In both of your described scenarios time would still exist (because cause and effect would still exist), they are just different abstractions. When I say "time

In both of your described scenarios time would still exist (because cause and effect would still exist), they are just different abstractions. When I say "time doesn't exist outside our universe" I don't mean it's an illusion, or that it's something else that we think. I mean it literally. On some most basic level outside our universe there's nothing that could be construed as time, so there's no cause end effect.