Here is another way to think about it.

We are mobile organisms, so this sentient interface our bodies have with their situation functions as a sequence of perceptions, in order to navigate. Originally physical space, but increasingly abstract and conceptual spaces.

Which creates this perception of time as the point of the present, moving past to future, though the objective reality is that change turns future to past. Tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns.

There is no literal dimension of time, because the past is consumed by the present, to inform and drive it. Causality and conservation of energy. Cause becomes effect. Potential>actual>residual.

Therefore the act of determination can only occur as the present. Without this presence, there is no past or future.

Energy is "conserved," because it manifests this physical state we refer to as the present, creating time, as well as temperature, pressure, color and sound. Time is frequency, events are amplitude.

So the energy, manifesting this presence, goes past to future, because the patterns it is constantly generating rise and fall, form and dissolve, future to past. Energy drives the wave, while the fluctuations rise and fall. (No tiny strings necessary.)

Consciousness also goes past to future, while the perceptions, emotions and thoughts giving it form and structure go future to past. Though it is the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems processing the energy and feeding the flame, while the central nervous system sorts the information. Signals from the noise.

So we have this dichotomy, where consciousness, acting as energy, is causal, while the expressions it manifests are effect.

Logically a spiritual absolute would be this essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell. The light shining through the film, rather than the images on it.

Ideals are not absolute, so an entire culture founded on the assumption will be inherently contentious, as all the competing ideals and requisite belief systems assume to be the one and only, therefore all others must be wrong.

Even math has become a form of belief, where the abstract is considered foundational to that which it abstracts.

Not only is the map not the territory, but its very function is to extract signal from the noise and if it were to include all information of the territory, it would revert back to noise.

So the basis is energy and the forms it manifests, not order and chaos, known and unknown.

Even galaxies are structure coalescing in, as energy radiates out. Synchronization versus harmonization.

Nodes and networks, organisms and ecosystems, particles and fields.