Thanks Edwin,
I've said that neither a mechanism, nor anything with moving parts, can explain time, or generate time, because those things need time to exist already. There are quite a few examples of attempts to explain time with concepts like those.
Then there are attempts to explain the direction of time, by saying it emerges from thermodynamics. One of several problems with this is that emergence itself is a process, so it's another of those concepts that needs time if it's to function. And it's hard to make something that moves and changes emerge out of something that doesn't.
Another problem with this is a point near the top of page 2 of my essay, which I'd say entirely removes emergent time, and shows it not to work. A third problem with emergent time is the 2015 experiment, which found entropy at the quantum scale, and time working just as it does in the large-scale world, showing the reversibility we imagined at that scale was false.
Illusion time is also removed - emergent time is a wider set of possibilities, which includes illusion time, as illusion time would be an emergent effect.
So this is part of a process of elimination I've done, where I think we can get clues about what time really IS like, by eliminating various pictures that it ISN'T like. That's what my book's about, and the essay is a potted version, with some of that process. And yes, I ruled out all avenues except one, which though also blocked, had a blockage that could be removed, with a change to the underlying assumptions. Then, exploring that particular avenue, and the solution it offers, you get the change to the assumptions that it leads to, and selects out of many possibilities.
Yes, good discussing these things with you, best regards,
Jonathan