  The nature of the change in perspective that accompanies the proposal of a
unified physical theory deriving from the single dimension of time is
elaborated. On expressing a temporal interval in a multi-dimensional form, via
a direct arithmetic decomposition, both the geometric structure of
4-dimensional spacetime and the physical structure of matter in spacetime can
be derived from the substructure of time. While reviewing this construction,
here we emphasise how the new conceptual picture differs from the more typical
viewpoint in theoretical physics of accounting for the properties of matter by
first postulating entities on top of a given spacetime background or by
geometrically augmenting 4-dimensional spacetime itself. With reference to
historical and philosophical sources we argue that the proposed perspective,
centred on the possible arithmetic forms of time, provides an account for how
the mathematical structures of the theory can relate directly to the physical
structures of the empirical world.
