boundaries has argued the ownership question directly. When two bodies touch, does the boundary belong to one of them (Bolzano), to neither (a view the literature traces to Leonardo), or is it two coincident boundaries, one belonging to each (Brentano)? (Varzi's survey; Casati and Varzi 1999, ch. 5.) The \"neither\" view is the nearest Western neighbour of the manual's \"a constituent of neither\". Brentano's is a contrast: his coincident boundaries are dependent parts of the bodies they bound, which is the opposite of the *Vibhāvinī*'s delimiter, untouched by both. Aristotle defined place as the innermost boundary of the containing body (*Physics* IV.4), a boundary account of *where* that is two millennia old and owes nothing to quanta. The *Kośa*'s debate (§4.4) shows the Indian schools arguing the same question in the first millennium. If the shared shape is generic, then the match with loop quantum gravity specifically is weaker than the table makes it look.\n\nWhat loop quantum gravity adds to the generic picture is that the adjacency carries a **quantised magnitude**, and that volume is **derived** from it. Those are exactly the two features the Abhidhamma lacks (§4.6, breaks 1 and 2). So the part of the row that is loop-quantum-gravity-specific is the part that fails, and the part that holds is generic. The row survives only in this form: *the Theravāda sub-commentary's answer to \"what is between minimal units?\" has the shape of the answer loop quantum gravity gives, and not the shape of the answer an earlier Indian school gave.* The paper does not refute the generic reading. It claims no more than that.\n\n**The same counter-argument, run on the ratio row (§5.3).** Against it: every discrete clock counts steps, so \"a duration is a count\" is not specific to causal sets. The causal-set-specific features are three: proper time is the length of the **longest** chain, whichever chain that is; the relation between chain length and proper time is **statistical**, holding on average over a random sprinkling; and there is **no time apart from the order**. The first two are among §5.4's breaks, and the third is left open (§3.4). So, as with the adjacency row, what holds for certain is generic: a duration stated as a count of steps (§5.3).\n\n---\n\n## 10 · What Would Falsify These Findings — Collected\n\n| Row | The finding | Falsified by |\n|---|---|---|\n| 1 Order | the earlier→later sub-relation S, over condition-modes, is acyclic (by selection); a strict order, not yet a causal set, can be read over it; S also orders moments of different streams; the rest is extra typing | a member of S with the conditioned arising at or before the condition, in any layer; cross-moment kamma with a present or future relatum; an implied temporal order S cannot connect (engaged in a narrowed form between streams, §3.4; open within a stream) |\n| 2–3 Adjacency | both put the unit of spatial boundary at the adjacency between minimal units, and neither makes it a unit; the shared part is generic; the between is matter's and never mind's, for the tradition's own reason | a text making delimiting matter a kalāpa constituent, or placing space inside a cluster; a text with two moments of one stream present at once, with mind given shape, or with space delimiting mental phenomena; a formulation of loop quantum gravity in which area between adjacent grains is not carried by their adjacency; a reading of the *Vibhāvinī*'s space as mere absence (partly engaged, §4.7) |\n| 4 Ratio | matter dated on a stream's own moments where there is one, a unit where there is none; only the generic part survives, a duration as a count of steps; the aeon meets the mind-moment only as divergence | a text timing matter independently of mind-moments; a text counting the mindless beings' matter, or external matter, in some present mind's moments; a text counting the aeon in mind-moments; seventeen shown to be observed rather than derived |\n| The scale (§5.2) | the snap is named, not timed; the rate is round lower bounds in four works, with no ceiling | a text giving the finger-snap a duration, or the rate an upper bound |\n| The dropped row | *saṅkhāra* ↔ quantum causal histories adds no structure | a structural feature of quantum causal histories with a *Paṭṭhāna* counterpart not already in rows 1–4 |\n\n---\n\n## 11 · Stake, and What Was and Was Not Done\n\n**The authors' stake.** The authors write from within the Theravāda. The institution publishing this paper grounds its values in the Pāli canon, has ruled the Theravāda reading of space over the Sarvāstivāda one, and uses the word *space* on an organisational map of its own. Nothing in this paper bears on that map, and the ruling was made so that the map would not borrow a predicate it should not have. There is a pull, for authors in this position, to see the tradition anticipate frontier physics; the founder's own question began as a hope that the Abhidhamma might hold the bridge between the discrete and the smooth. **The pull was acted on, and caught.** An adversarial review before any prose dropped a row, merged two and narrowed the order row; outside review caught summaries that outran their own sections; and the 2026-09-30 revision withdrew three statements of the deposited text: that matter is \"timed by the mind's chain\" (§5.3), that nothing in S orders moments of different streams (§3.4), and that the finger-snap figure is one rhetorical number (§5.2). The sibling paper's first framing made the same kind of error in the other direction. The reversals are part of the result.\n\n**Done:**\n- The *Dhammasaṅgaṇī* (§637), the *Vibhaṅga* (space element), the *Kathāvatthu* (VI.6, §460–462; VI.7, §463–464) and its commentary, the *Visuddhimagga* (ch. XIV, ¶442; the kalāpa passages), the *Sammohavinodanī* (the size ladder; the finger-snap), the *Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha* (chs. 3, 4, 6, 8) and the *Abhidhammatthavibhāvinī-ṭīkā* (on chs. 3, 4, 6, 8), all read in the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana edition;\n- the *Abhidharmakośabhāṣya* ad I.43 read in the GRETIL Sanskrit (after Pradhan);\n- Rovelli's Zakopane lectures, the Rovelli–Upadhya primer, Markopoulou (2000) and Hawkins–Markopoulou–Sahlmann (2003) read in full; Sorkin (2007) and Dowker (2022/2023) read in full for the sibling paper;\n- the census run as described;\n- in the 2026-09-28 revision: Karunadasa (1967, chs. 5 and 7) and Bodhi (1993, the introduction and chs. VI and VIII) read for the passages cited; U Nārada (1969) consulted only for its treatment of the conditions' modes; the *Abhidharmakośabhāṣya* ad I.28 and II.22 read in the GRETIL Sanskrit; the *Paṭṭhāna* searched as described under *Not done*;\n- in the 2026-09-30 revision: every Pāli locus given with a file and line read at VRI `tipitaka-xml` commit `05d5d3c`, with fifteen lines of context and a mechanical check of each quotation; `kala/Time.lean` and `kala/Axioms.lean` (commit `deb9dec`) read and their run script re-run (seven theorems check, six breaks fail); the run *rate-of-mind control* read for its three floors only; Rossi and Hall (1941) read in a scanned copy; and the revision's draft put through an adversarial review, whose corrections it carries.\n\n**Not done:**\n- **The *Paṭṭhāna* itself was not read in full.** The conditions are characterised here through the manual and the sub-commentary. In this revision the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana *Paṭṭhāna* was searched for specific passages only: kamma across moments (*Kusalattika* §427), and the modes of presence, dissociation and support. A canonical-layer check of row 1, including whether the *Paṭṭhāna* anywhere composes two conditions, is owed; U Nārada's translation (1969) is the route.\n- The *Mūlaṭīkā*s on the *Vibhaṅga* and the *Paṭṭhāna*, their *Anuṭīkā*s and Ledi Sayadaw's two works were read only at the passages cited, not in full.\n- Bailey et al. (1977) was not reached (a login page). Its figures are checked against a re-analysis of its data (Lobo, Pfeifer and Morais 2024: 3.094 GeV, and a dilated lifetime of 64.378 ± 0.026 microseconds against 2.197 at rest, so a Lorentz factor of about 29.3).\n- No text was found that counts matter without a mind in mind-moments. None of the 35 sub-commentary passages on the mindless beings that the reading tool finds does, and the rest of the tradition was not searched for it; the absence is reported for that aperture only.\n- Von Rospatt (1995) was not reached, and Casati and Varzi (1999) was cited through Varzi's survey, not read.\n- Apart from Ledi Sayadaw's passages, the later and modern literature on kalāpas, in Burmese, Thai and Sinhala, was not read.\n- Vasubandhu's *Viṃśikā* critique of partless atoms, and Aristotle's *Physics* IV, were cited from standard knowledge and not re-read for this paper.\n- No physics was calculated, and no physicist has reviewed the primers. They were checked against the cited sources only.\n- The census was quick and English-only. The full census has not been run.\n\n---\n\n## 12 · Honest Limits\n\n- **This is a lens.** No row predicts a measurement, and no row can. The comparison is of formal shapes, and shared shape is not evidence of shared subject matter (§8).\n- **Two of the four rows are weak by their own account.** The grain row survives only as a presupposition of the boundary row. The ratio row is a definition, not a finding, and its one contact with measurement, time dilation, is a collision with a reading (a frame-independent per-kalāpa count) that the texts do not state.\n- **The strongest row lives at a late layer.** The adjacency correspondence holds for the sub-commentary (c. 12th century), not for the canon, whose space is a cavity.\n- **The physics is secondary, and simplified.** The primers state standard results and cite their sources. They omit the dynamics of both theories, which are unsettled, and the area formula is given for transversal crossings only.\n- **Rows 2 and 3 presuppose three things the physics does not settle.** The area spectrum used is the **kinematical** one; whether it survives the imposition of the constraints is disputed. Definite adjacency holds only for a **spin-network basis state on a fixed graph**; a general state superposes graphs. And the grains-and-faces picture is the **semiclassical** polyhedral reading, least trustworthy at the small spins where the smallest area sits.\n- **Row 1 is not a causal set,** for the four reasons of §3.4, and its order between streams is the reader's composition of edges the texts state separately.\n- **The machine check is small.** The Lean theorems of §4.5 check the within-stream precondition only, in an exploratory model the authors wrote; adjacency and shape are not modelled.\n- **The two cases of §5.3 rest partly on an absence.** No text found counts matter without a mind in mind-moments; a text that did would overturn the second case (§5.5).\n- **Two questions are left open.** Whether a stream's succession is its time in the causal-set sense (§3.4), and which reading of §5.3 the seventeen bears where no mind is present.\n- **The rate figures are floors, and their conversion to seconds is the authors'.** The finger-snap's tenth of a second, and the reading of the figures as round orders of magnitude, are assumptions of this paper, not of the texts.\n- **Translations are the authors'.** Where a Pāli or Sanskrit term has a contested rendering (*anipphanna*, *kālavimutta*, *ākāsakoṭṭhāsika*), the rendering chosen is a reading, not a settled equivalence.\n- **Edition.** Paragraph numbers follow the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana edition. The Pali Text Society's numbering differs; passages should be located by title and quotation.\n- **The census aperture was narrow.** Buddhism-and-physics comparison is a large, poorly indexed literature, much of it in books and in languages not searched. Absence from the search is weak evidence.\n\n---\n\n## 13 · Close\n\nThe *Kathāvatthu* commentary gives a small example. A person looks at two trees. The eye sees the trees. The mind, finding no matter between them, knows \"space\". Loop quantum gravity, asked where the space is between two grains, also answers *between*, and puts a number on it, which the text does not. The shared part is the generic one (§9). The two answers share that shape and have two subjects. This paper records the shape and marks the boundary between the subjects, which, as in the text it reads, belongs to neither side.\n\n---\n\n## Cross-Venue References\n\n| Venue | Identifier |\n|---|---|\n| Primary canonical | <https://thonly.org/research/abhidhamma-and-discrete-quantum-gravity> |\n| GitHub | <https://github.com/thonly/publications/blob/main/defensive-publications/abhidhamma-and-discrete-quantum-gravity.md> |\n| Sibling paper | <https://thonly.org/research/the-vibhajjavadin-view-of-time> |\n| Census pre-registration (public) | `thonly/publications` commit `7348ba2`, `timestamps/census/physics-lens-prereg.md` |\n| Sibling paper (the Paṭṭhāna's relations) | <https://thonly.org/research/patthana-typed-causation-vocabulary> |\n| Lean 4 formalisation (public, CC0) | <https://github.com/SiliconWat/formal-abhidhamma> (`kala/Time.lean`, `kala/Axioms.lean`); software concept DOI [10.5281/zenodo.23067241](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23067241) |\n\n---\n\n## Acknowledgments\n\nThe authors thank the Vipassana Research Institute for the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana texts; the GRETIL project and the editors of its *Abhidharmakośabhāṣya* e-text; and the physicists whose lectures and primers are written to be read by people outside the field. The reading of the sources, the adversarial review and the drafting were done with Miss Aquarius, the name under which this institution discloses its AI collaboration.\n\n---\n\n## Citations\n\n**Physics**\n\n1. Bombelli, L., Lee, J., Meyer, D. & Sorkin, R.D. (1987). \"Space-time as a causal set.\" *Physical Review Letters* 59: 521.\n2. Brightwell, G. & Gregory, R. (1991). \"Structure of random discrete spacetime.\" *Physical Review Letters* 66(3): 260–263.\n3. Rideout, D.P. & Sorkin, R.D. (2000). \"A classical sequential growth dynamics for causal sets.\" *Physical Review D* 61: 024002. arXiv:gr-qc/9904062.\n4. Sorkin, R.D. (2007). \"Relativity theory does not imply that the future already exists: a counterexample.\" In V. Petkov (ed.), *Relativity and the Dimensionality of the World*, Springer. arXiv:gr-qc/0703098.\n5. Dowker, F. (2022/2023). \"Causal Set Quantum Gravity and the Hard Problem of Consciousness.\" arXiv:2209.07653.\n6. Wüthrich, C. & Callender, C. (2017). \"What Becomes of a Causal Set?\" *British Journal for the Philosophy of Science* 68(3): 907–925. arXiv:1502.00018.\n7. Rovelli, C. & Smolin, L. (1995). \"Discreteness of area and volume in quantum gravity.\" *Nuclear Physics B* 442: 593–622; erratum B456: 753. arXiv:gr-qc/9411005.\n8. Ashtekar, A. & Lewandowski, J. (1997). \"Quantum theory of geometry I: Area operators.\" *Classical and Quantum Gravity* 14: A55–A82. arXiv:gr-qc/9602046.\n9. Loll, R. (1996). \"Spectrum of the volume operator in quantum gravity.\" *Nuclear Physics B* 460: 143–154. arXiv:gr-qc/9511030.\n10. Rovelli, C. & Upadhya, P. (1998). \"Loop quantum gravity and quanta of space: a primer.\" arXiv:gr-qc/9806079.\n11. Rovelli, C. (2011). \"Zakopane lectures on loop gravity.\" arXiv:1102.3660.\n12. Bianchi, E., Doná, P. & Speziale, S. (2011). \"Polyhedra in loop quantum gravity.\" *Physical Review D* 83: 044035. arXiv:1009.3402.\n13. Markopoulou, F. & Smolin, L. (1997). \"Causal evolution of spin networks.\" *Nuclear Physics B* 508: 409–430. arXiv:gr-qc/9702025.\n14. Markopoulou, F. (2000). \"Quantum causal histories.\" *Classical and Quantum Gravity* 17: 2059–2072. arXiv:hep-th/9904009.\n15. Hawkins, E., Markopoulou, F. & Sahlmann, H. (2003). \"Evolution in quantum causal histories.\" *Classical and Quantum Gravity* 20: 3839. arXiv:hep-th/0302111.\n16. Rovelli, C. (2021). *Helgoland*. Riverhead / Allen Lane (Italian ed. Adelphi, 2020). Chapter on Nāgārjuna.\n17. Hawking, S.W., King, A.R. & McCarthy, P.J. (1976). \"A new topology for curved space–time which incorporates the causal, differential, and conformal structures.\" *Journal of Mathematical Physics* 17(2): 174–181.\n18. Malament, D.B. (1977). \"The class of continuous timelike curves determines the topology of spacetime.\" *Journal of Mathematical Physics* 18(7): 1399–1404.\n19. Regge, T. (1961). \"General relativity without coordinates.\" *Il Nuovo Cimento* 19: 558–571.\n20. Domagala, M. & Lewandowski, J. (2004). \"Black-hole entropy from quantum geometry.\" *Classical and Quantum Gravity* 21: 5233–5244. arXiv:gr-qc/0407051.\n21. Meissner, K.A. (2004). \"Black-hole entropy in loop quantum gravity.\" *Classical and Quantum Gravity* 21: 5245–5252. arXiv:gr-qc/0407052.\n22. Ghosh, A. & Mitra, P. (2005). \"An improved estimate of black hole entropy in the quantum geometry approach.\" *Physics Letters B* 616: 114.\n23. Rossi, B. & Hall, D.B. (1941). \"Variation of the Rate of Decay of Mesotrons with Momentum.\" *Physical Review* 59(3): 223–228. (Read in a scanned copy of the journal pages: <http://supernovae.in2p3.fr/~llg/Enseignements/Agregation/Relativite/biblio/Rossi-et-Hall--1941.pdf>.)\n24. Bailey, J., Borer, K., Combley, F., Drumm, H., Krienen, F., Lange, F., Picasso, E., von Ruden, W., Farley, F.J.M., Field, J.H., Flegel, W. & Hattersley, P.M. (1977). \"Measurements of relativistic time dilatation for positive and negative muons in a circular orbit.\" *Nature* 268: 301–305. (Primary text not reached; figures checked against 25.)\n25. Lobo, I.P., Pfeifer, C. & Morais, P.H. (2024). \"Experimental Bounds on Deformed Muon Lifetime Dilation.