Dear Edwin (if I may),
Thank you for your comments which I found not only interesting, but extremely helpful to the development of my thoughts on the subject and its ramifications.
I read your essay "Deciding on the nature of time and space", which I enjoyed, and which added perspectives to my own theories, and to which I will refer as well in my reply below.
I find much in your comments with which I agree. One example is your comment about physicists projecting mathematical structures onto the world. Mathematics works nicely within its own mathematical context/bubble.
We both write about "the nature of change", but we do so from different perspectives. I don't believe that physics gives us the "real nature" any more than philosophy does (while together a rounder picture may be presented). To further complicate things, I don't believe that there is a "real nature", i.e. THE real nature of the universe or of how things work or how they really are "objectively out there", per se untestable.
This viewpoint has everything to do with relativity and approximation, which I introduced in my book "Time To Tell: a look at how we tick" and which is featured in a number of essays and that I am developing further.
It should be obvious that in a world of the moving 'now', I don't have any truck with "persistence". Persistence "in people, ships, nations, etc which retain identity over time while the pieces constituting the entities undergo constant change" is, of course the Theseus paradox.
A point I do want to make regarding so-called "moving clocks". The interpretation of Einstein's special law of relativity that "clocks in motion run slower than clocks at rest." is incorrect. Clocks do not move slower or faster for an individual, whose clock continues at its rate however fast he is travelling. Clocks move relative to other clocks according to an observer. I am in agreement with your position against Susskind's regarding simultaneity. There is a danger in removing the observer from physics, which leads to puzzles in physics that are unnecessary, such as Mermin's rocket ships whose various clocks have been "deliberately set out of synchronization". Whatever time is shown on each clock, that clock will continue in its merry way, whether synchronized or not.
Regarding the two models, "an empirical model based on measurements in absolute space and time and a conceptual model based on axioms that assume the existence of multiple time dimensions", it would seem that my model is the latter. I'm not sure, though, since each of my time dimensions is itself in constant change; there is no time dimension per se, since each is relative even to itself. So your comment that we cannot capture the experience of time, I agree with. My point is that we can "capture" it only afterwards, when it is seen in retrospect, and even then as a changing retrospection.
I realize that squeezing in an adequate response to your comments is more than difficult. I am, though, very interested in your points, especially in pages 8 and 9, since in my work in progress I am looking at numbers and approximation.
Thank you again for your interesting comments,
Ronald