John,
I briefly read the essays you've provided in the links, and found them very interesting. I will need to go back and analyze them in proper detail when I have a bit more bandwidth. But, I will say that in my own estimation, I find 'time' an abstract contrivance of information (that is, a measurement) that is simply based upon an observed state in accordance with an equally abstract definition.
To clarify, we've defined time as the passing of motion according to some arbitrary reference; thus, it should be of no surprise, and perhaps expected, that motion of that reference itself may create a different time measurement. Of course, experiments suggest this is true (i.e.., SR). But, to attribute more character to time than this measurement by which it is defined is to abstractly extend its meaning into areas of which are not defined and which there is no evidence and perhaps no meaning at all.
Without getting into extensive detail in this post, based on the above there is no reason to think, given current evidence, that a future or past exists as a physical reality other than our own fiction in creating it from imagination. If we can show via experiment that a time measurement somehow confers an existence of its own future and past (that is, not speculate or imagine such, for instance as sometimes done with certain double-slit explanations) then we would have evidence, but that's simply not the case - all time measurements provide us instantaneous information from which we then abstractly draw conclusions.
I think you touched on this somewhat with the spatial representation argument. Clearly, distance measurements are merely mathematical representations; we could choose alternative systems which would provide a different method of representing the same system - the current representation is one way of quantifying aspects of the world so that we can analyze it in a method we understand. I have found that even otherwise insightful physicists can sometimes get confused between abstract or mathematical representations of nature and nature itself.
Regarding your other paper, it's also interesting but quite beyond the scope of what I can discuss in any reasonable forum post. Part of the danger here is falling into the mental trap that disparate information inherently becomes disadvantageously integrated thus resulting in only information loss when in fact such is not a necessary condition (I'm not certain you are implying this at all, but it seems you may be of that persuasion given the essence of the essay). Another issue is not recognizing/including certain critical sociocultural-economic feedback loops. One large part of this involves human conditions in what one individually finds to be most advantageous and desirable; the subsystem you proposed cannot accomplish (or otherwise allow) global maximization of this parameter (and other parameters), but there are other systems which seemingly can.
Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury to engage in more detail at the moment, but perhaps we can discus it sometime. Also, I sincerely hope I have not misrepresented or misinterpreted your position here. Certainly, I'll need to go through your papers more thoroughly at some point to have a more complete conversation about them.
Chris