Then to answer your initial question, I am not sure I can accept time not being a dimension. While I can accept that it is not a "conventional" dimension like the other 3, it would take a lot of mental "refactoring" to totally accept that concept. When you only look at the state of A and its next state of B, then the discrete amount of time between the 2 states is irrelevant once A achieves state B. So in that side of the discussion time is no longer a dimension.

Where I see time as a dimension is in physical, chemical, and nuclear reactions. Just the fact that radionuclides decay at a constant rate of time makes it incredibly difficult not to accept time as a dimension. Just as easily, though, I could apply "your" assertion that this is just a constant [discrete] changing from one state of decay to another reduced state of decay.

>If you're asking "is there a time zero" then you're thinking about time as a dimension and have already made a wrong turn.
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>Some people think of an instant as a point on a line of time. A single state of the world.
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>I think of an instant as the time that exists in the analysis of discrete change. In other words, when there is state A and state B, and nothing in between, then an instant is the time associated with the change from state A to state B.
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>More relevantly, if there is a state C that represents another discrete change, then there is an instant of time in the analysis of state B and state C.
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>Where it gets goofy is that the first instant (A-B) and the second instant (B-C) are not related at any level, except that they are both in your head.
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>That means trying to label the instants in some succession along a set of integers in order to get to instant 0, is simply a nonsensical question, in that context.
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>Since there is no dimension of time there is no beginning of time.