" 
 :I appreciate the comment that time does not depend on us, but that does not make time an entity. We are simply unable to conceptualize the universe, even a universe without humans, without temporal concepts - but that does not demonstrate that time IS a force of the universe or something that objectively ""exists"". 
 :If we cannot resolve this without reifying time in the lede, then perhaps we will need to return to a lede that says there are two views on what time is   "