I'll try to write about an example of a way something can have been created "after" something else, and ALSO have "always" existed:
Computer programming is a hobby of mine, and I sometimes make small computer games, mostly arcade games (think 'Space Invaders' except not as simple - little characters ("sprites", in game parlance) moving around doing stuff). Usually one of the sprites is controlled by the player, and all the others are controlled by the computer, moving in patterns or according to algorithms or programmed behaviours.
Generally the way a program like this works is: when the program is loaded, first of all it substantiates ("spawns", in game parlance) all the sprites - reserving a bit of the computer's RAM for the information needed to maintain each sprite. I guess this is sort of like "the big bang" from the point of view of the sprites.... Then after that it continually runs a loop, over and over again, checking each sprite to see its status, performing whatever logic operations are needed to control that sprite for the current iteration of the loop, etc, and then drawing the sprite onto the computer screen. And maybe destroying a sprite, or spawning new sprites, if required by the game logic.
Generally that loop is cycled through 60 times per second, as 60 hz is (or was) a (pretty much arbitrary) standard in computers and tv screens etc.. 60 hz is fast enough to trick the human eye into seeing smooth, seamless motion when a sprite moves across the screen, although the sprite is actually being moved in very small steps.
So the loop is cycling relatively quickly, and each sprite is moving in some tiny increment with each cycle, and being drawn onto the screen at its new position. In between cycles, the visual image of the sprite on the screen doesn't actually exist, except in potential.. all that exists is the information in RAM to say where that sprite will next be displayed..
So anyway.. From the point of view of the sprites, "time" started when the program was loaded (and also, all of creation is being continually created and destroyed with every iteration of the loop). And from the sprites' POV, me the programmer, or whoever is playing the game, would be "outside of time". I can stop and restart the program at any time, or rewind time, or speed up time, or change code which changes "the past" and therefore the future, inside the game world.. Or pause the game and edit some of the information in RAM to alter how any given sprite will behave.
[An aside: My games are not exactly deterministic, I usually use pseudo-random numbers or unpredictable inputs, and many interacting sprite logics, which lead to emergent behaviours.. So actually I cannot look and see exactly what will happen in the future of the game world, I have to let it run its course to see the end result...]
At the level of the game's source code, all the sprites came into existence at the same time (or have always existed) - the information needed to create them is all there in the source code on my hard drive. Every possibility of the game world exists in potential, right from the start.
But at the level of the sprites themselves, they came into being at different times, and have different lifespans, etc..they're born and live out their lives, have "children", die, etc...
.. This doesn't really answer any questions, and not at all TC's original one. But I find it interesting to think about and thought someone else might too...
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I've never been able to get a handle on the long wave/short wave thing.. Calling them long and short wave cycles makes it sound like they are different frequencies of the same wave, like it's a spectrum. But since the C's say it's one or the other, and those are the only two possibilities, that makes it sound like no, they're sort of separate things, so to say.. Which is what made me wonder if a short wave cycle is like a phasing or interference pattern, i.e. a distortion, IN the wave which makes up the long wave cycle. Which would mean you can have a long wave cycle without a short, but not a short without a long..