# precedes (temporal)

something that is before another thing in time

- Computed level: L2 (depth in the emergence graph, not abstraction)
- Status: review  ·  Domain: temporal  ·  Arena: precedes

## Emergence
**Emerges from:** [time](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-time.dimension), [difference](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-difference.relation)

**Through:** time.dimension gives an ordering while difference.relation distinguishes two things, together they make one thing comes before another

**Novel properties:**
- earlier‑ness
- temporal precedence
- ordering relation

## Examples
- The Big Bang preceded the formation of the Milky Way by about 8.8 billion years. *(astronomy)*
- The invention of the printing press preceded the widespread literacy in 16th-century Europe. *(history)*
- In a 2020 neural network training run, the initialization of weights preceded the first backpropagation by 0.4 seconds. *(computing)*

## Used by
- [ahead of its time](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-ahead-of-its-time.premature) (L23)
- [december](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-december.date) (L14)
- [november](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-november.date) (L15)
- [october](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-october.month) (L14)
- [september](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-september.calendar) (L14)
- [third](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-third.ordinal) (L13)
- [wednesday](https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-wednesday.temporal) (L16)

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*Canonical: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-precedes.temporal*  
*Structured data: https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-precedes.temporal.json*  
*Every definition provably resolves to space, time, energy and pattern.*