\" arXiv:2406.05150v3 (re-analyses the data of 24).\n\n**Pāli and Sanskrit sources** (Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana edition, VRI `tipitaka-xml`, unless noted; file:line references are to the `romn/` text at commit `05d5d3c`)\n\n26. *Dhammasaṅgaṇī* §637 (`abh01m.mul`); §652, kamma-produced visible form (`abh01m.mul.xml:5549`).\n27. *Vibhaṅga*, *Dhātuvibhaṅga*, the space element; and the modes of existence, including non-percipient existence (`abh02m.mul.xml:3685`).\n28. *Dhātukathā*, non-percipient existence as one aggregate (`abh03m1.mul.xml:421`).\n29. *Kathāvatthu* III.11 *Asaññakathā* (`abh03m3.mul.xml:5797`); VI.6 *Ākāsakathā*, §460–462; VI.7, §463 (`abh03m3.mul`).\n30. *Kathāvatthu-aṭṭhakathā* on VI.6–7 (`abh03a.att`).\n31. *Paṭṭhāna-aṭṭhakathā*: on contiguity and the absence of shape (`abh03a.att.xml:7697`); on the root condition, kamma-born matter going on without mind, and non-percipient existence as the place of matter (`:7857`, `:7861`).\n32. Buddhaghosa. *Visuddhimagga* ch. XIV, ¶442 (the space element), the kalāpa passages of the second volume, and the death-and-rebirth passage (`e0101n.mul`, `e0102n.mul`; `e0102n.mul.xml:4045`).\n33. *Sammohavinodanī* (*Vibhaṅga-aṭṭhakathā*): the size ladder (gloss on *aṇumattesu vajjesu*); the finger-snap figure for feeling (`abh02a.att.xml:533`); the lifetime of matter, the two walkers, and the older and replacement rules for dating kamma-born matter (`abh02a.att.xml:409`–`:433`); the death-and-rebirth passage (`abh02a.att.xml:2889`).\n34. *Atthasālinī* (*Dhammasaṅgaṇī-aṭṭhakathā*), on internal and external, and on time as a designation (`abh01a.att.xml:3485`, `:3721`).\n35. *Vibhaṅga Mūlaṭīkā* and *Vibhaṅga Anuṭīkā*, on the lifetime of matter and the presence sub-moment (`abh02t.tik.xml:305`, `:309`, `:313`, `:4933`, `:4937`).\n36. *Paṭṭhāna Mūlaṭīkā* and *Paṭṭhāna Anuṭīkā*, on contiguity, shapelessness and the time-interval across the mindless existence (`abh03t.tik.xml:4305`, `:4309`; `abh05t.nrf.xml:4637`, `:4641`).\n37. Anuruddha. *Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha* chs. 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 (`abh07t`, bound with the sub-commentary): among others `abh07t.nrf.xml:329`, `:1229`–`:1241`, `:1485`, `:1693`, `:1957`, `:2169`, `:2213`, `:2273`, `:2277`, `:2349`, `:2865`, `:2873`, `:2909`, `:2913`.\n38. Sumaṅgala. *Abhidhammatthavibhāvinī-ṭīkā* on chs. 3, 4, 6, 8 (`abh07t`): among others `abh07t.nrf.xml:4833`–`:4849`, `:5553`, `:6653`.\n39. Vasubandhu. *Abhidharmakośabhāṣya* ad I.5, I.28, I.43 and II.22, ed. P. Pradhan (2nd ed., 1975), pp. 32–33 for I.43; GRETIL e-text (line references in square brackets are GRETIL's page|line).\n40. *Paṭṭhāna*, *Kusalattika*, *pañhāvāra* (`abh03m7.mul`): §427 (kamma across moments, `abh03m7.mul.xml:6065`); the modes of the presence, dissociation and support conditions.\n41. *Brahmajāla Sutta* (DN 1), the non-percipient beings (`s0101m.mul.xml:487`).\n42. *Saṃyutta Nikāya* 15.5 (*Pabbata*) and 15.8 (*Gaṅgā*), on the length and number of aeons (`s0302m.mul.xml:3529`–`:3533`, `:3565`).\n43. *Sumaṅgalavilāsinī* (*Dīgha* commentary), on the unseen breaking up of mind (`s0101a.att.xml:2245`); and the *Dīgha* sub-commentary on DN 1, the mindless beings' material series (`s0101t.tik.xml:2053`).\n44. *Sāratthappakāsinī* (*Saṃyutta* commentary), on SN 12.61, the rate of mind per finger-snap (`s0302a.att.xml:1463`, `:1467`).\n45. *Manorathapūraṇī* (*Aṅguttara* commentary), the finger-snap as the striking of two fingers (`s0401a.att.xml:1119`); and the *Aṅguttara* sub-commentary on AN 1.48, every mind of the same moment (`s0401t.tik.xml:1666`).\n46. *Paramatthajotikā* (*Suttanipāta* commentary), two minds never together (`s0505a.att.xml:685`).\n47. *Sāratthadīpanī-ṭīkā* (Vinaya sub-commentary), the rate of mind and the discerned and undiscerned orders (`vin01t2.tik.xml:341`).\n48. *Dhammasaṅgaṇī Anuṭīkā*, the rate of mind, and the durations of series (`abh04t.nrf.xml:821`).\n49. *Milindapañha*, the rate of mind in rice grains and the seven kinds of mind (`s0518m.nrf.xml:2838`–`:2870`).\n50. *Payogasiddhi* (a Pāli grammar), the finger-snap as the short-vowel mora (`e0807n.nrf.xml:205`).\n51. Ledi Sayadaw. *Paramatthadīpanī* (*Saṅgaha-mahāṭīkā*), on the count of the lifetime and the unit (`e0301n.nrf.xml:2745`, `:2749`); *Paṭṭhānuddesa-dīpanī*, on the between and on the mindless existence (`e0501n.nrf.xml:229`, `:233`).\n\n**Other neighbours**\n\n52. Ly, T. & Miss Aquarius (2026). \"Causal Set Theory, the Growing Block, and the Buddhist Debate on the Three Times.\" <https://thonly.org/research/the-vibhajjavadin-view-of-time>.\n53. Ly, T. & Miss Aquarius (2026). \"Twenty-Four Kinds of Because: The Paṭṭhāna as a Typed-Causation Vocabulary for AI Alignment,\" §4.7. <https://thonly.org/research/patthana-typed-causation-vocabulary>.\n54. Ly, T. & Miss Aquarius (2026). *Formal Abhidhamma: the Theravāda Abhidhamma in Lean 4* (software, CC0), `kala/Time.lean`, `kala/Axioms.lean`, and the run `runs/2026-09-30-rate-of-mind-control/`. <https://github.com/SiliconWat/formal-abhidhamma>; concept DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23067241.\n55. *The Ephemeral Projector — A Comparative Analysis of Quantum Mechanics and Abhidhamma.* ResearchGate 397427972.\n56. \"Causal Set Theory and Abhidhamma: A Dialogue…\", ekasiswanto.wordpress.com, 2026-07-31 (self-labelled AI-generated).\n57. \"Kalapa (atomism).\" Grokipedia and Wikipedia, read 2026-09-27.\n58. Capra, F. (1975). *The Tao of Physics*. Shambhala.\n59. Aristotle. *Physics* IV.4 (place as the innermost boundary of the container).\n60. Vasubandhu. *Viṃśikā*, vv. 11–14 (the critique of partless atoms). Not re-read for this paper.\n61. Cousins, L.S. (2001). \"On the Vibhajjavādins: The Mahiṃsāsaka, Dhammaguttaka, Kassapiya and Tambapaṇṇiya branches of the ancient Theriyas.\" *Buddhist Studies Review* 18(2): 131–182.\n62. Karunadasa, Y. (1967). *Buddhist Analysis of Matter*. Colombo: Department of Cultural Affairs. (Chs. 5 and 7 read for this revision.)\n63. Bodhi, Bhikkhu (gen. ed.) (1993). *A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma: The Abhidhammattha Sangaha of Ācariya Anuruddha*. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society.\n64. Nārada, U (Mūlapaṭṭhāna Sayadaw), assisted by Thein Nyun (1969). *Conditional Relations (Paṭṭhāna)*, vol. I. Pali Text Society Translation Series 37. London: Luzac for the PTS.\n65. von Rospatt, A. (1995). *The Buddhist Doctrine of Momentariness: A Survey of the Origins and Early Phase of this Doctrine up to Vasubandhu*. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. (Bibliographic record only; not reached.)\n66. Varzi, A. \"Boundary.\" *Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy* (read 2026-09-28).\n67. Casati, R. & Varzi, A. (1999). *Parts and Places: The Structures of Spatial Representation*. MIT Press, ch. 5. (Cited through Varzi's survey; not read.)",
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- "text": "## Abstract\n\nIn 2007 Rafael Sorkin, one of the founders of causal set theory, remarked in a footnote that the \"accretive time\" of his sequential-growth models \"seems close to that of C.D. Broad, and also to that of the 'Vibhajavadin' school within the Buddhist philosophical tradition.\" Fay Dowker, quoting him (2022; the wording below is that of her 2023 revision), added an invitation: *\"A interesting project for a scholar of Buddhism interested in physics would be to try to determine the 'Vibhajavadin' view of time, perception and epistemology in detail by examining the earliest existing records.\"*\n\nThis paper takes up that invitation from the Pāli sources, read against the northern ones. It finds that **there is no single Vibhajjavādin view of time to report.** The name has at least two referents:\n\n- **In the northern Abhidharma**, the *Abhidharmakośabhāṣya* (ad V.25) defines the Vibhajyavādins as those who hold that **the present exists, and past action whose fruit has not yet been given exists, while ripened past action and the future do not**. Its past **thins**: an action drops out of existence once its fruit is given, and nothing but unripened action is kept at all. The view resembles Sorkin's accretion **only in keeping some past and denying the future.** No Buddhist position in the debate keeps every element once born, as a growing block does.\n- **In the Pāli tradition**, Vibhajjavāda is the Mahāvihāra's own name for itself. The commentary on the *Kathāvatthu* tells how the Third Council answered a king's question about the Buddha's doctrine with *\"Vibhajjavādī, mahārājā.\"* That same *Kathāvatthu* **refutes four rival positions on time**: *all exists*, *past aggregates exist*, *some past and some future exist*, and *exists as past*. The third states, in the *Kathāvatthu*'s own words, the past half of the view the *Kośa* calls Vibhajyavādin; the commentary names its holders the Kassapikas.\n\nThe two referents meet in one school name. Vasumitra's doxography gives the Kāśyapīya exactly the *Kośa*'s definition, and Stcherbatsky noted in 1923 that the *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavādins had been identified with the Kāśyapīyas. The northern and Pāli sources report that school's past alike and its future differently.\n\nSo the tradition that uses the name today holds **presentism about conditioned phenomena**: of conditioned dhammas only the present exists, and nibbāna stands outside the three times altogether. Presentism is exactly the view Sorkin says his model is not. Block-universe arguments, he writes, *\"presuppose that the sole alternative to the 'block universe' is a doctrine that identifies reality with a three-dimensional instant\"*, and his growth is offered as a third option. **The Pāli Vibhajjavāda is the foil of causal-set growth, not its twin.**\n\nWhat the Theravāda offers a causal-set physicist is a **contrast**, and its use is that it locates the disagreement exactly:\n\n- **Past action conditions the present without existing, and nothing persists in between.** The *Kathāvatthu* (§299) refutes the existence of past action whose result has not ripened; the Abhidhamma's kamma condition operates across moments.\n- **A consciousness can take a past object without being objectless** (*Kathāvatthu* IX.6).\n\nThis is a claim about influence, not about ordered existence. The paper's findings are listed, each with its falsifier, under *Findings disclosed*; the physics comparison stays labelled as a comparison.\n\n**Keywords:** causal set theory, sequential growth, growing block, presentism, eternalism, temporal becoming, Buddhist philosophy of time, Kathāvatthu, Abhidharmakośa, Sarvāstivāda, Kāśyapīya, Vibhajjavāda, Theravāda, Sorkin, Dowker.\n\n---\n\n## Findings disclosed\n\nThis paper is a study: it discloses readings of texts, not a mechanism. Its findings are listed here at the width that survived review and the census reported below, each with what would break it. The census's surviving width is **a reading of the *Kathāvatthu*'s time debates against Sorkin's and Dowker's causal-set remarks**; every finding is a part of that reading and nothing wider. The historical identifications the findings rely on are prior art and are cited as such (Stcherbatsky 1923, p. 43 n.; Vasumitra; Cousins 2001).\n\n1. **Read against Sorkin's footnote, \"Vibhajavadin\" has two referents, and they meet in one school.** The *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavādin (present plus unripened past action, no future) and the Mahāvihāra's self-designation are different positions. The *Kathāvatthu* §299 refutes the first view's past half in its own words, under the commentary's name *Kassapikā*; Vasumitra gives the Kāśyapīya the *Kośa*'s definition (§2.3, §5.1). *Breaks if:* the *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavādin is shown to denote the Mahāvihāra specifically, or the §299 thesis is reliably attributed to a school other than the Kāśyapīya/Kassapika.\n2. **No position in the Buddhist three-times debate is a growing block.** The *Kośa*'s and the Kassapika's past exists only until an action's fruit is given, and it retains nothing but unripened action; the resemblance to Sorkin's accretion is confined to keeping some past and denying the future (§4). *Breaks if:* a Buddhist source is found that keeps every arisen dhamma as existing past while denying the future; or Sorkin's growth is read so that born elements cease to exist.\n3. **The Mahāvihāra's position, read against Sorkin, is presentism about conditioned dhammas: the very alternative he says block-universe arguments presuppose and his growth is meant to escape.** Nibbāna and concepts are time-free (*kālavimutta*) and fall outside the comparison (§3, §5.3). *Breaks if:* a primary Theravāda source affirms that past or future conditioned dhammas exist, including unripened past action, as distinct from their conditioning force.\n4. **The Theravāda's account of how the past acts is a contrast with causal-set growth, and it locates the disagreement at the past relatum.** The ceased act conditions its result across moments; it does not exist when the result arises (§299); and nothing persists between them, since the persisting store of kamma (*kammūpacaya*) is the opponent's doctrine in the commentary (§6). *Breaks if:* a primary Theravāda source treats past kamma as existing when it conditions (for example, by accepting a *kammūpacaya*); or the *Kathāvatthu*'s *atthi* (\"exists\") is shown to be an efficacy predicate, in which case the contrast with the *Kośa* reduces to a difference of wording (§10).\n5. **On Dowker's \"perception and epistemology\", the *Kathāvatthu* holds that a past object is a genuine object although it does not exist** (IX.6, §559; §6). *Breaks if:* §559 is read so that the past object is a present surrogate (a memory-image existing now) rather than the past itself.\n\n---\n\n## Prior Art and Non-Assertion Statement\n\nThis document is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0. **The authors and HeartBank® will not seek patent** on anything herein. Nothing here is a mechanism; what the paper discloses is the numbered list under *Findings disclosed* above, dedicated to the public domain so that no one may enclose it.\n\n**What is already public, and cited rather than claimed:**\n\n- **The two-referent answer in outline.** Stcherbatsky, *The Central Conception of Buddhism* (1923), p. 43 and its footnote, is the nearest prior instance, found after the census below. It describes the *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavādins (citing AK V.24 ff.); it reports that the *Kathāvatthu* ascribes such opinions to the Kāśyapīyas and that Xuanzang's commentary identifies the *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavādins as the Kāśyapīyas; it remarks that the Theravādins seem to share the Sautrāntika view; and it notes the double sense of *vibhajyavāda*. This is the page Dowker cites.\n- **The Kāśyapīya's thesis in the northern doxography.** Vasumitra's *Samayabhedoparacanacakra* (Xuanzang's Chinese, T49 no. 2031) gives the Kāśyapīya the *Kośa*'s definition.\n- **The four debates in English.** Shwe Zan Aung and C.A.F. Rhys Davids, *Points of Controversy* (Pali Text Society, 1915), translate the *Kathāvatthu* with the commentary's attributions. The *Kośa* passage is translated by La Vallée Poussin and, in English, by Pruden (1988–90).\n- **The mapping of the Buddhist three-times debate onto Western theories of time.** Kristie Miller classes the Theravādins and Sautrāntikas as presentists and the Sarvāstivādins as eternalists, adding that the Sarvāstivāda view is closer to a moving spotlight than to a block universe (\"A Taxonomy of Views about Time in Buddhist and Western Philosophy,\" *Philosophy East and West* 67.3, 2017). The Vibhajyavāda and Kāśyapīya positions are surveyed in an unpublished essay by Michel Gauvain, *Time and Temporality in Indian Buddhism* (academia.edu 43833572). Its gloss of Vibhajyavāda (\"time permanent, phenomena move from one time to another\") differs from the *Kośa*'s.\n- **The historical claim that *Vibhajjavādin* named a group of schools, not one** (L.S. Cousins, \"On the Vibhajjavādins,\" *Buddhist Studies Review* 18.2, 2001).\n- **Causal-set becoming as a philosophical topic** (Sorkin 2007; Wüthrich & Callender, \"What Becomes of a Causal Set?\", *BJPS* 68.3, 2017; Dowker 2022/2023).\n- **General comparisons of the Abhidhamma with causal sets or quantum physics**: a blog post of 2026-07-31, self-described as AI-generated, \"Causal Set Theory and Abhidhamma: A Dialogue Between Modern Physics and Buddhist Philosophy\" (<https://ekasiswanto.wordpress.com/2026/07/31/causal-set-theory-and-abhidhamma-a-dialogue-between-modern-physics-and-buddhist-philosophy/>), and *The Ephemeral Projector: A Comparative Analysis of Quantum Mechanics and Abhidhamma* (ResearchGate publication 397427972, <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/397427972>).\n\n**The census.** A quick novelty census ran on 2026-09-27. Its pre-registration was pushed publicly before any query: `thonly/publications` commit `7348ba2`, `timestamps/census/physics-lens-prereg.md`. Its aperture was the English web, arXiv, Google Scholar, PhilPapers, GitHub and Google Patents by keyword. Thai, Burmese, Sinhala, Chinese, Japanese and Khmer sources were **NOT RUN**, and books were not read. **Not found in that aperture on that date:** a reading of the *Kathāvatthu*'s time debates against Sorkin's and Dowker's causal-set remarks. The census also reported the two-referent answer as not found; that row is **narrowed** here, because Stcherbatsky's footnote, read after the census, already gives most of it. ⛔ A census result is a statement about a search, not a claim of priority. The comparison of Buddhism with physics is a crowded field, and much of it is unindexed.