Is Time an Axiom?

This article develops an observer-inclusive account of time that reconciles internal (biological, cognitive) and external (physical) temporalities. Its central claim is that low-entropy memory (LEM) is a condition for an agent’s operational access to temporal continuity. By underwriting structured records and the re-identification of states across indices, LEM mediates the agent’s access to succession, duration, and direction. These procedures incur thermodynamic costs. Using Landauer’s principle, we derive a calibrated lower bound on elapsed time for a restricted class of logically irreversible memory updates under isothermal assumptions. The paper proposes a dual-perspectival account of time: objective temporal structure co-varies with the operations of memory-bearing agents who generate and exploit informational repetitions in order to measure and model it, without collapsing external reality into subjectivity. The argument is anchored in canonical results, including Kandel’s and Tonegawa’s work on memory and Prigogine’s theory of dissipative structures.