Dear Wilhelmus,
I really loved your essay. In GR is also timeless, in that time is a dimension like the others. Given that what we have in GR are events, measured by a test particle, carrying a clock and a ruler, it really becomes an essential issue. This is a problem in that temporal paradoxes are created because the ordering of events, and so causality, become a confusing issue. Solution for this issues are avoided by imposing conditions which are not contained in the theory.
In QM, time is a parameter for coordinates or fields. This leads to complicated issues, unless you have a low dimensional system, like in 2 dimensions (say, string theory). But this goes awry quite quickly and there is no way to probe this kind of system in any conceivable known experiment.
So, you come up with an intriguing idea, an eternal now, that is, an eternal event. I think the eternal event, associated with the eternal now, is more fundamental than brains, plants, or whatever living beings, or particles, given that any particle (and thus any of those) has a discontinuous existence(the moment it interacts, it trades particles, so, if you check a Feynman diagram, it cannot be said to be the same). Then, you come up with the concept of SSS.
I would guess that this SSS is a sort of "condensate", a kind of 3d slice of the universe. While in GR there are no preferential slice due equivalence of observers, this SSS is living like "floating" on GR, perhaps with a universal time, which you call an emerging reality. This would be an extended object, where the eternal now is happening, emerging all the time. Perhaps a clue to this object is dark matter, since this emerging reality would interact with the gravitational field, making sure things stay in sync with a condensated surface with a unique universal time.
