James,

“However, I am confused as to how the latter is an example of the former.”

I’m not saying one is an example of the other, but am contrasting them.

“I understand that energy goes from past to future (if by that I take it that what you are saying is that entropy’s arrow moves in one direction⁠ — past to future i.e. the third law of thermodynamics)”

Actually my point is that energy is always and only present. That’s why it is described as “conserved.” Consider that if energy existed and then ceased to exist, it would have been left in the past. By conserved, it means that while it reconfigures, it is the same amount of energy.

So my point is that if we look at it from the point of view of the energy, there is no past or future, because it is always only present, so that its changing forms is what creates time.

“ I notice that this recurs in the next paragraph but “these events” have now become “the patterns”.”

I do tend to run the words together, as different terms for the same concept.

Consider a day as an example of a wave; It rises with the sun, crests at noon and then recedes. So at dawn, the day is in the future, but by dusk, it is in the past. So the day, as the form of the energy, the effect of the earth circling relative to the sun, is an event, the form of which is the arc of the sun, as we experience it.

Now take a flower as an example of a wave; As a seed, it is in the future, then the energy of the sun soaks up the nutrients into it and it expands, like a wave building. Then the flower bursts out, as the cresting of the wave. After which the seeds start to form and the flower recedes.

So the energy flows through it, as the present, while it rises and falls, like the wave. The energy goes past to future, while the form goes future to past.

All of which is feedback, as the energy drives the process, while the forms give it definition and direction.

“Mathematics about whether the maths is simply a human-created model or true in reality? Or am I missing something when you use the phrase “descriptive effect”?’

So I’m not saying it is a human created effect, rather that even humans are examples of the relationship and dichotomy between energy and the forms being manifest. The only problem with math being the tendency to assume the forms are primary, rather than emergent from the dynamic.

For example, 1+1=2 isn’t some universal form, but a description of a process by which adding two sets of one results in one set of two. If we don’t complete the process, the dynamic, it is not a set of two. So there is no platonic form of math, but simply that identical cause yields identical effect. Therefore the regularity of math.

Remember that it’s the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems processing the energy driving us on, while the central nervous systems sorts through the forms we perceive, so there tends to be an intellectual and academic bias toward form and description.