I appreciate your criticism! I never read much of Penrose, and find a lot of what he says outside of mathematics to be questionable. I also think I have an incredibly loose idea of consciousness and remain fairly uncommitted. I actually have little interest in making great claims about consciousness, I just have to use it because the idea of the flow of time is made to be a "conscious" (experiential) illusion instead of ontologically, mind-independently real by this very interpretation of the maths of physics. This is hardly my idea though, and I have been paraphrasing people like Harvey Brown, Tegmark, and Barbour the whole time. And the idea of a static block universe dates back to early 1900's, and eternalism back to antiquity. If I have failed and come off pretentious, that's my fault and not theirs. I apologize for that.

Of course there is state change. Of course the sun will rise tomorrow. Of course a state machine will evolve deterministically based on some inputs.

Those are all described mathematically. But the mathematical laws of physics alone must then be interpreted in some way to describe reality. I mean look at the debate over which interpretation to apply to the same maths of QM for an example. Physics is not mathematics, it applies explanations.

And what these physicists above argue is that the math of the laws of physics does not necessitate an ontological, mind-independent flow of time to the universe. That we do experience a flow of time is not under question. We do. What is under question is that since the laws of physics (i.e. the math) works without an ontological flow of time (note: flow of time is a different idea than "time" or "arrow of time", neither of which I am arguing about here. We are only talking about the flow of time), why and how do we experience/perceive one?. Well, they say, through the sequentialism of memories and physical, sensorial data. Nothing woo. And if you are worried about physicists talking about experience - don't we experience a photon registering on a detector or a magnet deflecting electrons up vs down? Those come through empirical experiences. The flow of time would be an experience in a similar form as redness is. It has an empirical origin (e.g. photons on our cones) that leads to an experience.

So no one is denying the flow of time as experience. Just like you can't deny "redness" or "hotness". They are experienced by us, but some also think we can explain them in naturalistic, scientific ways. And that will require a neuroscience perspective on some level. I only bring in consciousness to the extent needed, as it is intimately connected to our perceived "flow of time".

We have to keep clear, "time", "flow of time", and "arrow of time". In earlier posts I did say Barbour thinks "time" is a redundant term; needless baggage on top of just caring about particles and relations to other particles. That in turn morphed into how we can recreate the experience we all have of time-flowing if there really are only particles and forces - no magic of the mind. To explain that, I had to talk about how the flow of time might not be ontologically real. And neuroscientists and physicists will then have to show how our experience is reducible to particles and forces (or fields). A tall task but a totally naturalistic, scientific one no? No woo. Put off defining consciousness and the mind and how they emerge from particles, but allow for it to be what ultimately is responsible for experience, within a "timeless" universe.

Is this not a justifiable position? If you disagree, I would be interested where you feel it goes wrong (if you feel like sharing). If you think we can do physics without referencing to experience I would also be interested.