Ha, my previous comment was before your new edit mentioning Sora. There is a good reason why the accompanying research report to the Sora demo isn't titled "Awesome Generative Video," but references world models. The interesting feature is how many apparently (approximations to) physical properties emerge (object permanence, linear motion, partially elastic collisions, as well as many of the elements of grammar of film), and which do not (notably material properties of solid and fluids, creation of objects from nothing, etc.)
Yeah, I've been thinking about similar concepts in a different context. Fascinating.
Regarding the role of time, the idea of a purely conserved quantity is that it is conserved under the conditions of the system (that's why the article frequently references Newton's First Law), so they're generally held "for all time that these symmetries exist in the system".
Specifically on time: the invariant for systems that exhibit continuous time symmetries (i.e. you move a little bit forward or backward in time and the system looks exactly the same) is energy.
Could it be something like "failure is the mother of success"?
(失败乃成功之母)
I am no expert, I was curious myself and went down an internet-sleuthing rabbit-hole. Apparently this is a common phrase, but I am not fluent in Mandarin, so cum grano salis.
"You don't need a hamburger... you need McDonald's".