Dear John,
I just finished reading your essay, and I think we agree on some important conceptual issues, although perhaps we have different views on what conclusions should be drawn as a consequence. Let me venture a few questions and remarks.
1. In one of your comments on my thread, you say, "The difference between cause and effect and time is that sequence isn't cause and effect, but energy transfer is." Now, I agree that sequence alone isn't cause and effect (sequence by itself is a purely mathematical concept), and I also agree that what we call "energy transfer" is an example of cause and effect. However, in saying that this is "the difference between cause and effect and time," you seem to be identifying "time" with "sequence," which is not what I think you actually intend. For example, in the previous sentence, you say, "I found, when considering it at length, that it gives a very different, inherently dynamic, view of reality, than the block time, static modeling that arose from assuming time is sequence and treating it as a measure of interval." So I am still a little unclear on exactly how you relate time, sequence, and cause and effect.
2. On the basis of your whole essay, it seems that you think time is "a way of talking about what actually happens," which I agree with.
3. I would argue that even though sequence is a purely mathematical concept, while cause and effect is a physical concept, it is still useful to associate a sequence (i.e. direction) to cause and effect. At an everyday level, we always observe that "cause precedes effect;" i.e., we imagine something called "time" with respect to which cause and effect are always ordered in the same way. Now I believe, and I think you agree, that this idea of a separate time dimension in which causes and effects arrange themselves is imaginary. I think that time is really a way of talking about cause and effect. The arrow of time, then, is drawn from cause to effect.
4. Your analogy between time and temperature is interesting. We know that time is intimately related to temperature through the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Of course, time has a direction and temperature does not, but it produces directions in a number of ways: thermal energy flows from hot to cold bodies, and temperature is related to entropy, which is related to time by the second law.
5. I have a bit of trouble with defining things in terms of "energy." The reason why is because energy itself is a rather indirect concept: the way we know a system has energy is because it "does work" on other systems. I would argue that "energy" is just another way of talking about what actually happens, and I would rather use physical concepts with clearer and more direct definitions or descriptions as basic building blocks. Cause and effect is the best such building block I can think of.
6. Regarding the origin of the universe from a singularity, I personally would not take this concept too seriously. It is a result of carrying existing theories to extremes where their validity is very doubtful. Similar statements apply to the internal physics of black holes.
7. You make a good point that our perception of time may have more to do with how our brains work than how the universe works.
I enjoyed your essay! Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Take care,
Ben