\n\n---\n\n## 1 · The Invitation\n\nCausal set theory replaces the spacetime continuum with a locally finite partial order: discrete events, related only by *before*. Sorkin's slogan is *order + number = geometry*. In its sequential-growth (\"classical sequential growth\") models the causal set is not given all at once; it **grows**, one element at a time, each new element born to the future of some of those already present. Sorkin argued that this growth gives an objective correlate of the passage of time, a becoming that relativity was thought to have ruled out. His 2007 paper, \"Relativity theory does not imply that the future already exists: a counterexample,\" makes the case. In §5 he describes what the growth yields as *\"something 'four dimensional' from the very beginning, but which at any stage of its growth is still incomplete\"*, and he adds the footnote:\n\n> The notion of \"accretive time\" that arises here seems close to that of C.D. Broad, and also to that of the \"Vibhajavadin\" school within the Buddhist philosophical tradition.\n\nFay Dowker, developing Sorkin's proposal as a response to the hard problem of consciousness (arXiv 2209.07653), quotes the footnote and adds her own. In the revision of 21 May 2023 it reads:\n\n> A interesting project for a scholar of Buddhism interested in physics would be to try to determine the \"Vibhajavadin\" view of time, perception and epistemology in detail by examining the earliest existing records.\n\n(The first version, of 16 September 2022, reads *\"would be to determine the 'Vibhajyavadin' view\"*, without *try to*.)\n\nFor the Vibhajavādin view her notes point to p. 43 of Stcherbatsky's *The Central Conception of Buddhism* (1923). Separately, they cite his *Buddhist Logic* (vol. 1, 1932, pp. 4–5) for early Buddhism as \"no Matter, no Substance, only separate elements, momentary flashes of efficient energy … a flow of existential moments.\"\n\nThe question is well posed, and it is answerable, because the records exist, in Pāli, Sanskrit and Chinese, and they are unusually explicit about time. What follows reads them.\n\n*Spelling note.* Sorkin and Dowker's 2023 revision write *Vibhajavadin*; Dowker's 2022 version writes *Vibhajyavadin*. They are quoted as written. Pāli sources give *Vibhajjavāda*, Sanskrit sources *Vibhajyavāda*. The spellings mark traditions, and this paper keeps them apart deliberately.\n\n---\n\n## 2 · Who Were the Vibhajjavādins?\n\n### 2.1 · The Pāli self-designation\n\nThe *Kathāvatthu* itself, the fifth book of the Abhidhamma Piṭaka, never uses the word. The self-designation is found in its commentary (*Kathāvatthu-aṭṭhakathā*, part of the *Pañcappakaraṇa-aṭṭhakathā* traditionally ascribed to Buddhaghosa, c. 5th century CE, drawing on older material). The commentary describes the Third Council under Aśoka: the king, having expelled monks of other views, asks the remaining monks what the Buddha taught.\n\n> *\"kiṃvādī, bhante, sammāsambuddho\"ti? \"Vibhajjavādī, mahārājā\"ti.*\n>\n> \"Of what doctrine, venerable sir, was the Fully Awakened One?\" — \"A Vibhajjavādin, great king.\"\n\nThe elder Moggaliputtatissa then composes the *Kathāvatthu* to refute the views that had arisen. In the tradition's own account, therefore, **the *Kathāvatthu* is the Vibhajjavādin record.**\n\n### 2.2 · A name for a group\n\nCousins (2001) shows that the word has two senses in the Pāli commentarial literature: an epithet of the Buddha (one who answers by analysis, *vibhajja*) and the name of a school. In the second sense it historically named the common ancestor of **four** schools: the Mahiṃsāsakas, the Dhammaguttikas (the commentary's form; Cousins's title writes *Dhammaguttaka*), the Kassapiyas and the Tambapaṇṇiyas, the last being the Mahāvihāra of Sri Lanka whose texts the Pāli canon preserves. The commentary's Third Council story, Cousins argues, draws its force from the double meaning. The present-day Theravāda is therefore **one branch** of the Vibhajjavādins, not the whole group. That matters below, because another branch reappears as an opponent.\n\nThe commentary's own family tree is different, and it is recorded here because it cuts against a tidy reading. Its schism narrative, taken from the *Dīpavaṃsa*, derives the Sabbatthivādins and the Dhammaguttikas from the Mahiṃsāsakas and then says: *\"Puna sabbatthivādakulato bhijjitvā kassapikā nāma jātā\"* (\"again, breaking from the Sabbatthivāda family, those called Kassapikas arose\"). The Pāli commentary thus files the Kassapikas under the Sabbatthivāda, where Cousins places them among the Vibhajjavādin branches. The findings below depend on *which school* held the §299 thesis, not on which family tree is right.\n\n### 2.3 · The northern definition `[cross-tradition]`\n\nThe Sarvāstivāda's own systematization, as reported and criticized by Vasubandhu, defines the two camps sharply (*Abhidharmakośabhāṣya* ad V.25, Pradhan ed., p. 296, ll. 4–6):\n\n> *ye hi sarvam astīti vadanti atītam anāgataṃ pratyutpannaṃ ca te sarvāstivādāḥ / ye tu kecid asti yat pratyutpannam adattaphalaṃ cātītaṃ karma kiñcin nāsti yad dattaphalam atītam anāgataṃ ceti vibhajya vadanti te vibhajyavādinaḥ /*\n>\n> Those who say that *all exists*, past, future and present, are Sarvāstivādins. Those who, *distinguishing* (*vibhajya*), say that something exists (the present, and past action that has not given its fruit) and something does not (past action that has given its fruit, and the future) are Vibhajyavādins.\n\nThe *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavādin, then, holds **present plus some past, and no future**. The name is glossed from the method: they *speak distinguishing*.\n\nStcherbatsky's p. 43, the page Dowker cites, describes the same school: an intermediate position that \"maintained the reality of the present facts and of that part of the past ones which had not already lost their influence, but the reality of the future ones and of that part of the past ones which had ceased to exhibit any influence it denied. Vasubandhu calls this school the Vibhajyavādins.\" **Dowker's pointer and the *Kośa* therefore agree.** Stcherbatsky's footnote goes further. It reports that the *Kathāvatthu* ascribes such opinions to the Kāśyapīyas, who also admitted the reality of that part of the future which was foreshadowed or fixed; that Xuanzang's commentary identifies the *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavādins as the Kāśyapīyas; that the Theravādins seem to have shared the Sautrāntika view; and that Vasubandhu seems not to know the explanation of *vibhajyavāda* as orthodoxy, the sense the *Kathāvatthu* commentary gives it.\n\nVasumitra's doxography of the schools, in Xuanzang's Chinese, gives the Kāśyapīya (飲光部) the same thesis. Among its tenets: 若業果已熟則無。業果未熟則有 (\"if the fruit of an action has ripened, it does not exist; if the fruit has not ripened, it exists\"). It adds that no formation has a future thing as its cause (無諸行以未來為因) and that all formations perish momentarily (一切行皆剎那滅).\n\nThe *Kośa*'s definition is a Sarvāstivādin doxographer's report of an opponent (§10). Two northern reports, the *Kośa* and Vasumitra, agree on it (both from a Sarvāstivāda milieu, so not fully independent), and the Pāli debate book states the same past-half in its own words (§3).\n\n---\n\n## 3 · The Earliest Pāli Record: Four Debates on Time\n\nThe *Kathāvatthu* is a book of debates. The Theravādin (*sakavādī*) cross-examines an opponent (*paravādī*) by paired questions until the opponent's thesis yields a consequence he must reject. Four early debates, all in its first chapter, concern time. The *Kathāvatthu* names no opponents; the attributions below are the commentary's. Paragraph numbers follow the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana edition, whose chapter division differs from the Pali Text Society's; the § numbers are unambiguous. An English translation with the attributions is *Points of Controversy* (1915).\n\n| CST § | Debate | Opponent's thesis | Commentary's attribution |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| 282 | *Sabbamatthītikathā* | *sabbam atthi*: all exists | *\"seyyathāpi etarahi sabbamatthivādānaṃ\"* (the all-exists school, i.e. the Sarvāstivāda) |\n| 297 | *Atītakkhandhādikathā* | past and future things are aggregates, bases and elements, and therefore exist | the paravādin who \"wants past and future to exist because they do not give up being aggregates\" |\n| 299–300 | *Ekaccaṃ atthītikathā* | *some* of the past exists and some of the future (what is bound to arise). The restriction to action whose result has not ripened is in the *Kathāvatthu*'s own text: *\"atītā avipakkavipākā dhammā – te atthi\"* | *\"seyyathāpi kassapikā\"* (the Kassapikas; one of Cousins's four Vibhajjavādin branches, though the commentary's schism list derives them from the Sabbatthivāda, §2.2) |\n| 304 | *Hevatthikathā* | things exist *in one way* and not in another: the past exists *as past* | *\"seyyathāpi etarahi … andhakānaṃ\"* (the Andhakas) |\n\nThe refutations of *all exists* and *some exists* turn on one formula:\n\n> *Atītaṃ atthīti? Āmantā. Nanu atītaṃ niruddhaṃ vigataṃ vipariṇataṃ atthaṅgataṃ abbhatthaṅgatanti?* (§283)\n>\n> \"Does the past exist?\" — \"Yes.\" — \"But has the past not ceased, departed, changed, set, gone down?\"\n\nThe other two debates are refuted differently.\n\n- **§297 separates classification from existence.** The Theravādin grants that past things are *classified* as aggregates but denies that they *exist*. The *Kathāvatthu* itself quotes the *Niruttipatha Sutta* (SN 22.62) in the *Sabbamatthi* and *Atītakkhandhādi* debates (§296, §298): what has passed is designated *\"was\"*, never *\"is\"* or *\"will be\"*. The opponent answers with SN 22.48 (any form, past, future or present, is the form aggregate). The commentary applies the *Niruttipatha* to §297 and says the opponent's sutta proves the aggregates' *being aggregates*, not their existence. That sutta, in the Nikāyas themselves, is the oldest scriptural anchor of the view.\n- **The *Hevatthi* thesis grants that the past has ceased and says it exists *as past*** (*\"atītaṃ atītanti hevatthi, atītaṃ anāgatanti heva natthi\"*, §305). The ceased-formula cannot touch it. It is refuted by a different reductio: if the same past both is and is not, then existence and non-existence become one meaning (*\"atthaṭṭho natthaṭṭho … ekaṭṭhe same samabhāge tajjāte\"*, §304–305).\n\nAt §299 the Kassapika position is broken apart. If some of the past exists, then some of the past has ceased and some has not, and the part that has not ceased is not past. The same dilemma is run for the future at §300.\n\nThe position that remains, the Mahāvihāra's own, is **presentism about conditioned dhammas**: of conditioned phenomena only present ones exist; past and future are what *was* and what *will be*. The Abhidhamma adds a class that the three times do not cover. The root verse of *Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha* ch. 8 §37 reads *\"tekālikā dhammā, kālamuttā ca\"*, things of the three times and things free of time, and Sumaṅgala's sub-commentary names the time-free class: nibbāna and concepts (*nibbānapaññattivasena kālavimuttā ca*). Nibbāna is not a present dhamma; it is outside the question this debate asks.\n\n---\n\n## 4 · The Physicists' Map and the Buddhist Map\n\n```\n WHAT EXISTS? past present future nearest physics picture\n ─────────────────────── ─────────── ──────────── ─────────── ─────────────────────────────\n Sarvāstivāda all all all eternalism: a moving spotlight,\n not a block (Miller 2017) †\n Kośa's Vibhajyavāda [X] unripened all none a past that THINS; resembles\n karma only Sorkin's only in keeping some\n past and denying the future\n Kassapika (Kv §299–300) unripened all what is (no clean analogue: a past\n karma only bound to that thins, a future that\n arise is partly settled)\n Andhaka (Kv §304) \"as past\" all \"as future\" a tensed-property reading\n Mahāvihāra (Kv, refuting none all none PRESENTISM about conditioned\n all four) dhammas ◀── what Sorkin says\n his model is NOT ‡\n ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─\n Sorkin's growth every born no single none growing block (accretion)\n (for comparison) element global \"now\"\n\n No Buddhist row keeps every born element.\n † Miller (2017) classes the Sarvāstivādins as eternalists and says explicitly that they are not\n block-universe theorists; their view looks like a moving spotlight. Cited, not claimed.\n ‡ Of conditioned dhammas. Nibbāna and concepts are time-free (kālavimutta), outside all rows.\n [X] cross-tradition (northern) source.\n```\n\nSorkin's growth is not presentism. In the sequential-growth models, what has been born **stays**: the causal set at any stage contains its whole past and lacks only its future. Sorkin's own words set the view against a present-only doctrine. Most arguments for the block universe, he writes, *\"presuppose that the sole alternative to the 'block universe' is a doctrine that identifies reality with a three-dimensional instant\"*. He also denies that the process has any single \"now\" spreading over it. Wüthrich and Callender (2017) examine what kind of becoming this is. They conclude that a novel, *global* becoming is compatible with causal sets, distinct from the *localized* becoming that Sorkin's advocates claim for it. Nothing in that literature reads the model as presentist.\n\n**On the Buddhist map, then, no row is a growing block.** The nearest is the *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavādin, and only in two respects: it keeps some past, and it denies the future. Its past thins. An action ceases to exist once its fruit is given, and no other past dhamma is kept at all, where Sorkin's causal set keeps every element ever born. Sorkin's footnote points at a real resemblance in the school the northern sources describe, narrower than the word \"close\" suggests. It does not describe the school that uses the name today.\n\n---\n\n## 5 · The Answer to Dowker\n\nDowker asked for \"the Vibhajavadin view of time … by examining the earliest existing records.\" The records give a three-part answer.\n\n1. **There is no single Vibhajjavādin view of time, and the two referents converge on one school seen from two sides.** The name covered a family of schools (Cousins). In the northern sources it names a *present-plus-unripened-past* view, which Vasumitra and Xuanzang's commentary (as Stcherbatsky reports it) assign to the Kāśyapīya. The Pāli branch's own debate book refutes the past half of that view in its own words (§299), and its commentary names the holders *Kassapikā*. On the past, the northern and Pāli reports agree. On the future they differ: the *Kośa* and Vasumitra's Kāśyapīya deny it, while the Pāli debate has the Kassapika grant existence to a future that is bound to arise.\n2. **The view that resembles causal-set accretion most is the one the Pāli Vibhajjavādin record argues against, and the resemblance is partial.** Sorkin's instinct matched a real Buddhist position in keeping some past and denying the future. That position is the *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavāda and the Kassapika's past half, not the Theravāda's, and its past thins where his is kept whole.\n3. **The Theravāda's own view is presentism about conditioned dhammas**, grounded in the *Niruttipatha Sutta* and defended in the *Kathāvatthu*: whatever is past has ceased, and what has ceased does not exist. Nibbāna and concepts are time-free and fall outside the three times.\n\nThis is a historical answer about what the records say. It takes no position on which view of time is true.\n\n---\n\n## 6 · The Contrast: Influence Without Existence\n\nIf the Theravāda is not a growing block, is there anything in it for a causal-set physicist? There is one thing, and it is a contrast rather than a correspondence.\n\nA presentist owes an account of how the past can matter if it does not exist. The Pāli Abhidhamma gives one. Its analysis of conditioning is the *Paṭṭhāna*, summarized in *Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha* ch. 8. The *Abhidhammatthavibhāvinī-ṭīkā*, Sumaṅgala's sub-commentary on the *Saṅgaha* (c. 12th century, a later layer than the *Saṅgaha* itself), states the temporal reach of every one of the twenty-four conditions. In the CST text, its comment on ch. 8, §37 sorts them so:\n\n```\n TEMPORAL REACH (Vibhāvinī on Saṅgaha ch. 8 §37) CONDITIONS COUNT\n ──────────────────────────────────────────────────── ───────────────────────────────────── ─────\n past only (the moment just ceased) proximity, contiguity, repetition, 5\n absence, disappearance\n past or present (dvikālika) kamma 1\n all three times (tikālika) object, object-predominance, 3\n decisive support\n present only (paccuppannakālika) the other fifteen 15\n ────\n 24\n time-free (kālavimutta; Saṅgaha §37 root verse) nibbāna, concepts (paññatti) — not a condition class\n```\n\n- **Five conditions reach only the immediate past:** proximity, contiguity, repetition, absence and disappearance (*anantara, samanantara, āsevana, natthi, vigata*). They carry the moment that has just ceased into the next.\n- **The kamma condition reaches past or present** (*dvikālika*). The *Saṅgaha*'s own root text says that volition conditions its results across different moments (*nānākkhaṇikā cetanā*, ch. 8 §17): an action long gone conditions its result now. The past act does not exist when its result arises; the *Kathāvatthu* (§299) refutes the thesis that past action whose result has not ripened exists. **Nothing persists between them.