Time IS the evolution of state. The fact that things evolve is what allows us to define time.

In a universe without states that evolve, you cannot create a clock.

>The more I learn about theoretical physics & physicists the more I'm convinced these people are basically idiot savants.

This is an incredibly bad faith thing to say, when you admit you know nothing about the relevant field.

Physics is hard math, and has been that way for a century. Simpler mechanisms of information description are no longer accurate and unambiguous enough to clearly define what we have the data to demonstrate.

But the public gets really really mad when you tell them "Sorry, you need 8 years of math education to ride this ride" because the public is mostly convinced that math is "useless". So people with adequate training in writing to a lay audience and zero physics training keep asking physicist questions, and the answer is in math nobody will understand, so they have to approximate what math they are trying to convey or describe with some shitty analogy or words that don't actually mean the same thing. The lay public then makes all it's inferences based on broken analogies and comes to outright wrong conclusions.

This is why the lay public is still convinced quantum is magic, or allows faster than light information transmission, or magically speeds up computation, even though the math has always been clear about how that's not what is meant.

Stop thinking that vague words a physicist says are actually meaningful. They are struggling to convey difficult but crystal clear math to an audience that can barely read at a 6th grade level.

There are even "physicists" who have taken frank advantage of this system to make money by lying to the public full stop. People like Michio Kaku. Some of them are nice enough to openly label themselves "futurists", but not all.