Time and Change

I had an interesting dialogue with a friend of mine a few days back. The topic was time and its relation to change.
My friend postulated that Time is Change and vice-versa. He argued that our perception of time is associated with the change of state of our universe.
Which means that we can only perceive the flow of time if and only if the universe changes its state. And by state of universe he of course means the representation of the position and momentum of all the particles in the universe which though uncertain has a notional value.

In effect, I was in agreement with his statement. But, then I started to question it. How can you determine this relationship?
I suggested the following experiment:

"Assume that everything in the universe is frozen around you. There is no change. Would you still feel the passage of time?"
"Yes, because though everything around you is frozen you arent. So, you would feel your body go through changes and that would give you the feel of time".
"But wait a minute, if everything around you is frozen, why would your body go through changes?
There is no change in atmospheric temperature, there is no wind, there is no change in humidity. You should feel nothing?"

"Yes, but what about your heart beats, your blood flowing through your veins, you breathing?"

"Ah! breathing....how would you be breathing if the universe is frozen outside? How would you suck in air without disturbing the air pressure outside and how would you exhale?"
"Hmmmm...!"
"Same thing goes for your heart beats. You know your chest expands and contracts with your heart beat. Wouldn't it displace air when it does that? Wouldn't that violate the assumption that the universe is frozen."
"Ya I see your point."
"The point is if the universe is frozen, then so are you. Your heart wont beat, your lungs wont breathe and your mind wont read. And wow! that rhymes!
Anyway, the thing is even your neurons wont fire in that state. So, while nothing is changing you are not in a state to perceive that it isnt. What does it tell us?"
"That this experiment is pointless."
"No, that the relationship cannot be determined."
"Cummon, just because this experiment doesnt work does not mean there are no other means."
"There could be, but I strongly doubt it. We can understand it this way

To determine the equivalence of time and change we have to prove that

whenever time flows there are changes
and
whenever there are changes time flows

This is basically showing that "time flows" => "there are changes" and vice versa.

Now, we are clear about the first one. But, the reverse is what is a little dicey.
Does
there are changes => time flows ?
Coming back to our experiment,
what happens when our universe changes but nothing changes in our near neighbourhood?
This means that though something in the universe changed, we could not perceive it because of the localized frozen state. Our neurons didn't fire!!
This is something similar to the old "Does the moon exist if no one is looking at it?" question.

Even though something changed, if we are not in a position to perceive that change then how can we say that time has flown.
The relationship,
there are changes => time flows is a big question mark.
And there are various positions on it ranging from quantum theory to philosophy to misticism to cognitive sciences.
So, my position is: I strongly doubt this relationship can be shown as equivalent."

My friend agreed and we decided to keep the time flowing for the time being.