RCMR,
I read your speculation. I am taking the liberty of sharing my thoughts here. Please don't regard this as a critique. I am not learned enough to be a "critic". Just my thoughts on what your wrote. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
"So could it be that things behave very differently at quantum level because now we have particles so small that they are directly subjected to the individual, highly variable time domains that make up the stream we see as "time"?
Might objects in the quantum world appear to disappear and reappear (as if by magic) simply because they are shifting between time domains? These subatomic particles not only move in space but also in time -- at a rate that is not at the same as our integrated real-time. "
This sounds to me that you're saying time in the macroscopic world is a superposition of all the quantum subdomains of time as experienced by subatomic particles. AH! There lies the rub. We cannot measure anything experienced by subatomic particles. So the best we can do is apply Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. This casts their behavior in a shrouding fog of mystery. That's why it's called the uncertainty principle.
Heisenberg has cast the realm of subatomic particles into enough mystery already. For example, we can't tell if an electron in an atom is moving at 99.99% of lightspeed relative to the nucleus, or 90% of lightspeed, or 50% of lightspeed at any momentand simultaneously know which quadrant it occupies. So long as it remains impossible, in theory as well as in practice, to measure any aspect of what a subatomic particle experiences, we won't be able to peer into the cloud of mystery.
Yes, Heisenberg's principle seems to cast the behavior of subatomic particles into the realm of Harry Potter and his mentors and buddies in witchcraft. But it is even weirder than that. Heisenberg's principle has effectively lowered a black curtain between the two worlds.
We humans are the most consummate pattern recognizers we know of. I gather what you're thinking is patterns of space and time of macroscopic particles is a superposition of innumerable quantum subdomains. Well, I don't think so. Reality is even weirder than that, I'm afraid. We can make conceptual theories about quantum effects For example, Einstein's photoelectric effect, just over a hundred years old now. Such theories are few and far between. Maybe you will make one.
"This might also explain things such as quantum entanglement -- perhaps it's not a matter entanglement but simply a case of the very same particle being in two places at the same time -- at least from the perspective of those sitting on the raft. "
That is one interpretation. It seems strange because we cannot perceive anything that happens in the quantum world. Yes, I view it as a case of the same particle being in two places at the same time. At least from my perspective. Now, can you describe the world from the subatomic particle's perspective? Maybe then you could support your theory. Forgive me. I am poking fun at you because, of course, I realize it is not possible to do so even in theory because of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.
"So long as we think of time as an immutable, smooth, constant, the rift between the quantum and macro worlds becomes hard to resolve. If we instead, consider time to be a seething mass of microdomains oscillating at random but *all* drifting in the same general direction -- then perhaps a different insight may be possible.
Of course this theory also raises some interesting prospects -- "
This would only be a theory if you expand it mathematically to the point of detail where an independent worker could use it to predict the outcome of an experiment.
Your macroscopic river of time analogy is interesting. Maybe that's it. Maybe we just can't see the river until we get out of it. Maybe we will only understand the relationship of time to the macroscopic world when we die. But that presupposes that nature recycles consciousness just as it does matter and energy, doesn't it?