** The commentary on §299 gives the opponent's supporting doctrine as a persisting accumulation of kamma (*kammūpacaya*), and the Theravāda refuses it. The ceased act is a condition by kamma across moments, not a thing kept.\n- **Three conditions reach all three times** (*tikālika*): the object condition, object-predominance (*ārammaṇādhipati*; co-nascent predominance is present-only) and decisive support. So the future also conditions, as an object of thought or intention.\n- **The other fifteen conditions are present-only.**\n- **A time-free class stands outside the classification**: nibbāna and concepts are *kālavimutta* (§3).\n\nThe *Kathāvatthu* adds the epistemological half of Dowker's question. At IX.6 (§559) an opponent holds that a consciousness whose object is past has no object, since the past does not exist. The Theravādin refutes this: a mind can turn toward the past, attend to it and aspire concerning it, so a past object is a genuine object even though it does not exist. **Perception and memory reach what is not.**\n\nSo the Theravāda's answer to \"how does the past act?\" is **influence without existence**: the past conditions the present, and is cognized by it, without being real now. Set beside a causal set, this is a **contrast**, and its use is that it locates the disagreement exactly. In causal sets the order relation, not a background time, carries the physics, and the order holds *between elements that remain in the set*; the past is kept. The Theravāda keeps the effects of conditioning and discards the past relatum; nothing persists to be related. The two agree that the past acts and disagree about whether it is there. A presentist causal set would be a different ontology from Sorkin's, and whether one is coherent is a question for physics, not for this paper.\n\n---\n\n## 7 · The Strongest Objection, Carried\n\n**Objection.** \"Presentism is a Western category, and the Abhidhamma is a phenomenology of experience. It is not a metaphysics of spacetime. Mapping *atthi* ('exists') onto the ontology of a causal set compares two different questions.\"\n\n**What survives it.** Much of the objection stands, and the paper does not try to answer it away. The *Kathāvatthu*'s *atthi* is about dhammas, momentary mental and material phenomena, not about spacetime points. Its debates are about what may be *said* to exist in a doctrinal register. And the Abhidhamma's momentariness has no metric: its moments carry no length, and its \"present\" is not a global simultaneity slice, which causal sets deny in any case. What survives is historical and exact: which positions on the existence of the past and the future were taken, by whom, and which the Pāli tradition rejected. Sorkin's footnote made a historical claim, and a historical claim can be checked against records. That is all this paper does with the physics.\n\n**The counter-argument to this paper's own strongest claim.** Our strongest claim is that the Pāli Vibhajjavāda is Sorkin's foil. Against it, the provenance of Sorkin's word points away from the Pāli branch. Dowker's own pointer, Stcherbatsky p. 43, describes the *Kośa*'s school, and Stcherbatsky's footnote reports Xuanzang's commentary identifying that school with the Kāśyapīyas. So the referent of \"Vibhajavadin\" in the causal-set literature is the northern one by construction, and Sorkin's footnote is broadly right about the school it names. On this reading, a comparison with the Mahāvihāra changes the subject. We accept this. We claim only that the branch that preserved the Pāli canon, and uses the name today, holds the opposite view; that its record refutes the named school's past half; and that the resemblance even for the named school is partial (§4). Whether a reader of the footnote should have the Mahāvihāra in mind is a question about the word, and the records show why it is ambiguous.\n\n---\n\n## 8 · What Would Falsify These Findings\n\n- **A primary Theravāda source that affirms the existence of unripened past kamma** (as opposed to its conditioning force) would undo §3's reading of the Mahāvihāra as presentist.\n- **A reading of Sorkin's sequential growth in which past elements cease to exist**, rather than remain in the set, would move his view toward presentism and undo §4's placement. His own texts, read on the date of writing, say the opposite.\n- **A reliable attribution of the §299 thesis to a school other than the Kassapikas**, evidence that the *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavādin denoted the Mahāvihāra specifically, or northern evidence separating Vasumitra's Kāśyapīya from the *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavādin, would change §5.1.\n- **A primary Theravāda source that treats past kamma, or a past object, as EXISTING when it conditions or is cognized** (for example, one that accepts a *kammūpacaya*) would undo §6's \"nothing persists\".\n- **A reading of *Kathāvatthu* IX.6 §559 on which the past object is a present surrogate**, a memory-image existing now, would undo the epistemological half of §6.\n\n---\n\n## 9 · Stake, and What Was and Was Not Done\n\n**The authors' stake.** The authors write from within the Theravāda, and the institution publishing this paper grounds its values in the Pāli canon and has ruled Theravāda readings over Sarvāstivāda ones on its own questions. That creates a pull toward finding one's tradition anticipated by frontier physics. **This paper's first draft of the thesis made exactly that error.** It read the Pāli presentism as Sorkin's \"becoming\", on his side. An adversarial review, run before any prose was written, found that Sorkin's growth keeps the past, and the thesis was reversed. The reversal is the paper. A later review round corrected a second overreach of the same kind in the other direction: the first published text placed the *Kośa*'s view at the growing block, which its own translation contradicts.\n\n**Done:**\n- The four time debates of the *Kathāvatthu*, the *Niruttipatha* quotations and §559, with their commentarial attributions, read in the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana text;\n- the commentary's schism narrative and its gloss on §299 (*kammūpacaya*) read in the same text;\n- the *Kośa*'s definition read in Pradhan's Sanskrit;\n- Stcherbatsky 1923, p. 43 and its footnote, read (archive.org, Digital Library of India copy);\n- Vasumitra's *Samayabhedoparacanacakra*, the Kāśyapīya section, read in Xuanzang's Chinese (CBETA T49 no. 2031);\n- Sorkin 2007 and Dowker 2022/2023 (both versions) read in full;\n- the temporal classification of the conditions read in the CST text of the *Abhidhammatthavibhāvinī-ṭīkā* (a sub-commentary, not the *Saṅgaha* itself), and *nānākkhaṇika* and the time-free class checked in the *Saṅgaha* root;\n- the census run as described.\n\n**Not done:**\n- The Sarvāstivāda *Vibhāṣā* and the Chinese Āgama parallels (where the Kāśyapīya view is also reported) were not consulted.\n- *Points of Controversy*, Pruden's translation of the *Kośa*, Cox's *Disputed Dharmas* (1995) and Bareau's *Les sectes bouddhiques du Petit Véhicule* (1955) were not read; they are named as the standard places to check this paper, not as sources for it.\n- Cousins was read in English; the Mahāvihāra's lineage texts (the *Dīpavaṃsa*) were read only as quoted by the commentary.\n- Later Theravāda exposition of kamma (for example, modern Burmese teaching of a kammic potency in the mental continuum) was not read (§10).\n- The physics of a presentist causal set was not attempted.\n\n---\n\n## 10 · Honest Limits\n\n- **The *Kathāvatthu*'s date is traditional.** It is ascribed to the Third Council (3rd century BCE), and its irregular structure has been read as growth over time, new controversies added as they arose (von Hinüber 2000, p. 71, as cited; not read directly for this paper). The four time debates are in its first chapter. The commentary that supplies the self-designation and the opponents' names is c. 5th century CE. \"Earliest existing records\" here means the earliest the Pāli tradition preserves, not the earliest that existed.\n- **The attributions are the commentary's.** The *Kathāvatthu* names no opponents. A later author's attribution is evidence about the tradition's self-understanding, not a contemporaneous report. The same commentary's schism list files the Kassapikas under the Sabbatthivāda (§2.2).\n- **The *Kośa*'s definition is a Sarvāstivādin doctrinal report.** Vasubandhu reports the Vibhajyavādins as the Sarvāstivāda's opponents in a polemical context. Vasumitra's agreement and the *Kathāvatthu*'s own wording at §299 corroborate its content, but no text of the Kāśyapīyas themselves is quoted here.\n- **\"Exists\" may be an efficacy predicate.** In the three-times controversy, existence is often keyed to causal efficacy: Stcherbatsky glosses the *Kośa* school's existent past as the part that \"had not already lost [its] influence\", and Miller reports the Sarvāstivāda marking the present as the causally efficacious moment. Where *exists* means *is efficacious*, the *Kośa*'s existent unripened karma and the Theravāda's non-existent but conditioning karma may differ more in wording than in ontology. §6's contrast holds only if the *Kathāvatthu*'s *atthi* is not an efficacy predicate; this paper reads it as not one, because the *Kathāvatthu* denies existence to exactly what it grants as a condition, but that reading is an interpretation.\n- **\"Nothing persists\" is stated at the layer of the *Kathāvatthu* and its commentary.** Later Theravāda exposition speaks of a kammic potency carried in the mental continuum. Whether that potency is a persisting store of the kind the commentary refuses, or a way of speaking about conditioning, was not examined.\n- **The time-free class.** \"Presentism\" in this paper is presentism about conditioned dhammas. Nibbāna and concepts are *kālavimutta* and fall outside the comparison. A reader who treats the Theravāda as presentist without that qualification misstates it.\n- **The physics mapping is a mapping of positions on existence.** It does not claim that any Buddhist school anticipated a theory of quantum gravity, and it makes no claim about which theory of time is correct.\n- **One edition.** Paragraph numbers are the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana's; the Pali Text Society's chapter numbering differs. A reader should locate passages by § number and title.\n- **The census was quick and English-only.** The field of Buddhism-and-physics comparison is large and poorly indexed. Absence from our search is weak evidence, and the census's own second NOT FOUND fell to a book it could not read (Stcherbatsky).\n\n---\n\n## 11 · Close\n\nSorkin heard, in a school name, an echo of the time his models grow. The echo is real and partial. It comes from one school of a family, the one the northern sources describe, whose past is kept only while its fruit is owed. The branch that kept the Pāli canon answered that view in its oldest debate book, with a question it asks of every past thing: *has it not ceased?* The answer to Dowker's invitation is that the earliest records disagree with each other on the existence of the past — the question on which, in a different register, the physics of becoming is still open.\n\n---\n\n## Cross-Venue References\n\n| Venue | Identifier |\n|---|---|\n| Primary canonical | <https://thonly.org/research/the-vibhajjavadin-view-of-time> |\n| GitHub | <https://github.com/thonly/publications/blob/main/defensive-publications/the-vibhajjavadin-view-of-time.md> |\n| Census pre-registration (public) | `thonly/publications` commit `7348ba2`, `timestamps/census/physics-lens-prereg.md` |\n| Sibling paper | <https://thonly.org/research/abhidhamma-and-discrete-quantum-gravity> |\n\n---\n\n## Acknowledgments\n\nThe authors thank Rafael Sorkin and Fay Dowker, whose footnotes asked a question the Pāli sources can answer; the Vipassana Research Institute for the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana texts; the GRETIL project and the editors of its *Abhidharmakośabhāṣya* e-text (after Pradhan); the CBETA project for the Chinese canon; the Digital Library of India and the Internet Archive for Stcherbatsky's 1923 text; and the late L.S. Cousins. The reading of the sources, the adversarial review and the drafting were done with Miss Aquarius, the name under which this institution discloses its AI collaboration.\n\n---\n\n## Citations\n\n1. Sorkin, R.D. (2007). \"Relativity theory does not imply that the future already exists: a counterexample.\" In V. Petkov (ed.), *Relativity and the Dimensionality of the World*, Fundamental Theories of Physics, Springer. arXiv:gr-qc/0703098.\n2. Dowker, F. (2022/2023). \"Causal Set Quantum Gravity and the Hard Problem of Consciousness.\" arXiv:2209.07653 (v1, 16 September 2022; v2, 21 May 2023; the invitation is footnote 1 in both, worded as quoted from v2).\n3. Wüthrich, C. & Callender, C. (2017). \"What Becomes of a Causal Set?\" *British Journal for the Philosophy of Science* 68(3): 907–925. doi:10.1093/bjps/axv040. arXiv:1502.00018.\n4. Bombelli, L., Lee, J., Meyer, D. & Sorkin, R.D. (1987). \"Space-time as a causal set.\" *Physical Review Letters* 59: 521–524.\n5. *Kathāvatthu*. Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana edition, VRI `tipitaka-xml`, `romn/abh03m3.mul.xml` (§282–§306; §559).\n6. *Kathāvatthu-aṭṭhakathā* (in *Pañcappakaraṇa-aṭṭhakathā*). Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana edition, `romn/abh03a.att.xml`.\n7. *Niruttipatha Sutta*, Saṃyutta Nikāya 22.62; and SN 22.48 (the opponent's sutta).\n8. Sumaṅgala. *Abhidhammatthavibhāvinī-ṭīkā* on *Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha* ch. 8 (§37). Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana edition, `romn/abh07t.nrf.xml` (bound with the *Saṅgaha*).\n9. Anuruddha. *Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha*, ch. 8 §17 and §37 (root text). Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana edition, `romn/abh07t.nrf.xml`.\n10. Vasubandhu. *Abhidharmakośabhāṣya*, ed. P. Pradhan (2nd ed., 1975), p. 296; GRETIL e-text (Hackett & Lusthaus). English translation: L.M. Pruden, *Abhidharmakośabhāṣyam* (from La Vallée Poussin's French), 4 vols., Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1988–90 (not read for this paper).\n11. Vasumitra. *Samayabhedoparacanacakra* (異部宗輪論), tr. Xuanzang. Taishō vol. 49, no. 2031; CBETA XML `T49n2031`.\n12. Cousins, L.S. (2001). \"On the Vibhajjavādins: the Mahiṃsāsaka, Dhammaguttaka, Kassapiya and Tambapaṇṇiya branches of the ancient Theriyas.\" *Buddhist Studies Review* 18(2): 131–182.\n13. Miller, K. (2017). \"A Taxonomy of Views about Time in Buddhist and Western Philosophy.\" *Philosophy East and West* 67(3): 763–782.\n14. Gauvain, Michel. \"Time and Temporality in Indian Buddhism.\" Unpublished essay, n.d. academia.edu 43833572.\n15. Stcherbatsky, Th. (1923). *The Central Conception of Buddhism and the Meaning of the Word \"Dharma.\"* London: Royal Asiatic Society. p. 43 and n. (Read in the Digital Library of India copy, archive.org `in.ernet.dli.2015.99616`; Dowker cites a later Motilal Banarsidass printing, same pagination.)\n16. Stcherbatsky, Th. (1932). *Buddhist Logic*, vol. 1. Bibliotheca Buddhica XXVI. Leningrad: Academy of Sciences of the USSR. pp. 4–5 (as cited by Dowker).\n17. Broad, C.D. (1923). *Scientific Thought*. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. (The growing block.)\n18. Shwe Zan Aung & Rhys Davids, C.A.F. (trs.) (1915). *Points of Controversy, or Subjects of Discourse* (the *Kathāvatthu*). London: Pali Text Society (not read for this paper).\n19. von Hinüber, O. (2000). *A Handbook of Pāli Literature*. Berlin: de Gruyter. p. 71 (as cited; not read directly).\n20. Ly, T. & Miss Aquarius (2026). \"Discreteness, Adjacency and Order: A Structural Comparison of the Theravāda Abhidhamma with Causal Sets and Loop Quantum Gravity\" (sibling paper). <https://thonly.org/research/abhidhamma-and-discrete-quantum-gravity>.",
