ABSTRACT
Thirty-six years ago the philosopher–physicist T. J. Fraser, founder of the International Society for the Study of Time (ISST), summarized the evolutionary levels of the cosmos, from the particulate to the stars and galaxies, earth and life, and finally humans and their social institutions, adding that “the stable integrative levels created by these steps survive and coexist.” Fraser’s discussion of time is firmly based on the work of Albert Einstein, specifically his special theory of relativity. Everything we know about the universe beyond earth is gleaned from radiation—a variety of waves reaching earth from everything in the sky, from the nearby moon to the most distant galaxies. In Fraser’s definition, the level of reality mediated by photons across the electromagnetic spectrum is the astronomical world of galaxy clusters, galaxies, stars, and their accompanying planets, all of which he describes a “ponderable masses”.
