Steve,
I think you put your finger firmly on the pulse of what will sustain successful advancement; 'tools and innovation', and; 'the recursion of more knowledge and more tools to generate more innovation', to give us choices, because; "humanity's future is only possible with the growth of information and knowledge."
Importantly you also identified that poor understanding of nature keeps us from that knowledge with; .."Time and space and consciousness are all concepts that humans recognize as important, but humanity has not yet evolved into a common understanding about these concepts. Therefore it is very important for innovation that humanity evolve into a common understanding of time, space, and consciousness. Perhaps we will see a new future in the evolution of understanding of our physical reality." ..Top marks for that alone!
I hope that's the case but suspect not due to the way most physicists believe nature works. As you say; .."People tend to associate with other people that have similar beliefs". ..So we stay in the rut. The latest New Scientist questions paradigms so offers hope, but probably just another false dawn. Your quote sums it up the issue;
"Science needs to abandon the 4-space paradigm and adopt a different approach to matter and time." ..and also on; "...the rather large, gaping hole that we have in our understanding of the universe in the context of innovation. Yes, I do believe that our current science has a confusion of purpose and part of that confusion is related to the glaring black holes in our knowledge that metaphorically preclude the advance of knowledge."
My own essay rather uniquely focuses on achieving just that, showing there's a comprehensible classical way to reproduce 'the predictions of QM', solving the EPR paradox with no spookyness. That shows a doorway to unification of physics without '4-space' and only one absolute time. A lot more physics becomes coherent . As it's innovative thinking it won't be accepted by those with present doctrine embedded, but we can only try.
I hope you get to read the allegorical tale which describes it and see the (relative!) simplicity. Some seem to think it's off topic, but I think you'll see it's about the most pro-active bit of 'steering' possible!
Very well done for yours and best of luck in the results.
Peter