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+ "text": "## Abstract\n\nIn 2007 Rafael Sorkin, one of the founders of causal set theory, remarked in a footnote that the \"accretive time\" of his sequential-growth models \"seems close to that of C.D. Broad, and also to that of the 'Vibhajavadin' school within the Buddhist philosophical tradition.\" Fay Dowker, quoting him (2022; the wording below is that of her 2023 revision), added an invitation: *\"A interesting project for a scholar of Buddhism interested in physics would be to try to determine the 'Vibhajavadin' view of time, perception and epistemology in detail by examining the earliest existing records.\"*\n\nThis paper takes up that invitation from the Pāli sources, read against the northern ones. It finds that **there is no single Vibhajjavādin view of time to report.** The name has at least two referents:\n\n- **In the northern Abhidharma**, the *Abhidharmakośabhāṣya* (ad V.25) defines the Vibhajyavādins as those who hold that **the present exists, and past action whose fruit has not yet been given exists, while ripened past action and the future do not**. Its past **thins**: an action drops out of existence once its fruit is given, and nothing but unripened action is kept at all. The view resembles Sorkin's accretion **only in keeping some past and denying the future.** No Buddhist position in the debate keeps every element once born, as a growing block does.\n- **In the Pāli tradition**, Vibhajjavāda is the Mahāvihāra's own name for itself. The commentary on the *Kathāvatthu* tells how the Third Council answered a king's question about the Buddha's doctrine with *\"Vibhajjavādī, mahārājā.\"* That same *Kathāvatthu* **refutes four rival positions on time**: *all exists*, *past aggregates exist*, *some past and some future exist*, and *exists as past*. The third states, in the *Kathāvatthu*'s own words, the past half of the view the *Kośa* calls Vibhajyavādin; the commentary names its holders the Kassapikas.\n\nThe two referents meet in one school name. Vasumitra's doxography gives the Kāśyapīya exactly the *Kośa*'s definition, and Stcherbatsky noted in 1923 that the *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavādins had been identified with the Kāśyapīyas. The northern and Pāli sources report that school's past alike and its future differently.\n\nSo the tradition that uses the name today holds **presentism about conditioned phenomena**: of conditioned dhammas only the present exists, and nibbāna stands outside the three times altogether. Presentism is exactly the view Sorkin says his model is not. Block-universe arguments, he writes, *\"presuppose that the sole alternative to the 'block universe' is a doctrine that identifies reality with a three-dimensional instant\"*, and his growth is offered as a third option. **The Pāli Vibhajjavāda is the foil of causal-set growth, not its twin.**\n\nWhat the Theravāda offers a causal-set physicist is a **contrast**, and its use is that it locates the disagreement exactly:\n\n- **Past action conditions the present without existing, and nothing persists in between.** The *Kathāvatthu* (§299) refutes the existence of past action whose result has not ripened; the Abhidhamma's kamma condition operates across moments.\n- **A consciousness can take a past object without being objectless** (*Kathāvatthu* IX.6).\n\nThis is a claim about influence, not about ordered existence.\n\nA revision of 2026-09-30 adds a **second axis: the beginning** (§4.1–§4.3). SN 15 says that a first point of beings' wandering is *not discerned*. The *Paṭṭhāna* gives every mental state a proximity condition in the state before it and lists only matter as arising without one, so a stream of mind has no first member; the commentaries draw that step themselves, and Lean checks it from that premise. Bodies and world-regions begin. Classical sequential growth of causal sets is past-finite by construction. Bento, Dowker and Zalel (2022) find that growing into the past makes growth \"(nearly if not entirely)\" impossible to read as a physical becoming and that their one covariant alternating model is deterministic, yet build a consistent covariant framework and find encouragement in non-deterministic models. No causal-set dynamics in the literature read holds the Mahāvihāra's beginningless mind-streams under presentism, but that follows already from presentism (§4); on the beginning alone the gap is open, and not yet a finding.\n\nThe paper's findings are listed, each with its falsifier, under *Findings disclosed*; the physics comparison stays labelled as a comparison.\n\n**Keywords:** causal set theory, sequential growth, past-infinite causal sets, growing block, presentism, eternalism, temporal becoming, beginningless saṃsāra, Buddhist philosophy of time, Kathāvatthu, Paṭṭhāna, Abhidharmakośa, Sarvāstivāda, Kāśyapīya, Vibhajjavāda, Theravāda, Lean, Sorkin, Dowker.\n\n---\n\n## Findings disclosed\n\nThis paper is a study: it discloses readings of texts, not a mechanism. Its findings are listed here at the width that survived review and the census reported below, each with what would break it. The census's surviving width is **a reading of the *Kathāvatthu*'s time debates against Sorkin's and Dowker's causal-set remarks**; findings 1–5 are parts of that reading and nothing wider. The historical identifications they rely on are prior art and are cited as such (Stcherbatsky 1923, p. 43 n.; Vasumitra; Cousins 2001). Findings 6 and 7 were added in the revision of 2026-09-30, after the census, which did not cover them; they assert no priority, since the derivation is the tradition's own and the physics is its authors' (§4.1–§4.2).\n\n1. **Read against Sorkin's footnote, \"Vibhajavadin\" has two referents, and they meet in one school.** The *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavādin (present plus unripened past action, no future) and the Mahāvihāra's self-designation are different positions. The *Kathāvatthu* §299 refutes the first view's past half in its own words, under the commentary's name *Kassapikā*; Vasumitra gives the Kāśyapīya the *Kośa*'s definition (§2.3, §5.1). *Breaks if:* the *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavādin is shown to denote the Mahāvihāra specifically, or the §299 thesis is reliably attributed to a school other than the Kāśyapīya/Kassapika.\n2. **No position in the Buddhist three-times debate is a growing block.** The *Kośa*'s and the Kassapika's past exists only until an action's fruit is given, and it retains nothing but unripened action; the resemblance to Sorkin's accretion is confined to keeping some past and denying the future (§4). *Breaks if:* a Buddhist source is found that keeps every arisen dhamma as existing past while denying the future; or Sorkin's growth is read so that born elements cease to exist.\n3. **The Mahāvihāra's position, read against Sorkin, is presentism about conditioned dhammas: the very alternative he says block-universe arguments presuppose and his growth is meant to escape.** Nibbāna and concepts are time-free (*kālavimutta*) and fall outside the comparison (§3, §5.3). *Breaks if:* a primary Theravāda source affirms that past or future conditioned dhammas exist, including unripened past action, as distinct from their conditioning force.\n4. **The Theravāda's account of how the past acts is a contrast with causal-set growth, and it locates the disagreement at the past relatum.** The ceased act conditions its result across moments; it does not exist when the result arises (§299); and nothing persists between them, since the persisting store of kamma (*kammūpacaya*) is the opponent's doctrine in the commentary (§6). *Breaks if:* a primary Theravāda source treats past kamma as existing when it conditions (for example, by accepting a *kammūpacaya*); or the *Kathāvatthu*'s *atthi* (\"exists\") is shown to be an efficacy predicate, in which case the contrast with the *Kośa* reduces to a difference of wording (§10).\n5. **On Dowker's \"perception and epistemology\", the *Kathāvatthu* holds that a past object is a genuine object although it does not exist** (IX.6, §559; §6). *Breaks if:* §559 is read so that the past object is a present surrogate (a memory-image existing now) rather than the past itself.\n6. **Read against causal-set growth, the Pāli texts supply a second axis, the beginning: a stream of mind has no first member, and so neither has beings' wandering, which a mind-stream carries; bodies and world-regions begin.** SN 15.1 says only *not discerned*. The step to *none* rests on the *Paṭṭhāna*'s proximity condition, which its negative method gives every mental state and withholds from matter. The commentaries draw the step themselves, DN 1 §67–68 records the opposite view in order to reject it, and Lean checks the step from that premise (`kala/Time.lean`). MN 63's undeclared world is, in the commentaries, beings' aggregates asked about as permanent or annihilated, and a beginningless succession of impermanent states affirms neither (§4.1). *Breaks if:* a primary Theravāda source affirms, as its own view, a mental state arising with no proximity condition (a first citta of a stream, an uncaused ignorance); or a gap in a stream of mind is found that the tradition does not bridge by that condition.\n7. **On that axis, the one past-infinite growth study read offers no dynamics yet in which a past without beginning grows in the physical order of its births; and a world-cycle's contraction is neither a post nor a partial post or break.** Bento, Dowker and Zalel's alternating growth gives up birth order as the physical order; its one covariant model is deterministic; their covariant framework has no dynamics chosen on it; and non-deterministic models encourage them. A contraction in the texts is local, as Dowker and Zalel's partial posts and breaks are, but the re-evolved world is peopled from streams outside the collapse, so its past is not closed (§4.2). *Breaks if:* a growth dynamics for past-infinite causal sets keeps birth order as the physical order, satisfies discrete general covariance and is not deterministic with respect to its observables (their models (18) meet only the last); or every stream in a re-evolved world is read as passing through the contraction.\n\n---\n\n## Prior Art and Non-Assertion Statement\n\nThis document is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0. **The authors and HeartBank® will not seek patent** on anything herein. Nothing here is a mechanism; what the paper discloses is the numbered list under *Findings disclosed* above, dedicated to the public domain so that no one may enclose it.\n\n**What is already public, and cited rather than claimed:**\n\n- **The two-referent answer in outline.** Stcherbatsky, *The Central Conception of Buddhism* (1923), p. 43 and its footnote, is the nearest prior instance, found after the census below. It describes the *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavādins (citing AK V.24 ff.); it reports that the *Kathāvatthu* ascribes such opinions to the Kāśyapīyas and that Xuanzang's commentary identifies the *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavādins as the Kāśyapīyas; it remarks that the Theravādins seem to share the Sautrāntika view; and it notes the double sense of *vibhajyavāda*. This is the page Dowker cites.\n- **The Kāśyapīya's thesis in the northern doxography.** Vasumitra's *Samayabhedoparacanacakra* (Xuanzang's Chinese, T49 no. 2031) gives the Kāśyapīya the *Kośa*'s definition.\n- **The four debates in English.** Shwe Zan Aung and C.A.F. Rhys Davids, *Points of Controversy* (Pali Text Society, 1915), translate the *Kathāvatthu* with the commentary's attributions. The *Kośa* passage is translated by La Vallée Poussin and, in English, by Pruden (1988–90).\n- **The mapping of the Buddhist three-times debate onto Western theories of time.** Kristie Miller classes the Theravādins and Sautrāntikas as presentists and the Sarvāstivādins as eternalists, adding that the Sarvāstivāda view is closer to a moving spotlight than to a block universe (\"A Taxonomy of Views about Time in Buddhist and Western Philosophy,\" *Philosophy East and West* 67.3, 2017). The Vibhajyavāda and Kāśyapīya positions are surveyed in an unpublished essay by Michel Gauvain, *Time and Temporality in Indian Buddhism* (academia.edu 43833572). Its gloss of Vibhajyavāda (\"time permanent, phenomena move from one time to another\") differs from the *Kośa*'s.\n- **The historical claim that *Vibhajjavādin* named a group of schools, not one** (L.S. Cousins, \"On the Vibhajjavādins,\" *Buddhist Studies Review* 18.2, 2001).\n- **Causal-set becoming as a philosophical topic** (Sorkin 2007; Wüthrich & Callender, \"What Becomes of a Causal Set?\", *BJPS* 68.3, 2017; Dowker 2022/2023).\n- **Growth dynamics for past-infinite causal sets**, the physics findings 6 and 7 are placed against: Bento, Dowker and Zalel, \"If time had no beginning: growth dynamics for past-infinite causal sets\" (*Classical and Quantum Gravity* 39, 2022, 045002). The finite-past growth it generalises is Rideout and Sorkin's (2000); posts and cycles are those of Martín, O'Connor, Rideout and Sorkin (2001) and, as partial posts, breaks and cycles, of Dowker and Zalel (2017, 2023). Bento, Dowker and Zalel credit Wüthrich and Callender (2017) with the suggestion that growth might be compatible with a past-infinite causal set.\n- **Beginningless saṃsāra and its derivation from conditionality** are the tradition's own (SN 15; AN 10.61 with *Visuddhimagga* XVII §584; the commentary on MN 9; the *Atthasālinī*; §4.1). This paper reports the derivation; its own parts are the Lean check (CC0, doi:10.5281/zenodo.23067241) and the causal-set placement. *The Wheel That Unwinds the Wheel*, in this corpus, states that the mindstream is beginningless.\n- **Buddhist beginninglessness set against physical cosmology**, in popular books: Ricard and Thuan, *The Quantum and the Lotus* (2001); the Dalai Lama, *The Universe in a Single Atom* (2005). Known here from a review and an encyclopedia summary; not read.\n- **General comparisons of the Abhidhamma with causal sets or quantum physics**: a blog post of 2026-07-31, self-described as AI-generated, \"Causal Set Theory and Abhidhamma: A Dialogue Between Modern Physics and Buddhist Philosophy\" (<https://ekasiswanto.wordpress.com/2026/07/31/causal-set-theory-and-abhidhamma-a-dialogue-between-modern-physics-and-buddhist-philosophy/>), and *The Ephemeral Projector: A Comparative Analysis of Quantum Mechanics and Abhidhamma* (ResearchGate publication 397427972, <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/397427972>).\n\n**The census.** A quick novelty census ran on 2026-09-27. Its pre-registration was pushed publicly before any query: `thonly/publications` commit `7348ba2`, `timestamps/census/physics-lens-prereg.md`. Its aperture was the English web, arXiv, Google Scholar, PhilPapers, GitHub and Google Patents by keyword. Thai, Burmese, Sinhala, Chinese, Japanese and Khmer sources were **NOT RUN**, and books were not read. **Not found in that aperture on that date:** a reading of the *Kathāvatthu*'s time debates against Sorkin's and Dowker's causal-set remarks. The census also reported the two-referent answer as not found; that row is **narrowed** here, because Stcherbatsky's footnote, read after the census, already gives most of it. A census result is a statement about a search, not a claim of priority. The comparison of Buddhism with physics is a crowded field, and much of it is unindexed. Findings 6 and 7 were added after this census and were not searched; they claim no priority (see *Findings disclosed*).\n\n---\n\n## 1 · The Invitation\n\nCausal set theory replaces the spacetime continuum with a locally finite partial order: discrete events, related only by *before*. Sorkin's slogan is *order + number = geometry*. In its sequential-growth (\"classical sequential growth\") models the causal set is not given all at once; it **grows**, one element at a time, each new element born to the future of some of those already present. Sorkin argued that this growth gives an objective correlate of the passage of time, a becoming that relativity was thought to have ruled out. His 2007 paper, \"Relativity theory does not imply that the future already exists: a counterexample,\" makes the case. In §5 he describes what the growth yields as *\"something 'four dimensional' from the very beginning, but which at any stage of its growth is still incomplete\"*, and he adds the footnote:\n\n> The notion of \"accretive time\" that arises here seems close to that of C.D. Broad, and also to that of the \"Vibhajavadin\" school within the Buddhist philosophical tradition.\n\nFay Dowker, developing Sorkin's proposal as a response to the hard problem of consciousness (arXiv 2209.07653), quotes the footnote and adds her own. In the revision of 21 May 2023 it reads:\n\n> A interesting project for a scholar of Buddhism interested in physics would be to try to determine the \"Vibhajavadin\" view of time, perception and epistemology in detail by examining the earliest existing records.\n\n(The first version, of 16 September 2022, reads *\"would be to determine the 'Vibhajyavadin' view\"*, without *try to*.)\n\nFor the Vibhajavādin view her notes point to p. 43 of Stcherbatsky's *The Central Conception of Buddhism* (1923). Separately, they cite his *Buddhist Logic* (vol. 1, 1932, pp. 4–5) for early Buddhism as \"no Matter, no Substance, only separate elements, momentary flashes of efficient energy … a flow of existential moments.\"\n\nThe question is well posed, and it is answerable, because the records exist, in Pāli, Sanskrit and Chinese, and they are unusually explicit about time. What follows reads them.\n\n*Spelling note.* Sorkin and Dowker's 2023 revision write *Vibhajavadin*; Dowker's 2022 version writes *Vibhajyavadin*. They are quoted as written. Pāli sources give *Vibhajjavāda*, Sanskrit sources *Vibhajyavāda*. The spellings mark traditions, and this paper keeps them apart deliberately.\n\n---\n\n## 2 · Who Were the Vibhajjavādins?\n\n### 2.1 · The Pāli self-designation\n\nThe *Kathāvatthu* itself, the fifth book of the Abhidhamma Piṭaka, never uses the word. The self-designation is found in its commentary (*Kathāvatthu-aṭṭhakathā*, part of the *Pañcappakaraṇa-aṭṭhakathā* traditionally ascribed to Buddhaghosa, c. 5th century CE, drawing on older material). The commentary describes the Third Council under Aśoka: the king, having expelled monks of other views, asks the remaining monks what the Buddha taught.\n\n> *\"kiṃvādī, bhante, sammāsambuddho\"ti? \"Vibhajjavādī, mahārājā\"ti.*\n>\n> \"Of what doctrine, venerable sir, was the Fully Awakened One?\" — \"A Vibhajjavādin, great king.\"\n\nThe elder Moggaliputtatissa then composes the *Kathāvatthu* to refute the views that had arisen. In the tradition's own account, therefore, **the *Kathāvatthu* is the Vibhajjavādin record.**\n\n### 2.2 · A name for a group\n\nCousins (2001) shows that the word has two senses in the Pāli commentarial literature: an epithet of the Buddha (one who answers by analysis, *vibhajja*) and the name of a school. In the second sense it historically named the common ancestor of **four** schools: the Mahiṃsāsakas, the Dhammaguttikas (the commentary's form; Cousins's title writes *Dhammaguttaka*), the Kassapiyas and the Tambapaṇṇiyas, the last being the Mahāvihāra of Sri Lanka whose texts the Pāli canon preserves. The commentary's Third Council story, Cousins argues, draws its force from the double meaning. The present-day Theravāda is therefore **one branch** of the Vibhajjavādins, not the whole group. That matters below, because another branch reappears as an opponent.