In any spacetime coordinate system used to describe physical phenomena, different coordinates identify different points.  No two points have the same coordinates and the points are distinguishable from one another.  The invariant differential interval between two points, which includes the differences in time and spatial coordinates, is fundamental in physical descriptions of spacetime phenomena. The differential interval depends not only on the differential difference between the coordinates of the two points, but also on the metric associated with the system of coordinates.  Even though the differential interval can be zero (a lightlike interval), the coordinate differential between two points cannot be zero.  Thus, physical spacetime exhibits extension; it extends from point to point.

Imagine a set of points that are indistinguishable from one another.  Such a set of points, even an infinite set of such points, exhibits no extension.  We might call this a true vacuum, or the primordial vacuum.  One of the tenets of the philosophical model is that spacetime emerges from the primordial vacuum.  The physical model seeks to describe this emergence.

This emergence is envisioned as potentially obviating the big bang theory and its need for cosmic inflation.  The reason for this is that the creation of new spacetime, thus new extension between spacetime points, is posited not to be constrained by the speed of light; the extent of spacetime can increase faster than could be conveyed by a light signal.  Moreover, the emergence of spacetime is treated in the physical model as governed by constraints that are functionals of the coordinates through the physical fields.  Thus, the emergence implies emergence of physical fields – matter.  As the creation of new extent is posited not to be constrained by the speed of light, the creation of matter in the expanding spacetime is not constrained by the speed of light.  Matter in emergent areas of spacetime does not travel from pre-existing points in the spacetime, it is created along with the emergent spacetime.

The constraints are functionals.  They depend on the physical fields which in the existing physics of our experience are the fields of the Standard Model.  The field potentials are functions of the coordinates.  The physical model posits that the coordinate differentials associated with emergence of spacetime at a horizon is a functional of the field potentials and the coordinate differentials themselves.  This functional expresses the constraints by which matter governs the spacetime metric associated with the coordinates.  The function could be called the constraint functional.  But the philosophical model presented here suggests an alternative name – the consciousness functional.