The weak, strong, gravitational, and electromagnetic forces collectively propagate at a rate that is bounded by the speed of light. Since all of the particles within a clock communicate with each other through these forces, when the speed of light dilates, the clock speed changes giving the illusion of time dilation. This can be confusing because the clock slows down, but only due to light speed slowing down, not time itself physically dilating. When you try to measure the speed of light, the clock speed therefore changes proportionally with the change in light speed, so you always measure a value of c no matter what the local speed of light is or how much it changes.Rather than proper time, you have proper light speed, which is how a specified reference frame perceives the speed of light relative to a stationary reference frame in zero-g. The faster an object moves, the slower its proper light speed, which means that all of the fundamental forces slow down causing the moving clock to tick slower than the stationary one. When a muon travels at relativistic speeds, its proper light speed is slow, so all of the forces involved in its decay are slow, causing it to exist for a longer clock-time in the stationary reference frame.The presence of matter changes the local index of refraction, causing light to curve and change velocity. The event horizon of a black hole is where the speed of light is zero. Inside the event horizon, the speed of light is reversed, causing all matter and energy to be forced towards the event horizon, not a singularity.If x is nothing, then by definition, all components of x are also nothing. That is, if a and b are components of x, then [a = x] - [b = x] = x proving that if A - B ≠ x, then A and or B are not components of x. Thus, even in quantum mechanics, something never comes from nothing. Since you cannot produce something from nothing, and something exists today, the fundamentals for said something have always existed. As shown below, time therefore has always passed. We therefore need to consider a model of the universe in which time has always passed, and the universe was organized from fundamentals that have always existed.