\n\nThe commentary's own family tree is different, and it is recorded here because it cuts against a tidy reading. Its schism narrative, taken from the *Dīpavaṃsa*, derives the Sabbatthivādins and the Dhammaguttikas from the Mahiṃsāsakas and then says: *\"Puna sabbatthivādakulato bhijjitvā kassapikā nāma jātā\"* (\"again, breaking from the Sabbatthivāda family, those called Kassapikas arose\"). The Pāli commentary thus files the Kassapikas under the Sabbatthivāda, where Cousins places them among the Vibhajjavādin branches. The findings below depend on *which school* held the §299 thesis, not on which family tree is right.\n\n### 2.3 · The northern definition `[cross-tradition]`\n\nThe Sarvāstivāda's own systematization, as reported and criticized by Vasubandhu, defines the two camps sharply (*Abhidharmakośabhāṣya* ad V.25, Pradhan ed., p. 296, ll. 4–6):\n\n> *ye hi sarvam astīti vadanti atītam anāgataṃ pratyutpannaṃ ca te sarvāstivādāḥ / ye tu kecid asti yat pratyutpannam adattaphalaṃ cātītaṃ karma kiñcin nāsti yad dattaphalam atītam anāgataṃ ceti vibhajya vadanti te vibhajyavādinaḥ /*\n>\n> Those who say that *all exists*, past, future and present, are Sarvāstivādins. Those who, *distinguishing* (*vibhajya*), say that something exists (the present, and past action that has not given its fruit) and something does not (past action that has given its fruit, and the future) are Vibhajyavādins.\n\nThe *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavādin, then, holds **present plus some past, and no future**. The name is glossed from the method: they *speak distinguishing*.\n\nStcherbatsky's p. 43, the page Dowker cites, describes the same school: an intermediate position that \"maintained the reality of the present facts and of that part of the past ones which had not already lost their influence, but the reality of the future ones and of that part of the past ones which had ceased to exhibit any influence it denied. Vasubandhu calls this school the Vibhajyavādins.\" **Dowker's pointer and the *Kośa* therefore agree.** Stcherbatsky's footnote goes further. It reports that the *Kathāvatthu* ascribes such opinions to the Kāśyapīyas, who also admitted the reality of that part of the future which was foreshadowed or fixed; that Xuanzang's commentary identifies the *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavādins as the Kāśyapīyas; that the Theravādins seem to have shared the Sautrāntika view; and that Vasubandhu seems not to know the explanation of *vibhajyavāda* as orthodoxy, the sense the *Kathāvatthu* commentary gives it.\n\nVasumitra's doxography of the schools, in Xuanzang's Chinese, gives the Kāśyapīya (飲光部) the same thesis. Among its tenets: 若業果已熟則無。業果未熟則有 (\"if the fruit of an action has ripened, it does not exist; if the fruit has not ripened, it exists\"). It adds that no formation has a future thing as its cause (無諸行以未來為因) and that all formations perish momentarily (一切行皆剎那滅).\n\nThe *Kośa*'s definition is a Sarvāstivādin doxographer's report of an opponent (§10). Two northern reports, the *Kośa* and Vasumitra, agree on it (both from a Sarvāstivāda milieu, so not fully independent), and the Pāli debate book states the same past-half in its own words (§3).\n\n---\n\n## 3 · The Earliest Pāli Record: Four Debates on Time\n\nThe *Kathāvatthu* is a book of debates. The Theravādin (*sakavādī*) cross-examines an opponent (*paravādī*) by paired questions until the opponent's thesis yields a consequence he must reject. Four early debates, all in its first chapter, concern time. The *Kathāvatthu* names no opponents; the attributions below are the commentary's. Paragraph numbers follow the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana edition, whose chapter division differs from the Pali Text Society's; the § numbers are unambiguous. An English translation with the attributions is *Points of Controversy* (1915).\n\n| CST § | Debate | Opponent's thesis | Commentary's attribution |\n|---|---|---|---|\n| 282 | *Sabbamatthītikathā* | *sabbam atthi*: all exists | *\"seyyathāpi etarahi sabbamatthivādānaṃ\"* (the all-exists school, i.e. the Sarvāstivāda) |\n| 297 | *Atītakkhandhādikathā* | past and future things are aggregates, bases and elements, and therefore exist | the paravādin who \"wants past and future to exist because they do not give up being aggregates\" |\n| 299–300 | *Ekaccaṃ atthītikathā* | *some* of the past exists and some of the future (what is bound to arise). The restriction to action whose result has not ripened is in the *Kathāvatthu*'s own text: *\"atītā avipakkavipākā dhammā – te atthi\"* | *\"seyyathāpi kassapikā\"* (the Kassapikas; one of Cousins's four Vibhajjavādin branches, though the commentary's schism list derives them from the Sabbatthivāda, §2.2) |\n| 304 | *Hevatthikathā* | things exist *in one way* and not in another: the past exists *as past* | *\"seyyathāpi etarahi … andhakānaṃ\"* (the Andhakas) |\n\nThe refutations of *all exists* and *some exists* turn on one formula:\n\n> *Atītaṃ atthīti? Āmantā. Nanu atītaṃ niruddhaṃ vigataṃ vipariṇataṃ atthaṅgataṃ abbhatthaṅgatanti?* (§283)\n>\n> \"Does the past exist?\" — \"Yes.\" — \"But has the past not ceased, departed, changed, set, gone down?\"\n\nThe other two debates are refuted differently.\n\n- **§297 separates classification from existence.** The Theravādin grants that past things are *classified* as aggregates but denies that they *exist*. The *Kathāvatthu* itself quotes the *Niruttipatha Sutta* (SN 22.62) in the *Sabbamatthi* and *Atītakkhandhādi* debates (§296, §298): what has passed is designated *\"was\"*, never *\"is\"* or *\"will be\"*. The opponent answers with SN 22.48 (any form, past, future or present, is the form aggregate). The commentary applies the *Niruttipatha* to §297 and says the opponent's sutta proves the aggregates' *being aggregates*, not their existence. That sutta, in the Nikāyas themselves, is the oldest scriptural anchor of the view.\n- **The *Hevatthi* thesis grants that the past has ceased and says it exists *as past*** (*\"atītaṃ atītanti hevatthi, atītaṃ anāgatanti heva natthi\"*, §305). The ceased-formula cannot touch it. It is refuted by a different reductio: if the same past both is and is not, then existence and non-existence become one meaning (*\"atthaṭṭho natthaṭṭho … ekaṭṭhe same samabhāge tajjāte\"*, §304–305).\n\nAt §299 the Kassapika position is broken apart. If some of the past exists, then some of the past has ceased and some has not, and the part that has not ceased is not past. The same dilemma is run for the future at §300.\n\nThe position that remains, the Mahāvihāra's own, is **presentism about conditioned dhammas**: of conditioned phenomena only present ones exist; past and future are what *was* and what *will be*. The Abhidhamma adds a class that the three times do not cover. The root verse of *Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha* ch. 8 §37 reads *\"tekālikā dhammā, kālamuttā ca\"*, things of the three times and things free of time, and Sumaṅgala's sub-commentary names the time-free class: nibbāna and concepts (*nibbānapaññattivasena kālavimuttā ca*). Nibbāna is not a present dhamma; it is outside the question this debate asks.\n\n---\n\n## 4 · The Physicists' Map and the Buddhist Map\n\n```\n WHAT EXISTS? past present future nearest physics picture\n ─────────────────────── ─────────── ──────────── ─────────── ─────────────────────────────\n Sarvāstivāda all all all eternalism: a moving spotlight,\n not a block (Miller 2017) †\n Kośa's Vibhajyavāda [X] unripened all none a past that THINS; resembles\n karma only Sorkin's only in keeping some\n past and denying the future\n Kassapika (Kv §299–300) unripened all what is (no clean analogue: a past\n karma only bound to that thins, a future that\n arise is partly settled)\n Andhaka (Kv §304) \"as past\" all \"as future\" a tensed-property reading\n Mahāvihāra (Kv, refuting none all none PRESENTISM about conditioned\n all four) dhammas ◀── what Sorkin says\n his model is NOT ‡\n ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─\n Sorkin's growth every born no single none growing block (accretion)\n (for comparison) element global \"now\"\n\n No Buddhist row keeps every born element.\n † Miller (2017) classes the Sarvāstivādins as eternalists and says explicitly that they are not\n block-universe theorists; their view looks like a moving spotlight. Cited, not claimed.\n ‡ Of conditioned dhammas. Nibbāna and concepts are time-free (kālavimutta), outside all rows.\n [X] cross-tradition (northern) source.\n```\n\nSorkin's growth is not presentism. In the sequential-growth models, what has been born **stays**: the causal set at any stage contains its whole past and lacks only its future. Sorkin's own words set the view against a present-only doctrine. Most arguments for the block universe, he writes, *\"presuppose that the sole alternative to the 'block universe' is a doctrine that identifies reality with a three-dimensional instant\"*. He also denies that the process has any single \"now\" spreading over it. Wüthrich and Callender (2017) examine what kind of becoming this is. They conclude that a novel, *global* becoming is compatible with causal sets, distinct from the *localized* becoming that Sorkin's advocates claim for it. Nothing in that literature reads the model as presentist.\n\n**On the Buddhist map, then, no row is a growing block.** The nearest is the *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavādin, and only in two respects: it keeps some past, and it denies the future. Its past thins. An action ceases to exist once its fruit is given, and no other past dhamma is kept at all, where Sorkin's causal set keeps every element ever born. Sorkin's footnote points at a real resemblance in the school the northern sources describe, narrower than the word \"close\" suggests. It does not describe the school that uses the name today.\n\n### 4.1 · A second axis: the beginning\n\nThe map above has one axis: what exists. The Pāli texts and causal-set growth also differ on a second, which Sorkin's footnote did not raise: **whether the order of what has happened has a first member.** In the texts that order belongs to each stream of mind; there is no global one. This section and the next two were added in revision (2026-09-30).\n\n**What the texts say.** The *Anamatagga-saṃyutta* (SN 15) opens:\n\n> *Anamataggoyaṃ, bhikkhave, saṃsāro. Pubbā koṭi na paññāyati avijjānīvaraṇānaṃ sattānaṃ taṇhāsaṃyojanānaṃ sandhāvataṃ saṃsarataṃ.* (SN 15.1; CST `s0302m.mul.xml:3489`, mūla)\n>\n> \"Without discoverable beginning, bhikkhus, is this wandering on. A first point is not discerned of beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving, running on and wandering.\"\n\nThe verb is epistemic. The commentary renders it \"the prior limit is not seen\" (*purimamariyādā na dissati*), glosses *anamatagga* as \"with prior and later ends undelimited\" (*aparicchinnapubbāparakoṭiko*), and reads the wandering as \"the unbroken succession of the aggregates\" (*khandhādīnaṃ avicchinnappavattā paṭipāṭi*; `s0302a.att.xml:2489`, aṭṭhakathā). That reading is the commentary's; the *Kathāvatthu* quotes SN 15.1 only as the Puggalavādin's proof-text for a transmigrating person (§75, `abh03m3.mul.xml:849`). SN 15.5's \"not easy to count\" concerns the years in one aeon, SN 15.7–15.8's the aeons past (`s0302m.mul.xml:3529`, `:3553`, `:3565`; the sibling paper, §5.3). The commentary ascribes the difficulty to the wandering's length (*dīghatamattā*) only as the questioning monk's reported thought (*kira*, `s0302a.att.xml:2521`).\n\n**What the texts leave undeclared.** MN 63 leaves undeclared whether the world is eternal or not, finite or infinite (*\"sassato loko … anantavā loko\"*, `s0202m.mul.xml:1397`, mūla). There, the commentaries say, the world is the world of beings (*sattaloko*; `vin01a.att.xml:2169`, `s0516a.att.xml:881`), and the *Atthasālinī* gives the predicates: the five aggregates held \"permanent, stable, for all time\" (*nicco dhuvo sabbakāliko*) or \"cut off, perishing\" (*ucchijjati vinassati*), and finite or infinite by the edge of a meditation device (*kasiṇaparicchedantena*), in space (`abh01a.att.xml:9149`). **So the line runs by predicate, not by subject.** A beginningless succession of impermanent states, any stream of which ends at an arahant's death, affirms neither permanence nor annihilation and says nothing of extent (an interpretation; §10). The predicate, not an unseen end, also separates it from DN 1's eternalist, whose self and world stand \"like a peak\" (*kūṭaṭṭho*, `s0101m.mul.xml:283`): the DN sub-commentary files even the fortuitous-origination view (below) under eternalism for seeing no end ahead (*anāgate koṭiadassanato*, `s0101t.tik.xml:2061`, ṭīkā).\n\n**From \"not discerned\" to \"none\", for mind.** The *Paṭṭhāna* makes each earlier state a proximity condition of the next (`abh03m7.mul.xml:85`–`:93`, mūla), and its general statement confines the condition to mind:\n\n> *Yesaṃ yesaṃ dhammānaṃ anantarā ye ye dhammā uppajjanti cittacetasikā dhammā, te te dhammā tesaṃ tesaṃ dhammānaṃ anantarapaccayena paccayo.* (`abh03m7.mul.xml:97`)\n>\n> \"Whatever states, mind and mental factors, arise immediately after whatever states, those states are a condition by proximity for them.\"\n\nIts negative method lists what arises *not* by proximity, and the rows it gives are all matter: mind-born, kamma-born at rebirth, the great elements, nutriment- and temperature-born, and the mindless beings' (`:1201`, referring to `:1153`–`:1169`; later chapters abbreviate or refer back). No mental state is listed there, not even a rebirth mind. That is the premise, **a proximity predecessor for every mental state**, which a first member of a stream of mind would lack. Conditionality in general would not suffice: fifteen of the twenty-four conditions are present-only (§6), and a mental state whose conditions were all co-nascent would be conditioned and still first. Matter differs. A body begins at each rebirth, and a world-region's matter begins again after a fire that burns until not an atom's worth of formation remains (*Visuddhimagga* XIII §405–406, `e0102n.mul.xml:769`–`:773`), that contracting world being the receptacle world (*bhājanaloka*, `s0101t.tik.xml:1945`). **The claim is of streams of mind, and of beings' wandering because a mind-stream carries it; bodies and world-regions begin.**\n\n**The step is the tradition's own.** The commentary on MN 9 derives it from earlier ignorance conditioning later ignorance: \"the beginninglessness of saṃsāra is established\" (*saṃsārassa anamataggatā sādhitā hoti*, `s0201a.att.xml:4309`, aṭṭhakathā). The *Visuddhimagga* denies that ignorance is an uncaused root (*\"Na akāraṇaṃ\"*, XVII §584, `e0102n.mul.xml:3553`), citing AN 10.61: \"a first point of ignorance is not discerned … and yet it is discerned: ignorance has this as its condition\" (*idappaccayā avijjā*, `s0404m3.mul.xml:1890`, mūla). The *Atthasālinī* turns *not discerned* into *none*: no boundary exists, after so many hundreds of thousands of aeons or in some king's or buddha's time, before which beings were not (*\"ayaṃ paricchedo natthi\"*, `abh01a.att.xml:409`). The aeons behind beings therefore exceed every count, not only every easy one. This paper reports the step; it does not claim it.\n\n**The view that holds the other option.** DN 1 records a stream with a first member, to reject it. A being falls from the mindless deities (*asaññasattā*), recollects the arising of perception and nothing before it, and concludes *\"Ahañhi pubbe nāhosiṃ, somhi etarahi ahutvā santatāya pariṇato\"*, \"I was not before; now, not having been, I have come to be\" (§67–68, `s0101m.mul.xml:483`–`:487`, mūla). The DN sub-commentary answers with the proximity condition: a mind long ceased \"is merely a proximity condition, not the seed; the seed is kamma\" (*anantarapaccayamattaṃ hotiyeva, na bījaṃ, bījaṃ pana kammaṃ*, `s0101t.tik.xml:2057`, ṭīkā). The same bridge spans emergence from cessation (`abh03m7.mul.xml:5673`) and death to rebirth across thousands of aeons (*na kāladūratā*, Kv anuṭīkā, `abh05t.nrf.xml:2409`). DN 27's re-evolving world starts a world, not a stream: its first beings fall from the Ābhassara heaven (`s0103m.mul.xml:1105`).\n\n**The step, checked.** From the premise the step is short, and Lean 4 checks it (`kala/Time.lean`, theorem `beginningless`, in the CC0 repository `SiliconWat/formal-abhidhamma`):\n\n```\n Conditioned s := ∀ m, ∃ p, succ p = some m every moment succeeds a moment of the same stream\n tick_succ : succ m = some n → tick n = tick m + 1\n ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────\n beginningless : Conditioned s → ¬ ∃ first, ∀ m, tick first ≤ tick m\n```\n\n`Conditioned` is the proximity premise for one stream of mind, not conditionality in general, and **the content is the premise**: replace it by `True` and the theorem fails (one of the file's deliberate breaks), while a model with a last moment and no first satisfies every axiom. For a presentist, \"no first member\" is a claim about what was (§3): a stream's has-beens have no first term; no infinite collection of past states exists now.\n\n### 4.2 · Where causal-set growth stands on the beginning\n\n*Page numbers are those of Bento, Dowker and Zalel (arXiv:2109.10749v1; published 2022), read in full, unless another paper is named.