Hendrik Lorentz and Henry Poincaré introduced the absolute time of the ether and the relative time of matter. The ether is none physical because every physical quantity need a reference to make assignment of a value possible. It was found that the ether is harboring vibrations that form a lattice like vibration pattern. The vibrations are quantizing the ether known as quantized ether or just vacuum. So far, physics is not concerned with the absolute time but with the time generated by particles which are also just vibration states. Physicists regard a particle as a purely dynamical system of perpetual motion which can be composed of waves. That's why physicists cannot tell the difference between mass and energy. The vibration periods of the matter states change their references with velocity and the values are changing relative. This is why time periods do not appear to change within a system that changes velocity. When observed from any other system the reference time periods and the observed time periods are not relative anymore which causes discrepancies in time measurements.

It has to be more than a figment of the imagination, since there are sound reasons to think that time flowed in the early universe, and the early stages of our planet, long before there was any creature with what might be considered an imagination. Yet it remains a thorny philosophical question. The laws of physics work equally well if you run them backwards. Most people think thermodynamics holds the key, but it's still physics: why the directionality?

I find it interesting to look at time as a figment of our imagination. We look at the events in our lives coming and going, measuring every step with the click of the clock. But is it real? Can we tell in our mortal coil?