How about this;
We are these mobile organisms, which necessitates this sequential process of perception, in order to navigate our environment, so our experience is that flow of events we refer to as time. The point of the present, moving past to future. Which physics codifies as measures of duration, to correlate with measures of distance.
Logically though, change turns future to past. Tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns. Duration is the present, as the events come and go.
There can be no literal dimension of time, because the past is consumed by the present, to inform and drive it. Causality and conservation of energy. Cause becomes effect.
As an effect of activity, time is similar to temperature, pressure, color, sound. Frequencies and amplitudes. Time is frequency, events are amplitude.
Ideal gas laws correlate volume with temperature and pressure, but we don't call them the 5th and 6th dimensions of space, because they are only foundational to our bodily functions and emotions, not the sequence of thought.
Energy is "conserved," because it is the present, not some dimensionless point between past and future.
Different clocks can run at different rates simply because they are separate actions. Think metabolism.
Much of the process of cultural development has been about getting everyone following the same rules, listening to the same stories, marching to the same tunes, using the same measurements, etc. So it seems like there should be one universal flow of time, but we simply occupy this state of the present. Rabbits and turtles have different clock rates. They harmonize, not synchronize.
Time is asymmetric, because it is a measure of action and action is inertial. The earth only turns one direction.
That different observers will see events in different order, from different locations, is no more consequential than seeing the moon as it was a moment ago, simultaneous with seeing stars as they were years ago. It is the energy that is conserved. That its form changes, is time.
So energy, as process, goes past to future, while the patterns generated go future to past.
Think of a wave. The energy is what drives it, while the fluctuations rise and fall. Effectively going opposite directions of time.
In a factory, the product goes start to finish, while the process of production consumes material and expels product.
As lives go birth to death, while life moves onto the next generation, shedding the old.
Consciousness goes past to future, while the perceptions, emotions and thoughts go future to past.
Though it is the digestive, respiratory and circulatory processing the energy, while the central nervous system sorts the information.
What would be the implications for Physics, if energy and any information that can be extracted from it are not synonymous?
Consider that of the various frames in Special Relativity, the one with the fastest clock and longest ruler would be closest to the equilibrium of the vacuum.
Is space really three dimensional, or is that simply a mapping device, like longitude, latitude and altitude?
If we remove all physical properties from space, then the two non-physical qualities it would have are equilibrium and infinity.
If we look at galaxies, it would seem that energy radiates out, toward infinity, while form coalesces in, toward equilibrium. Those black holes as the eye of the storm, positives and negatives cancelling.
About that excess gravity, currently ascribed to missing mass? What if this relationship between energy and form extends across the entire spectrum, from where energy/light first starts to wave, let alone quantize?
Then the bending of light isn't due to gravity, it is gravity. That inward curvature.
I know, one more crackpot.
Remember epicycles were brilliant math, as description, while the crystalline spheres were lousy physics, as explanation.
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