*\n\n**Finite-past growth has a beginning** \"by definition of the model\" (p. 3): in classical sequential growth no element is born to the past of an existing one, and \"there are no past-infinite causets at all in the sample space\" (p. 9). Read a stream's moments as a chain, as the sibling paper's relation *S* does (§3.3 there): a chain with no first member gives each member an infinite past, which no causal set in that sample space has.\n\n**Bounces, forward from a beginning.** Transitive percolation (TP) almost surely grows infinitely many *posts*, elements related to every other (p. 15), each \"a kind of collapse of the universe to zero diameter followed by a subsequent re-expansion\" (Martín et al. 2001, p. 3); \"TP realises the heuristic of a bouncing universe with a beginning\" (p. 15). Collapse need not be global. Dowker and Zalel (2017, pp. 3–4) model a black hole birthing a universe beside an unrelated region by a *partial post* (an element *y* such that if *y* ≺ *x* and *y* is unrelated to *z*, then *x* is unrelated to *z*) or a *partial break* (*A*, *B*) (every element of *A* before every element of *B*, *B* a future set, *A* ∪ *B* a past set), and cosmic renormalisation follows. Dowker and Zalel (2023) model cycles by breaks as well as posts. All of this is past-finite.\n\n**Growth for past-infinite causal sets.** Bento, Dowker and Zalel ask whether growth is *compatible* with a past without beginning; their process still starts \"from the empty set\" (p. 9), where the texts want no first stage. Four results bear on the texts.\n\n1. **Growth into the past gives up becoming.** Elements must be born to the past of existing ones, \"thus making it (nearly if not entirely) impossible to conceive of the growth process as a physical process of Becoming\" (pp. 3–4). The alternation of forward and backward births is fixed \"for definiteness\" (p. 10); random variants (p. 12, n. 8) were not surveyed.\n2. **The one covariant alternating model is deterministic.** Among alternating counterparts of the classical models, only alternating transitive percolation (ATP) satisfies discrete general covariance (Claim 3.5, p. 16). It realises \"a bouncing universe with no beginning\" (p. 15), but every proposed observable (a convex-event) has probability 0 or 1 in it (p. 24): \"ATP is not a useful cosmological model\" (p. 25).\n3. **Other alternating models are not deterministic** (Claim 3.9, p. 25, the couplings of their equation (18)), and \"the existence of non-deterministic alternating growth models encourages us to continue\" (p. 26). By Claim 3.5 they are not covariant.\n4. **A consistent covariant framework exists, with no dynamics chosen.** Z-covtree, motivated by \"asynchronous becoming\" (p. 28), is \"a consistent covariant framework for two-way growth\"; in it \"the event that the completed order contains a post is not measurable\" (p. 43).\n\nThey weigh both sides (p. 42): the difficulties with alternating growth and the covariance result \"may be considered as evidence against the existence of physically meaningful dynamical growth models for two-way infinite causal sets\"; \"On the positive side\", non-deterministic models suggest \"that there may be models in which the convex-events may yet form a rich and interesting class of observables.\" A later overview still asks whether growth should produce \"only those which are past-finite\" (Zalel 2023, p. 2).\n\n**A world-cycle's contraction is not a post, nor a partial one.** The texts' contraction is bounded: fire burns below the Ābhassara heaven, water below Subhakiṇha, wind below Vehapphala, and \"one buddha-field is always what is destroyed\" (*sadāpi ekaṃ buddhakkhettaṃ vinassati*, AN-a on AN 4.156, `s0402a.att.xml:5988`), 10¹² world-systems destroyed and re-formed together (*Visuddhimagga* XIII §404, `e0102n.mul.xml:729`–`:733`). Locality is therefore no contrast; Dowker and Zalel's partial posts and breaks are local too. The contrast is in who peoples the new world: beings \"fall from the Ābhassara body and come to this state\" (*ābhassarakāyā cavitvā itthattaṃ āgacchanti*, DN 27, `s0103m.mul.xml:1105`), the Ābhassara lying outside the fire's reach, and the DN sub-commentary adds beings from \"world-systems other than the contracting ones\" (*saṃvaṭṭamānalokadhātūhi aññalokadhātūsu*, `s0101t.tik.xml:1945`). Read as a causal set, with each stream a chain and the destroyed field related to nothing outside it, the new world's past runs through moments outside the collapse. It is not closed, as a partial break requires, and those moments precede the new world without being related to the collapse, as a partial post forbids. **A contraction in the texts is neither a post nor a partial post or break.**\n\n### 4.3 · Two axes together\n\n```\n THE BEGINNING: does the order of what has happened have a first member?\n (for a causal set, its past; in the texts, each stream of mind, no global one)\n ┌─ a first member ─────────────────────┬─ no first member ──────────────────────┐\n WHAT EXISTS │ │ │\n every born element │ Classical sequential growth │ Alternating growth (Bento, Dowker & │\n is kept │ (Rideout–Sorkin): grows from the │ Zalel): elements born to the PAST of │\n (growing block) │ empty set; order of birth = │ existing ones; becoming given up │\n │ physical order │ \"(nearly if not entirely)\" │\n │ TP: posts = bounces WITH a │ ATP, the one covariant model: bounces │\n │ beginning │ with NO beginning; deterministic │\n │ Partial posts and breaks: │ Models (18): not deterministic, not │\n │ local bounces (Dowker & Zalel) │ covariant │\n │ │ Z-covtree: consistent, covariant; no │\n │ │ dynamics chosen; a post not measurable │\n ├──────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────┤\n only the present │ (a mind-stream with a first moment: │ MAHĀVIHĀRA: presentism about │\n (presentism about │ the fortuitous-origination view, │ conditioned dhammas; each mental state │\n conditioned dhammas) │ DN 1 §67–68, recorded to be │ arises after its proximity condition; │\n │ rejected; Vism XVII §584: │ no stream of mind has a first member │\n │ ignorance is not an uncaused root) │ (SN 15 · Paṭṭhāna · AN 10.61); bodies │\n │ │ and world-regions begin │\n │ │ ◀── no causal-set model offered │\n └──────────────────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────────────────┘\n Nibbāna and concepts are time-free (kālavimutta) and sit outside both axes.\n```\n\nThe Mahāvihāra's cell asks three things of a model: (1) each mental state arises after its proximity condition, and nothing past comes to be after the present, which is the order half of becoming in Sorkin's sense (the other half, that the born element \"signifies that the event (of its birth) has already happened\", p. 8, is the persistence §3 denies); (2) no stream of mind has a first member; (3) nothing past exists. No causal-set dynamics in the literature read holds all three, but (3) alone carries that verdict, since every causal set keeps its past (§4) and no one read here, this paper included (§6), builds a presentist one. The informative question is whether a model holds (1) and (2). Classical sequential growth holds (1) and not (2); alternating growth reaches (2) by giving up (1); on Z-covtree no dynamics has been chosen. On the beginning alone the question is open: a gap, not a finding against the physics.\n\nThe nearest counter to (1) is the *Paṭṭhāna*'s post-nascence condition, from a later mental state to earlier-arisen matter (the sibling paper, §3.3). That matter arose first and still exists when conditioned, so the order of arising is untouched.\n\n---\n\n## 5 · The Answer to Dowker\n\nDowker asked for \"the Vibhajavadin view of time … by examining the earliest existing records.\" The records give a three-part answer.\n\n1. **There is no single Vibhajjavādin view of time, and the two referents converge on one school seen from two sides.** The name covered a family of schools (Cousins). In the northern sources it names a *present-plus-unripened-past* view, which Vasumitra and Xuanzang's commentary (as Stcherbatsky reports it) assign to the Kāśyapīya. The Pāli branch's own debate book refutes the past half of that view in its own words (§299), and its commentary names the holders *Kassapikā*. On the past, the northern and Pāli reports agree. On the future they differ: the *Kośa* and Vasumitra's Kāśyapīya deny it, while the Pāli debate has the Kassapika grant existence to a future that is bound to arise.\n2. **The view that resembles causal-set accretion most is the one the Pāli Vibhajjavādin record argues against, and the resemblance is partial.** Sorkin's instinct matched a real Buddhist position in keeping some past and denying the future. That position is the *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavāda and the Kassapika's past half, not the Theravāda's, and its past thins where his is kept whole.\n3. **The Theravāda's own view is presentism about conditioned dhammas**, grounded in the *Niruttipatha Sutta* and defended in the *Kathāvatthu*: whatever is past has ceased, and what has ceased does not exist. Nibbāna and concepts are time-free and fall outside the three times.\n\nThe records also bear on a question the footnote did not ask, whether the past has a beginning (§4.1–§4.3). This is a historical answer about what the records say. It takes no position on which view of time is true.\n\n---\n\n## 6 · The Contrast: Influence Without Existence\n\nIf the Theravāda is not a growing block, is there anything in it for a causal-set physicist? There is one thing, and it is a contrast rather than a correspondence.\n\nA presentist owes an account of how the past can matter if it does not exist. The Pāli Abhidhamma gives one. Its analysis of conditioning is the *Paṭṭhāna*, summarized in *Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha* ch. 8. The *Abhidhammatthavibhāvinī-ṭīkā*, Sumaṅgala's sub-commentary on the *Saṅgaha* (c. 12th century, a later layer than the *Saṅgaha* itself), states the temporal reach of every one of the twenty-four conditions. In the CST text, its comment on ch. 8, §37 sorts them so:\n\n```\n TEMPORAL REACH (Vibhāvinī on Saṅgaha ch. 8 §37) CONDITIONS COUNT\n ──────────────────────────────────────────────────── ───────────────────────────────────── ─────\n past only (the moment just ceased) proximity, contiguity, repetition, 5\n absence, disappearance\n past or present (dvikālika) kamma 1\n all three times (tikālika) object, object-predominance, 3\n decisive support\n present only (paccuppannakālika) the other fifteen 15\n ────\n 24\n time-free (kālavimutta; Saṅgaha §37 root verse) nibbāna, concepts (paññatti) — not a condition class\n```\n\n- **Five conditions reach only the immediate past:** proximity, contiguity, repetition, absence and disappearance (*anantara, samanantara, āsevana, natthi, vigata*). They carry the moment that has just ceased into the next.\n- **The kamma condition reaches past or present** (*dvikālika*). The *Saṅgaha*'s own root text says that volition conditions its results across different moments (*nānākkhaṇikā cetanā*, ch. 8 §17): an action long gone conditions its result now. The past act does not exist when its result arises; the *Kathāvatthu* (§299) refutes the thesis that past action whose result has not ripened exists. **Nothing persists between them.** The commentary on §299 gives the opponent's supporting doctrine as a persisting accumulation of kamma (*kammūpacaya*), and the Theravāda refuses it. The ceased act is a condition by kamma across moments, not a thing kept.\n- **Three conditions reach all three times** (*tikālika*): the object condition, object-predominance (*ārammaṇādhipati*; co-nascent predominance is present-only) and decisive support. So the future also conditions, as an object of thought or intention.\n- **The other fifteen conditions are present-only.**\n- **A time-free class stands outside the classification**: nibbāna and concepts are *kālavimutta* (§3).\n\nThe *Kathāvatthu* adds the epistemological half of Dowker's question. At IX.6 (§559) an opponent holds that a consciousness whose object is past has no object, since the past does not exist. The Theravādin refutes this: a mind can turn toward the past, attend to it and aspire concerning it, so a past object is a genuine object even though it does not exist. **Perception and memory reach what is not.**\n\nSo the Theravāda's answer to \"how does the past act?\" is **influence without existence**: the past conditions the present, and is cognized by it, without being real now. Set beside a causal set, this is a **contrast**, and its use is that it locates the disagreement exactly. In causal sets the order relation, not a background time, carries the physics, and the order holds *between elements that remain in the set*; the past is kept. The Theravāda keeps the effects of conditioning and discards the past relatum; nothing persists to be related. The two agree that the past acts and disagree about whether it is there. A presentist causal set would be a different ontology from Sorkin's, and whether one is coherent is a question for physics, not for this paper.\n\n---\n\n## 7 · The Strongest Objection, Carried\n\n**Objection.** \"Presentism is a Western category, and the Abhidhamma is a phenomenology of experience. It is not a metaphysics of spacetime. Mapping *atthi* ('exists') onto the ontology of a causal set compares two different questions.\"\n\n**What survives it.** Much of the objection stands, and the paper does not try to answer it away. The *Kathāvatthu*'s *atthi* is about dhammas, momentary mental and material phenomena, not about spacetime points. Its debates are about what may be *said* to exist in a doctrinal register. And the Abhidhamma's momentariness has no metric: its moments carry no length in any physical unit (the texts name the mind-moment as a unit of reckoning and time nothing in seconds; `abhidhamma-and-discrete-quantum-gravity` §5.2–§5.3), and its \"present\" is not a global simultaneity slice, which causal sets deny in any case. What survives is historical and exact: which positions on the existence of the past and the future were taken, by whom, and which the Pāli tradition rejected. Sorkin's footnote made a historical claim, and a historical claim can be checked against records. That, and placing the records against published models in §4.1–§4.3, is all this paper does with the physics.\n\n**The counter-argument to this paper's own strongest claim.** Our strongest claim is that the Pāli Vibhajjavāda is Sorkin's foil. Against it, the provenance of Sorkin's word points away from the Pāli branch. Dowker's own pointer, Stcherbatsky p. 43, describes the *Kośa*'s school, and Stcherbatsky's footnote reports Xuanzang's commentary identifying that school with the Kāśyapīyas. So the referent of \"Vibhajavadin\" in the causal-set literature is the northern one by construction, and Sorkin's footnote is broadly right about the school it names. On this reading, a comparison with the Mahāvihāra changes the subject. We accept this. We claim only that the branch that preserved the Pāli canon, and uses the name today, holds the opposite view; that its record refutes the named school's past half; and that the resemblance even for the named school is partial (§4). Whether a reader of the footnote should have the Mahāvihāra in mind is a question about the word, and the records show why it is ambiguous.\n\n---\n\n## 8 · What Would Falsify These Findings\n\n- **A primary Theravāda source that affirms the existence of unripened past kamma** (as opposed to its conditioning force) would undo §3's reading of the Mahāvihāra as presentist.\n- **A reading of Sorkin's sequential growth in which past elements cease to exist**, rather than remain in the set, would move his view toward presentism and undo §4's placement. His own texts, read on the date of writing, say the opposite.\n- **A reliable attribution of the §299 thesis to a school other than the Kassapikas**, evidence that the *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavādin denoted the Mahāvihāra specifically, or northern evidence separating Vasumitra's Kāśyapīya from the *Kośa*'s Vibhajyavādin, would change §5.1.\n- **A primary Theravāda source that treats past kamma, or a past object, as EXISTING when it conditions or is cognized** (for example, one that accepts a *kammūpacaya*) would undo §6's \"nothing persists\".\n- **A reading of *Kathāvatthu* IX.6 §559 on which the past object is a present surrogate**, a memory-image existing now, would undo the epistemological half of §6.\n- **The breaks stated under findings 6 and 7** would undo, respectively, §4.1's step and §4.2–§4.3's placement. A presentist causal-set dynamics would move the Mahāvihāra's cell in §4.3 on both axes.\n\n---\n\n## 9 · Stake, and What Was and Was Not Done\n\n**The authors' stake.** The authors write from within the Theravāda, and the institution publishing this paper grounds its values in the Pāli canon and has ruled Theravāda readings over Sarvāstivāda ones on its own questions. That creates a pull toward finding one's tradition anticipated by frontier physics. **This paper's first draft of the thesis made exactly that error.** It read the Pāli presentism as Sorkin's \"becoming\", on his side. An adversarial review, run before any prose was written, found that Sorkin's growth keeps the past, and the thesis was reversed. The reversal is the paper. A later review round corrected a second overreach of the same kind in the other direction: the first published text placed the *Kośa*'s view at the growing block, which its own translation contradicts.