If all physical processes slow down, does that mean time itself slows, or does it just mean everything we use to measure time is affected? What would time be if there were no moving parts, no decay, and no reference points?

If all physical processes slow down, does that mean time itself slows, or does it just mean everything we use to measure time is affected? What would time be if there were no moving parts, no decay, and no reference points?

We say time began at the Big Bang, but what does that actually mean? Before the first movement, the first interaction, and the first change—was time even there? If time itself slows down as Einstein describes, then what was it before anything moved? For time to be something that "slows," it must first exist independently of motion. But everything we observe about time is tied to movement and change.

My idea of time is not just about how it behaves under speed or gravity, but what it actually is from the very beginning. Time, in its purest form, is not a thing that flows or slows—it is simply a reference framework for change. It doesn’t control reality; reality defines it. The moment anything happened, time became a way to describe that happening. If nothing had ever moved, decayed, or changed, we wouldn’t even have a concept of time.

So, is Einstein’s time—which is dependent on motion and observation—really the fundamental time? Or is time something deeper, something that existed as a potential framework before anything ever moved?