I found
a link to where Penrose said some of these things.
Do those with some expertise agree with Penrose that time is an illusion that stems from consciousness?
I don't agree. Penrose has a history of non-traditional views on consciousness. Some of this is described in
wikipedia, and in
another wiki entry.
Roger Penrose : Yes I think physicists would agree that the feeling of time passing is simply an illusion, something that is not real. It has something to do with our perceptions.
There seems to be a tendency for physicists to jump into metaphysics. Perhaps that could even be considered an occupational hazard of doing physics.
In some respects, physics treats time much as it treats distance. We don't think about a flow of distance. Rather, we think of objects at different distances as being always in existence. So why not consider all of time to have existed forever? That's the kind of thinking that leads some physicists to question our understanding of time.
For example, the wave equation treats time and distance in very similar ways. However, the heat equation does treat time differently from distance, and fits well with the idea of a flow of time.
The mistake (of Penrose) in my opinion, is to lose track of the distinction between the reality and the science. The scientist constructs a mathematical framework, in order to study reality. The tendency (the occupational hazard) is to come to believe that the framework is reality, and to forget that it is merely a framework to be used for studying reality.
Here is the problem I see with Penrose's idea. If time, and the flow of time, is the kind of illusion that Penrose thinks it is, the those parts of science where the flow of time makes sense are also illusory. That would make biological evolution an illusion. It would make human consciousness an illusion. And then science itself, which is a product of human consciousness, must be taken to be an illusion. In my opinion, this "illusion" idea is self-impeaching.