Steve,
One way to look at it is that the present is relative to the events, such that either it is the present, "flowing' from past to future, is it the events "flowing," past to future.
Which leads to the point about energy being "conserved." Which means it is "moving" from past configurations, to future ones, but always present.
So the question is simply whether there is this state of energy and its dynamic change creates the effect of time, or is it that these seemingly ethereal events exist eternally along that time dimension and the flow is an illusion. The first would seem to fulfill Ockham's razor.
Consider if the universe began with the Big Bang, did all those events pre-exist the actual universe, or did the entire history spring into existence with the bang? I would argue it is the occurrence of events that necessarily calculates the input into them. Since information can't travel faster than the energy carrying it, predetermination is impossible.
I was using the earth as an example of inertia. As I argued, every action is its own clock and that's why they can run at different rates, or even irregular rates and still be in the same present. There is no universal flow of time, because it is an effect, like temperature. The only absolute temperature is absolute zero, as in nothing happening and time is the same. Only a complete absence of activity would be a universal time. As I argued, space is fundamental. The vacuum without fluctuation. Flatline. Once you have fluctuation, you have temperature and once you have a changing state of that energy, you have time.
As I see it, gravity and expansion are balanced, because they are opposite sides of a cycle. Energy expands, while order coalesces, so energy goes past to future, while order is the configurations going future to past. Galaxies are cycles of energy expanding out as mass/gravity coalesces in. I suspect dark matter is because mass is an effect of the coalescing, rather than gravity a property of mass, so mass is only part of the spectrum of coalescing. black holes are basically the eye of the storm. The mass falling is being completely radiated and jetted back out.
Which goes to the essential quantification of energy. We can only detect and measure anything in terms of the information we can extract from it, so we can only measure contraction. So light seems quantified, but that is only how we can measure it. Thus the process of contraction and ultimately gravity, begins with the photon, the quantification of light.
The reason intergalactic light is redshifted is because we are sampling a wave front, not particular quanta of light that traveled for billions of years. As the paper by Christov, showed multi spectrum "packets" of light do redshift due to distance alone.
Also no one has refuted the point I keep making that using "spacetime" to explain why we appear at the center, completely overlooks the light cannot be Constant to the frame of the universe, if it's redshifted. one counterpoint used is saying light is only measured locally. Obviously it is the exact same light as the spectrum is taken from. So if there are more lightyears, as the universe expands, thus getting redshifted, than it is not expanding space, as measured by light, but just increasing distance. More units of the ruler of C. Obviously we are at the center of our point of view, so an optical explanation would be worth looking into.
If you want an interesting debate over the issues, I had one with Cristinel Stoica, at his thread: https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2971
It begins Feb 19 and goes on for 22 posts. He was very considerate to put up with me, but my sense was that my arguments held up. I came up as anonymous in the first post.