Steve,
"we live in a world of objects that are the past"
Yes, but they are not in the past. Only those objects whose physical form has not been dissolved by prior events continue to exist in the present.
"Duration or the present moment is very well defined for each action. What is it? It is matter, a matter moment. All objects are after all integrations of matter over time, i.e., action. So if we know the matter moment and know that that object grew uniformly in time, that is what we call a clock and that is what we call time."
Very much so. As those actions occur, they then fade into the past and new actions occur. It is the physical being of the actions which come into being and fade, that we are measuring, as they coalesce out of integrations and dissolve in separations.
We all have our models to explain the world around us and they are not always the same model, because we all have different needs. For me, I live in a very spatial world and if I were to ignore it, I would get quite disoriented. To go back to my argument against conventional theory, it argues space is collapsed by gravity and intergalactic space is expanding and these balance out in an overall flat space. Which is perfectly alright by me. But then they go and insist the universe as a whole is expanding, because the space between galaxies is growing and eventually the distant galaxies will no longer be visible because their light can no longer reach us. The problem I have with this is that it completely overlooks the relative nature of space put forth in the first part and assumes some form of absolute space in which those other galaxies move away in absolute terms, rather than one in which the growth of intergalactic space is balanced by the contraction of galactic space. Consider that the light of the more distant galaxies that we see, is only that which managed to travel between intervening galaxies and thus mostly through the expanded areas.
Put this in terms of the rubber sheet and a ball description of gravity and place the sheet over water, so that in the areas where the ball is not pushing it down, the water pushes it back up and the overall effect is balanced. So this push back up amounts to Einstein's cosmological constant, balancing the effect of gravity. The light from those distant sources has to travel this 'high ground,' otherwise it falls into the gravity wells. So the light we see is only that light which has been expanded, not the sum total, that has been balanced out.To use a rough analogy, this light has had to walk down the up escalator. The floors are not moving apart, even if it seems so to the light. When light is bent around gravity wells, we say the space is curved, but we don't argue that it actually moves and distorts the source of the light, only the path it has taken. The same applies here. It's not moving the source, only expanding the path its taken. All this is reflective of the fact that what we measure is mass and energy and while mass contracts, energy expands and so the same applies to the space being measured by using them as reference.
So in your world, space may not be as important as time and it can be disregarded, but in my map of reality, space remains foundational and I put time in there with temperature, as an effect of action.
Regards,
John M