I think a significant part of the problem does go to the direction of time.

As mobile, intentional organisms, we experience reality as a sequence of perceptions, then narrate our journeys and build civilizations out of the collected knowledge, so it is as natural to think of time as the point of the present, moving past to future, as it is that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

The reality is that change turns future to past. Tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns. Duration is this present, physical state, as the events come and go, rise and fall.

There is no physical dimension of time, because the past is consumed by the present, in order to inform it, aka, causality and conservation of energy.

Time is asymmetric, because what is measured, a specific, predictable action, is inertial. The earth only turns one direction. Entropy is not what is measured and is a second order effect of the flux of change.

Different clocks can run at different rates simply because they are separate actions. Think frequencies, or metabolism.

That much of human history has been about getting everyone following the same script, playing by the same rules, seeking the same goals, using the same measures, might create the assumption there is a universal time, but there is rabbit time, turtle time, tree time, etc. When everyone is playing the same game, for the same goals, it becomes a race and everyone is on rabbit time, but the turtle is still plodding along, long after the rabbit has died.

Dismissing the simultaneity of the present, because different events can be perceived 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 being conserved, not the information.

It is the changing configuration of this energy which creates the effect of time, so the present is not a dimensionless point between past and future, but the configuration of this “conserved” energy. It only seems dimensionless, as the speed of light is quite fast.

Which is necessarily conserved, because there is no physical past for it to recede into, or future from which it arrives.

Time then, is an effect, like temperature, pressure, color, etc. Think frequencies and amplitudes. Ideal gas laws can be used to correlate volume with temperature and pressure, but no one calls them the 5th and 6th dimensions of space, because they are only foundational to our emotions, bodily functions and environment, not the sequence of thought.

So what really creates and defines reality is not the linear progression of time, but the feedback loops working through every level of this physical state. It is a tapestry being woven of strands pulled from what had been woven.

The future is not determined, because the computations of interaction that do the determining only occur as the present. The total input into any event cannot be known prior to its occurrence, so neither can the outcome.

Then again the notion of free will is oxymoronic, as will free of cause would be equally free of effect and the entire premise of will is to affect. We are part of nature’s process of selection.

So when information goes from the near infinity of potential, to the very limited actual and onto the mere dust of residual, while the energy is simply shapeshifting, various of the issues of QM start to come into focus.

Such as the information of waves, frequencies and amplitudes, is lost, while the energy driving the wave adapts.

Consider that galaxies are energy radiating out, while form, as mass, coalesces in. So going opposite directions; Energy radiating toward the infinite, while mass coalesces toward the equilibrium of the absolute.

This equilibrium would seem to be implicit in GR, as the frame with the longest ruler and fastest clock would be closest to the equilibrium of the vacuum. The unmoving void of absolute zero. The flatline of the vacuum at the heart of fluctuation.

As biological organisms, we have the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems processing the energy driving us on, along with the central nervous system sorting through and further condensing out the forms and defintion useful to us.

As the process goes from prior states to succeeding ones, past to future, the patterns generated go future to past. Consciousness goes past to future, while thoughts and emotions go future to past. Life goes through the generations, as individuals are born and die. Even products go start to finish, while the production line goes the other way, consuming material and expelling product. Feedback loops of patterns defining and processes driving.

So those only focused on the information only see it as the dichotomy of order and chaos, as it cycles between simplicity and complexity. Yet the real dichotomy is between the energy and the forms it manifests. Frequency and amplitude don’t drive the wave, only define its limits.

Epicycles were brilliant math, but lousy physics. Not because all the details hadn’t been worked out, but because the underlaying assumptions were biased. The map is a static modeling of the dynamic territory.

This might seem over the top, but then consider the field is chasing after multiverses and multiworlds. Future generations of theorists are not going to build on foundations they cannot test. The future is often as much a reaction to the present, as a continuation of it. The turning points are only evident in hindsight.