Our problem with time is that as mobile organisms, this sentient interface our body has with its situation functions as a sequence of perceptions, in order to navigate, so our sense of time is as the present going past to future.

As such, it is the basis of culture and civilization, as narrative and history, thus of academia, that collected knowledge of the ages.

The reality is that activity and the resulting change turns future to past. Tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns.

There is no dimension of time, because the past is consumed by the present, to inform and drive it. Causality and conservation of energy. Cause becomes effect.

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

Energy is conserved, because it manifests this presence, creating time, temperature, pressure, color, sound, as frequencies and amplitudes, rates and degrees.

Ideal gas laws correlate volume with temperature and pressure, but we don't confuse them with space, even though they are as foundational to our bodily functions and emotions, a sequence is to thought.

As presence, the energy goes past to future, because the patterns being generated come and go, future to past. Energy drives the wave, the fluctuations rise and fall. No tiny strings necessary.

Consciousness also goes past to future, while the perceptions, emotions and thoughts giving it form and structure go future to past. Suggesting consciousness functions as an energy.

Science tends to have a similar problem with energy, as with consciousness, in what it is only defined in terms of the forms manifested.

The digestive system processes the energy, feeding the flame, the nervous system sorts the information, signals from the noise, while the circulation system is feedback in the middle.

Suggesting the mind is more referee of the various psychological and emotional expressions of consciousness, than its source. The point of determination, at which our psyche becomes one.

Motor and steering.

This view also precludes predetermination, as the act of determination can only occur as the present.

The presumption of pre-determination doesn't only require that hard block time version, but can be based on the presumption of a universal model, in which all the various forces will eventually organize as only one possible flow of events.

The problem with this is that there is no universal frame, map, model. They are abstractions from the underlaying reality, not the basis for it, as is often presumed by the more mathematically inclined.

The map can't include all the information from the territory, or the signal is lost back in the noise. Whiteout. So the models break down over infinities and disappear at zero. Everything in between is relational.

Epicycles were brilliant math, as a model of our view of the cosmos, but the conclusions drawn were flawed, because the premises were incomplete.

Modern physics makes the same mistake in many different ways, as all too often the models can never be falsified, only patched.

Consider that if intergalactic space were to expand, the speed of the light crossing it should increase proportionally, in order to remain Constant!

Instead two metrics are being derived from the speed and spectrum of the same light. Given it is an expanding space and not tired light theory, the speed is the denominator.

One way light does redshift over distance, is as multi spectrum packets, as the higher frequencies dissipate faster. Yet that would mean we are sampling a wave front and the quantification of light is an artifact of its absorption and detection. A loading, or threshold theory. Which would definitely not be popular with the status quo.

The basic psychology is the signals our minds pick out from the noise are what resonates and synchronizes with our prior knowledge, beliefs, models. Then we bond to those on similar wave lengths. Creating this self re-enforcing, centripetal feedback loop, where the original beliefs, maps, models can only be patched, by those wanting to get ahead, never falsified.

This is in the sciences. Look what these feedback loops do to the larger society and politics, as all the various factions spiral into their echo chambers. The microphone is up to the speaker and the shriek has gone parabolic.

Given I would imagine you are naturally invested in the current academic structure, I realize these ideas will likely not be appealing, but in the future, as the world keeps falling apart, you might start to look at what is driving people.

If you do respond, I'm going away for a few days.

Galaxies are energy radiating out, as structure coalesces in.

Harmonization versus synchronization.