While obviously correct, our physics suffers from two sets of philosophical difficulties, the large set associated with quantum mechanics and the other involving the nature of time, the source of its flow. These are shown here to be two sides of the same problem. Time is the last operationally-defined concept in the foundations of physics and thus the only one entitled to have different scales of measurement and arbitrary units. This is only possible if it is discontinuous, the repeating phenomenon counted to measure time providing the unit of a particular scale. An unexplored consequence is that the only change that might resolve all the philosophical difficulties of physics without affecting its proven substance is to try different scales, perhaps from other sciences. Our practical unit, a vibration of the cesium atom that tells us "the time" despite having no theoretical significance, is supplemented by natural units that are appropriate in some situations and tell us about time itself. Part 2 presents the proof for this view by demonstrating a scale that embodies the essential features of a past, present and future, and that reduces all the puzzles of the quantum to common sense, albeit at the cost of accepting the limitations of the human brain.
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