I have been pondering the nature of Time - mostly because I regard the ways that it is talked about (perhaps especially by religious writers) as wrong.
I've been thinking about Time, on and off, for the past twenty years; but I have become aware that the root of the problem lies in trying to separate Time as a separate concept.
Once Time has been detached from life and consciousness, then it become an unreal and misleading abstract model.
Like all abstractions and models, Time is necessarily a partial and distorted description of reality - yet Time is often used as a fundamental metaphysical assumption in theology and philosophy - from-which is built systems of understanding.
And when that happens (and it has been happening since the ancient Greeks) Time starts to seem very strange and counter-intuitive we get the familiar paradoxes and weird-nesses of Time... from Zeno's paradoxes, or Boethius's meditations on God's omniscience, onward.
My conclusion is that Time is not a separate or separable concept from its integration into Beings - into life and consciousness. Life and consciousness are 'process-like, dynamic phenomena - and therefore they necessarily include Time.
Other elements in-which Time is included are creation and developmental evolution. Since I regard Being, life, consciousness, creation and development to be fundamental metaphysical concepts that explain reality; it can be seen that Time is itself so fundamental as to be inextricable - a part of the unfolding nature of reality.
One aspect of Time - considered is its 'irreversibility' or 'directionality' - this again is part of the fundamental concepts; and (apparently, at a common sense level) of the Christian religion, and the fact of Jesus Christ having been born at a particular historical location and having made a permanent and cosmic difference to reality.
Therefore, if we start messing about with Time (and then believing our messings-about!), it leads to all kinds of deep (and ineradicable) problems - including with Christianity. So beware!
In a nutshell; I think our understanding of Time ought to reflect how it is a part of these deep and spontaneous way of understanding - the understanding ought to 'work' in terms of what is common, normal, usual, solidly established.
But how to explain some of the uncommon, unusual and controversial assertions that seem to be related to time - such as precognition, or accurate prediction. These are often said to reveal that the future already exists in some way.
Yet such explanations are ruled-out if we regard Time is inextricably bound-up in the most basic metaphysical phenomena (life, consciousness, creation etc.).
This means that we simply cannot be allowed to detach, abstract and model Time as a putative explanation for observations.
Instead, I think we should focus on experiencing and knowing rather than time as possible explanations for phenomena such as precognition, or the apparent ability to live in the past. Better explanations can be devised when we have an expanded conceptualization of how it is we can know things, and in particular the possibility of directly sharing in the consciousness of other beings.
If the world is regarded as consisting of beings, which are eternal; and that there are ways in which beings can think the same thoughts then we have a way in which strange and unusual knowledge and experiences could in principle arise.
For example, beings include those who are remote, and those who have died - and therefore with a tremendously wide range of knowledge and experiences (from current and past times, and in many places) that might potentially be shared by another-individual's consciousness.
In other words; I think we should take a straightforward and commonsense view of Time - and eschew separating it and preforming abstract modelling of Time's supposed properties; and 'instead; adopt a greatly expanded understanding of the possibilities of human experience and knowing of a direct, unmediated, kind.