\n\n**Done:**\n- The four time debates of the *Kathāvatthu*, the *Niruttipatha* quotations and §559, with their commentarial attributions, read in the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana text;\n- the commentary's schism narrative and its gloss on §299 (*kammūpacaya*) read in the same text;\n- the *Kośa*'s definition read in Pradhan's Sanskrit;\n- Stcherbatsky 1923, p. 43 and its footnote, read (archive.org, Digital Library of India copy);\n- Vasumitra's *Samayabhedoparacanacakra*, the Kāśyapīya section, read in Xuanzang's Chinese (CBETA T49 no. 2031);\n- Sorkin 2007 and Dowker 2022/2023 (both versions) read in full;\n- the temporal classification of the conditions read in the CST text of the *Abhidhammatthavibhāvinī-ṭīkā* (a sub-commentary, not the *Saṅgaha* itself), and *nānākkhaṇika* and the time-free class checked in the *Saṅgaha* root;\n- the census run as described;\n- for the revision of 2026-09-30: every CST passage cited in §4.1–§4.2 (citations 24–30, 33), read in its surrounding lines;\n- Bento, Dowker and Zalel read in full (arXiv v1, 22 September 2021); Dowker and Zalel (2017) pp. 1–6 and (2023) pp. 1–4; Martín et al. (2001) pp. 1–3; Zalel (2023) pp. 1–2;\n- `kala/Time.lean` built with Lean 4.34.1 on 2026-09-30: seven theorems and the model check, and all six deliberate breaks fail as required.\n\n**Not done:**\n- The Sarvāstivāda *Vibhāṣā* and the Chinese Āgama parallels (where the Kāśyapīya view is also reported) were not consulted.\n- *Points of Controversy*, Pruden's translation of the *Kośa*, Cox's *Disputed Dharmas* (1995) and Bareau's *Les sectes bouddhiques du Petit Véhicule* (1955) were not read; they are named as the standard places to check this paper, not as sources for it.\n- Cousins was read in English; the Mahāvihāra's lineage texts (the *Dīpavaṃsa*) were read only as quoted by the commentary.\n- Later Theravāda exposition of kamma (for example, modern Burmese teaching of a kammic potency in the mental continuum) was not read (§10).\n- The physics of a presentist causal set was not attempted.\n- For the revision: Rideout and Sorkin (2000) was not re-read; its content is reported as Bento, Dowker and Zalel state it. Their journal version was not compared with arXiv v1, and the thesis they cite for random forward and backward growth (their ref. [28]) was not read. The search for later past-infinite dynamics was of the English web and arXiv only (2026-09-30). Later Theravāda cosmology and the Sarvāstivāda account of the aeons were not consulted.\n\n---\n\n## 10 · Honest Limits\n\n- **The *Kathāvatthu*'s date is traditional.** It is ascribed to the Third Council (3rd century BCE), and its irregular structure has been read as growth over time, new controversies added as they arose (von Hinüber 2000, p. 71, as cited; not read directly for this paper). The four time debates are in its first chapter. The commentary that supplies the self-designation and the opponents' names is c. 5th century CE. \"Earliest existing records\" here means the earliest the Pāli tradition preserves, not the earliest that existed.\n- **The attributions are the commentary's.** The *Kathāvatthu* names no opponents. A later author's attribution is evidence about the tradition's self-understanding, not a contemporaneous report. The same commentary's schism list files the Kassapikas under the Sabbatthivāda (§2.2).\n- **The *Kośa*'s definition is a Sarvāstivādin doctrinal report.** Vasubandhu reports the Vibhajyavādins as the Sarvāstivāda's opponents in a polemical context. Vasumitra's agreement and the *Kathāvatthu*'s own wording at §299 corroborate its content, but no text of the Kāśyapīyas themselves is quoted here.\n- **\"Exists\" may be an efficacy predicate.** In the three-times controversy, existence is often keyed to causal efficacy: Stcherbatsky glosses the *Kośa* school's existent past as the part that \"had not already lost [its] influence\", and Miller reports the Sarvāstivāda marking the present as the causally efficacious moment. Where *exists* means *is efficacious*, the *Kośa*'s existent unripened karma and the Theravāda's non-existent but conditioning karma may differ more in wording than in ontology. §6's contrast holds only if the *Kathāvatthu*'s *atthi* is not an efficacy predicate; this paper reads it as not one, because the *Kathāvatthu* denies existence to exactly what it grants as a condition, but that reading is an interpretation.\n- **\"Nothing persists\" is stated at the layer of the *Kathāvatthu* and its commentary.** Later Theravāda exposition speaks of a kammic potency carried in the mental continuum. Whether that potency is a persisting store of the kind the commentary refuses, or a way of speaking about conditioning, was not examined.\n- **The time-free class.** \"Presentism\" in this paper is presentism about conditioned dhammas. Nibbāna and concepts are *kālavimutta* and fall outside the comparison. A reader who treats the Theravāda as presentist without that qualification misstates it.\n- **The physics mapping is a mapping of positions on existence and, since the revision, on the beginning.** It does not claim that any Buddhist school anticipated a theory of quantum gravity, and it makes no claim about which theory of time is correct.\n- **One edition.** Paragraph numbers are the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana's; the Pali Text Society's chapter numbering differs. A reader should locate passages by § number and title.\n- **The census was quick and English-only.** The field of Buddhism-and-physics comparison is large and poorly indexed. Absence from our search is weak evidence, and the census's own second NOT FOUND fell to a book it could not read (Stcherbatsky). Findings 6 and 7 were not searched at all.\n- **The beginning claim rests on a reading of rows.** Its premise is read off the *Paṭṭhāna*'s general statement of the proximity condition and its negative method; the commentaries read it so too (§4.1), but no proof assistant can check a reading. The ordinal model of a stream is ours. `kala/Time.lean` is exploratory and outside the repository's pre-registration, and the two runs that record the reasoning (`runs/2026-09-30-the-beginning`, `runs/2026-09-30-longest-chain`) are retrospective and count for nothing as tests.\n- **The predicate line is an interpretation.** That a beginningless succession of impermanent states affirms neither the permanence nor the annihilation MN 63's questions ask about is this paper's reading, not a text's.\n- **Streams as chains is a comparison.** §4.2's infinite pasts, and its unclosed past of a re-evolved world, hold only if a stream's moments are read as a chain in a causal set (the sibling paper's relation *S*), the second also only if the destroyed field is related to nothing outside it.\n- **The physics placement is dated.** It rests on one paper read in full (Bento, Dowker and Zalel) and four read in part. It is not a no-go theorem: its authors weigh their negative results as evidence, not proof, and their positive ones as encouragement.\n\n---\n\n## 11 · Close\n\nSorkin heard, in a school name, an echo of the time his models grow. The echo is real and partial. It comes from one school of a family, the one the northern sources describe, whose past is kept only while its fruit is owed. The branch that kept the Pāli canon answered that view in its oldest debate book, with a question it asks of every past thing: *has it not ceased?* The answer to Dowker's invitation is that the earliest records disagree with each other on the existence of the past — the question on which, in a different register, the physics of becoming is still open. On a second question the Pāli records read here agree: no stream of mind has a first member, though bodies and world-regions begin. There the physics, in the one study read closely, has a consistent covariant frame for a past without beginning and no dynamics on it yet chosen.\n\n---\n\n## Cross-Venue References\n\n| Venue | Identifier |\n|---|---|\n| Primary canonical | <https://thonly.org/research/the-vibhajjavadin-view-of-time> |\n| GitHub | <https://github.com/thonly/publications/blob/main/defensive-publications/the-vibhajjavadin-view-of-time.md> |\n| Census pre-registration (public) | `thonly/publications` commit `7348ba2`, `timestamps/census/physics-lens-prereg.md` |\n| Sibling paper | <https://thonly.org/research/abhidhamma-and-discrete-quantum-gravity> |\n| Lean check of §4.1 (public, CC0) | <https://github.com/SiliconWat/formal-abhidhamma> — `kala/Time.lean`, theorem `beginningless`; software concept DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23067241 |\n\n---\n\n## Acknowledgments\n\nThe authors thank Rafael Sorkin and Fay Dowker, whose footnotes asked a question the Pāli sources can answer; Bruno Valeixo Bento, Fay Dowker and Stav Zalel, whose study of past-infinite growth gave the second axis its physics; the Vipassana Research Institute for the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana texts; the GRETIL project and the editors of its *Abhidharmakośabhāṣya* e-text (after Pradhan); the CBETA project for the Chinese canon; the Digital Library of India and the Internet Archive for Stcherbatsky's 1923 text; and the late L.S. Cousins. The reading of the sources, the adversarial review and the drafting were done with Miss Aquarius, the name under which this institution discloses its AI collaboration.\n\n---\n\n## Citations\n\n1. Sorkin, R.D. (2007). \"Relativity theory does not imply that the future already exists: a counterexample.\" In V. Petkov (ed.), *Relativity and the Dimensionality of the World*, Fundamental Theories of Physics, Springer. arXiv:gr-qc/0703098.\n2. Dowker, F. (2022/2023). \"Causal Set Quantum Gravity and the Hard Problem of Consciousness.\" arXiv:2209.07653 (v1, 16 September 2022; v2, 21 May 2023; the invitation is footnote 1 in both, worded as quoted from v2).\n3. Wüthrich, C. & Callender, C. (2017). \"What Becomes of a Causal Set?\" *British Journal for the Philosophy of Science* 68(3): 907–925. doi:10.1093/bjps/axv040. arXiv:1502.00018.\n4. Bombelli, L., Lee, J., Meyer, D. & Sorkin, R.D. (1987). \"Space-time as a causal set.\" *Physical Review Letters* 59: 521–524.\n5. *Kathāvatthu*. Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana edition, VRI `tipitaka-xml`, `romn/abh03m3.mul.xml` (§282–§306; §559).\n6. *Kathāvatthu-aṭṭhakathā* (in *Pañcappakaraṇa-aṭṭhakathā*). Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana edition, `romn/abh03a.att.xml`.\n7. *Niruttipatha Sutta*, Saṃyutta Nikāya 22.62; and SN 22.48 (the opponent's sutta).\n8. Sumaṅgala. *Abhidhammatthavibhāvinī-ṭīkā* on *Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha* ch. 8 (§37). Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana edition, `romn/abh07t.nrf.xml` (bound with the *Saṅgaha*).\n9. Anuruddha. *Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha*, ch. 8 §17 and §37 (root text). Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana edition, `romn/abh07t.nrf.xml`.\n10. Vasubandhu. *Abhidharmakośabhāṣya*, ed. P. Pradhan (2nd ed., 1975), p. 296; GRETIL e-text (Hackett & Lusthaus). English translation: L.M. Pruden, *Abhidharmakośabhāṣyam* (from La Vallée Poussin's French), 4 vols., Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1988–90 (not read for this paper).\n11. Vasumitra. *Samayabhedoparacanacakra* (異部宗輪論), tr. Xuanzang. Taishō vol. 49, no. 2031; CBETA XML `T49n2031`.\n12. Cousins, L.S. (2001). \"On the Vibhajjavādins: the Mahiṃsāsaka, Dhammaguttaka, Kassapiya and Tambapaṇṇiya branches of the ancient Theriyas.\" *Buddhist Studies Review* 18(2): 131–182.\n13. Miller, K. (2017). \"A Taxonomy of Views about Time in Buddhist and Western Philosophy.\" *Philosophy East and West* 67(3): 763–782.\n14. Gauvain, Michel. \"Time and Temporality in Indian Buddhism.\" Unpublished essay, n.d. academia.edu 43833572.\n15. Stcherbatsky, Th. (1923). *The Central Conception of Buddhism and the Meaning of the Word \"Dharma.\"* London: Royal Asiatic Society. p. 43 and n. (Read in the Digital Library of India copy, archive.org `in.ernet.dli.2015.99616`; Dowker cites a later Motilal Banarsidass printing, same pagination.)\n16. Stcherbatsky, Th. (1932). *Buddhist Logic*, vol. 1. Bibliotheca Buddhica XXVI. Leningrad: Academy of Sciences of the USSR. pp. 4–5 (as cited by Dowker).\n17. Broad, C.D. (1923). *Scientific Thought*. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. (The growing block.)\n18. Shwe Zan Aung & Rhys Davids, C.A.F. (trs.) (1915). *Points of Controversy, or Subjects of Discourse* (the *Kathāvatthu*). London: Pali Text Society (not read for this paper).\n19. von Hinüber, O. (2000). *A Handbook of Pāli Literature*. Berlin: de Gruyter. p. 71 (as cited; not read directly).\n20. Ly, T. & Miss Aquarius (2026). \"Discreteness, Adjacency and Order: A Structural Comparison of the Theravāda Abhidhamma with Causal Sets and Loop Quantum Gravity\" (sibling paper). <https://thonly.org/research/abhidhamma-and-discrete-quantum-gravity>.\n21. Bento, B.V., Dowker, F. & Zalel, S. (2022). \"If time had no beginning: growth dynamics for past-infinite causal sets.\" *Classical and Quantum Gravity* 39(4): 045002. doi:10.1088/1361-6382/ac445f. arXiv:2109.10749 (v1, 22 September 2021; read in full in this version). (Not to be confused with arXiv:2109.11953, a separate short essay by Bento and Zalel.)\n22. Rideout, D.P. & Sorkin, R.D. (2000). \"A classical sequential growth dynamics for causal sets.\" *Physical Review D* 61: 024002. arXiv:gr-qc/9904062.\n23. Martín, X., O'Connor, D., Rideout, D.P. & Sorkin, R.D. (2001). \"On the 'renormalization' transformations induced by cycles of expansion and contraction in causal set cosmology.\" *Physical Review D* 63: 084026. arXiv:gr-qc/0009063 (pp. 1–3 read).\n24. *Saṃyutta Nikāya* 15, CST `romn/s0302m.mul.xml:3489` (15.1), `:3529` (15.5), `:3553` (15.7), `:3565` (15.8); its commentary, `romn/s0302a.att.xml:2489`, `:2521`.\n25. *Majjhima Nikāya* 63 (*Cūḷamālukya Sutta*), CST `romn/s0202m.mul.xml:1397`.\n26. *Dīgha Nikāya* 1, CST `romn/s0101m.mul.xml:283` (§31), `:331` (§39), `:483`–`:487` (§67–68); its sub-commentary (*Sīlakkhandhavagga-ṭīkā*), `romn/s0101t.tik.xml:1945`, `:2057`, `:2061`. *Dīgha Nikāya* 27, `romn/s0103m.mul.xml:1105`.\n27. *Aṅguttara Nikāya* 10.61, CST `romn/s0404m3.mul.xml:1890`; the commentary on AN 4.156, `romn/s0402a.att.xml:5988`.\n28. *Paṭṭhāna*, CST `romn/abh03m7.mul.xml:85`–`:97` (proximity), `:1153`–`:1201` (negative method), `:5673` (emergence from cessation). *Kathāvatthu* §75, `romn/abh03m3.mul.xml:849`.\n29. Buddhaghosa. *Visuddhimagga* XIII §404–406 and XVII §584 (CST paragraphs), CST `romn/e0102n.mul.xml:729`–`:773`, `:3553`.\n30. *Kathāvatthupakaraṇa-anuṭīkā*, CST `romn/abh05t.nrf.xml:2409`.\n31. Ly, T. & Miss Aquarius (2026). *Formal Abhidhamma: the Theravāda Abhidhamma in Lean 4*. `SiliconWat/formal-abhidhamma`, `kala/Time.lean`. Software concept DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23067241. CC0.\n32. Ly, T. & Miss Aquarius (2026). \"The Wheel That Unwinds the Wheel: The Abhidhamma as Executable Process-Specification.\" <https://thonly.org/research/abhidhamma-executable-process-specification>.\n33. Commentaries, CST: *Papañcasūdanī* on MN 9, `romn/s0201a.att.xml:4309`; *Atthasālinī*, `romn/abh01a.att.xml:409` (Nidānakathā), `:9149`; *Samantapāsādikā*, `romn/vin01a.att.xml:2169`; *Cūḷaniddesa-aṭṭhakathā*, `romn/s0516a.att.xml:881`.\n34. Dowker, F. & Zalel, S. (2017). \"Evolution of Universes in Causal Set Cosmology.\" *Comptes Rendus Physique* 18(3–4): 246–253. doi:10.1016/j.crhy.2017.03.002. arXiv:1703.07556 (pp. 1–6 read).\n35. Dowker, F. & Zalel, S. (2023). \"Observables for cyclic causal set cosmologies.\" *Classical and Quantum Gravity* 40(15): 155015. doi:10.1088/1361-6382/ace149. arXiv:2212.01149 (pp. 1–4 read).\n36. Zalel, S. (2023). \"Covariant Growth Dynamics.\" arXiv:2302.10582 (pp. 1–2 read).\n37. Ricard, M. & Trinh Xuan Thuan (2001). *The Quantum and the Lotus*. New York: Crown (not read).\n38. Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama (2005). *The Universe in a Single Atom*. New York: Morgan Road Books (not read).",
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  "source_url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/thonly/publications/main/defensive-publications/the-vibhajjavadin-view-of-time.md",
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  "what": "Every file the index build considered, and what became of it. candidates = served + excluded + held. Detects a document silently dropped; it is not a tamper check — each document's sha256 is.",
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+ "repo": "TH/publications",
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  "repo": "TH/publications",
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  "slug": "abhidhamma-and-discrete-quantum-gravity",
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  "repo": "TH/publications",
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  "path": "defensive-publications/abhidhamma-and-discrete-quantum-gravity.md",
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  "slug": "abhidhamma-executable-process-specification",
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  "slug": "the-vibhajjavadin-view-of-time",
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  "repo": "TH/publications",
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- "path": "defensive-publications/a-promise-that-cannot-grow.md",
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+ "path": "essays/letting-the-texts-lose.md",
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+ "reason": "awaiting its /polish model round and its literature census (argument essay, zenodo: true; first deposit after the round)",
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+ "review_by": "2026-10-21"
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