Fractal Time and Dimensional Flow: A Temporal Ontology for Emergent Spacetime in Quantum Gravity

The reduction of effective spacetime dimensionality at high energies is a robust feature of several quantum gravity approaches, including causal dynamical triangulations (CDT), asymptotic safety, and Hořava–Lifshitz gravity. This work proposes a new explanation grounded in the temporal ontology of the Duality of Time Theory (DTT), where space emerges from layered projections of a complex, fractal-like time structure. We define a two-level temporal geometry in which projection latency increases with energy, leading to an effective spectral dimension that flows from d _s = 4 to d _s ≈ 2 at Planckian scales. Numerical simulations are presented showing consistency with dimensional flow observed in CDT, and we derive modified entropy scaling and vacuum fluctuation suppression. The results suggest that dimensional flow may not require fundamental spatial discreteness but can emerge from a coherent, recursive temporal architecture. We discuss connections to thermal time, relational time, and causal set theory, and outline potential observational consequences, including gravitational wave dispersion and deviations in black hole thermodynamics. This model reinterprets core quantum gravitational phenomena through a temporally grounded geometric ontology, opening new conceptual and empirical directions.