However, dualist principles support a world of immaterial Forms independent from material existence, which act as the cause of material existence. Can you see how this allows for time prior to material existence? — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes. I am both a Monist (the universal "substance" is Information), and a Dualist (in the real world Information exists in both physical and metaphysical forms).
In your reply to "tw", you equated Metaphysical Forms with the Laws of Nature. I agree. But in my own worldview, I go even further, to equate Metaphysics (mental forms) with the enforming power of Nature : what scientists call Energy, and what I call EnFormAction. The material aspects of reality are continually being transformed by immaterial energy. Energy is invisible and intangible, until it is embodied in material form. We only know that Energy exists, by inference from the behavior of matter.
Since the universal substance of the universe is invisible/intangible Information/energy, it occupies no Space and is the cause of Time, as it creates Change in the material world. If that is indeed the case, then there is no reason to doubt the possibility/probability of a timeless state "prior to material existence". That being the case, there is good reason to infer some kind of metaphysical Enformer to create our physical world system.
Metaphysics : 2. Aristotle divided his treatise on science into two parts. The world as-known-via-the-senses was labeled “physics” - what we call "Science" today. And the world as-known-by-the-mind, by reason, was labeled “metaphysics” - what we now call "Philosophy" .
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html
EnFormAction : Ententional Causation. A proposed metaphysical law of the universe that causes random interactions between forces and particles to produce novel & stable arrangements of matter & energy. It’s the creative force (AKA : Divine Will) of the axiomatic eternal deity that, for unknown reasons, programmed a Singularity to give birth to our reality from an infinite source of possibility. AKA : The creative power of Evolution; the power to enform; Logos; Change.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html
Enformer : A hypothetical First Cause, logically necessary to kick-start the space-time process we call Evolution. Not to be confused with traditional anthro-metric deities. ("Einstein stated that he believed in the pantheistic God of Baruch Spinoza") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious ... t_Einstein