Yes, no different than if a tree falls in the forest and no one's around to hear it does it still make a sound.

How can time have a beginning? Time has always been and always will be, long before life began on earth or elsewhere in the universe, and also long after we're gone.

Time is a measurement. The word time is the description like foot or meter for a measured length.

The word time is used as if it is not just the measurement but to label the duration, event or occurence.

Seperate the implied conflation of the word time so to understand time is the measurement of duration but time is not the duration.

Duration occurs wheither something is present to measure the amount of duration in measurement called time.

If I define time and prove it exists then I can begin to wonder.

If there was no movement could time dilate?

If there was no space would time exist?

If ifs and ands were pots and pans would there be work for tinker's hands?

Time exists. But it requires a high degree of cerebral complexity to become aware of the concept, especially the "future". Man is not the only creature aware of time. Any animal that can lie in wait, or store food, demonstrates an awareness of the concept.

I tend to think that time is the only component of Tao, running through it like a river's current, and it creates a magnetic friction which electrons move in.

Yes, only humans were not measuring it back then, unless T.rexs had Sekondas

The human concept(s) wouldn't exist, but physics (stars/galaxies/etc.) would continue to continue to exist/change -- as it has irrespective of our 'knowledge'.

Yes. Time existed before the earth formed. It will exist long after its gone too.