Actually Julian Barbour won the very first (Templeton funded) FQXI contest, The Nature of Time. Beating out such luminaries as Sean Carroll and Carlo Rovelli;

h ttps://fqxi.org/community/essay/winners/2008.1

Hand out enough money.....

I don't agree with Barbour's thesis, as I see form/shapes as emergent from processes and that it is our brain that is taking snapshots of a fluid universe. Time is emergent, like temperature, pressure, color, sound.

As for space, I see it as fundamental. Three dimensions are really just the xyz coordinate system and are no more fundamental than longitude, latitude and altitude are fundamental to the biosphere of this planet. A mapping device, essentially.

If one were to remove all physical properties from space, it would still have the non-physical qualities of infinity and equilibrium. Infinity because there would be nothing to bound it and equilibrium is implicit in Relativity, as the frame with the longest ruler and fastest clock would be closest to the equilibrium of the vacuum. Logically it is when frames move relative to this absolute state, that their clocks slow and rulers shrink, so that measurements of the speed of light remain constant.

Given in a frame moving at the speed of light, the clock has stopped and the ruler is zero, ask yourself, what is at the other end of this process, what is the state where the clocks do run their fastest and rulers are their longest?

According to current theory and observations, space appears to be overall flat, meaning that the rate of expansion and the force of gravity cancel out. Which is explained by Inflation having blown the universe up so large that it only appears flat, such as the surface of this planet appears flat from our limited point of view.

Yet what if it really is flat? That the expansion simply cancels out the presumed spatial collapse, inward curvature of gravity?

Remember that Einstein proposed the Cosmological Constant to balance gravity and sustain an overall stable/flat universe. What if what Hubble actually found was evidence of this Cosmological Constant? That the space/the universe expands between galaxies in inverse proportion to the degree it curves into them?

In the late 90's the NYTimes had a section of their discussion board called Mysteries of the Universe, where I'd hang out. I pointed this out to another person and he pointed out that it didn't really require space being contorted, as what is measured with gravitational collapse is mass and gravity, while what is being measured with expansion is radiation and these would effectively balance out, to create this mathematical flatness. He added that he'd studied cosmology at the University of Chicago and proposed this as his thesis paper to his adviser and his adviser advised him that if he wanted to pursue it, he'd probably better find another career. Which he did.

So say this is a possible explanation. What you have is a cosmic convection cycle, of expanding energy/radiation and collapsing mass/form.

One possible prediction this might make is that rather than gravity as a property of mass, mass is the lower, denser end of this spectrum of wave collapse, creating form, structure, mass. Starting all the way out there where photons condense out of light waves.

So all that extra gravity, for which they can't find the missing mass, would be the collapse/contraction/condensation much further out the spectrum, towards the lighter end. Those pesky photons as measureable units of energy.

As for Dark Energy; while it is currently being described as something making the expansion speed up, that is very garbled, as the universe presumably started off expanding at the speed of light.

The original prediction was that the rate of expansion would slow at a steady rate, from the initial Bang. Yet what they found is that the rate drops off rapidly, then flattens out. To use a ballistics analogy, it would be as if the universe were shot out of a cannon, then after slowing a bit, a jet motor kicks in, to sustain this steadier rate. The jet being the Dark Energy.

Now consider what is actually being observed, from earth, rather than modeled from the furtherest observable light;

This redshift starts off slowly, gradually building, then eventually goes parabolic. Which is what we would expect to see, if it is an optical effect, compounding on itself.

So the cosmic background radiation would be the light of ever further sources, shifted off the visible spectrum. The solution to Olber's paradox.

It will be interesting to see what the James Webb space telescope sees, if it ever gets up and working.

I try not to get too deep into this with those unwilling to think it through, but you seem more just skeptical, than outright resistant.

Personally I try staying away from the topic altogether. The Big Bang is too deep in the culture.

Here is what interests me more;

https://medium.com/predict/peeling-the-paradigm-1ceab7e774b0