Time is often represented as a coordinate, but what is it intrinsically? Thinking in computational terms reveals that time is the progressive doing of computation by the universe, due to computational irreducibility. This implies that time cannot be jumped ahead in; one must go through each irreducible computational step to reach the future. Our experience of time is due to the interplay between our computational boundedness as observers and the computational irreducibility of underlying processes. Time is perceived as a single thread, but underneath it is multithreaded, with many paths of history. Different observers perceive a consistent objective reality because they share a small patch of branchial space.
https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2024/10/on-the-nature-of-time/