Young's aim in the theory of process is to achieve a comprehensive theory or metaparadigm that includes and is thoroughly consistent with the best science but which is capable of dealing with nonobjective, nondefinable aspects of reality beyond the accepted limits of science. Young's investigation of how process works led him to some profound insights into the nature of reality. At the most general level, process or time-structure exhibits several features. Young rejects the assumption of relativity theory that time is dimensionally interchangeable with space. The fundamental irreversibility of time must be included in any basic cosmological statement.
Process is defined as a series of actions or operations taken to reach an end.
Process, accordingly, Young concludes, must have direction, build on itself, and use means to attain its goal, these means being determinate or predictable if they are to be effective. The free, initiating, creative play of purpose needs fixed laws, constraints, and a deterministic framework through which to realize its goal. Young's process paradigm deals expressly with this interplay of freedom and constraint. Two of these aspects are objective while two are nonobjective or projective. Young devotes much of his second book, The Geometry of Meaning, to an exposition of the fourfold.