Being a physicist -- at least by education -- and a philosopher at heart, I have pondered this question for many years now, and I have an answer that I use in my own systemic narrative. My concept of time very much plays into my world view.
The author says, "To declare that question outside the pale of physical theory doesn’t make it meaningless," and he is correct. This question is outside of the pale of physical theory. Physics and the theories underlying it do not care about whys. Science exists to answer how, what, where, and when... not why. Why remains firmly in the realm of philosophy and theology. But like the author says, that does not reduce the necessity of an answer to this question, particularly when it plays intimately into framing our world view.
Time, in my mind, is a sequence of events, derived from the continuity, consistency, and cause and effect nature of reality. This idea plays closely with Julian Barbour's Heap concept, and is effectively a relational model of singular universal time. Things change and the very act of changing defines time. Change in the spatial dimension does not count, as in a change in the "properties over space as in a house's change from red on the roof to white on the sides." 1 The directionality of time is produced by entropy and the many one-way processes of the universe. Hot water grows cold. Houses degrade and eventually decay. Order degrades to chaos.
Side note: Entropy is why I believe Darwin's theory is absurd. This world never tends toward increasing order, no matter how long the time scales.The author goes on to discuss the narrative quality of time with two very helpful videos. Time, while not being defined by narrative, displays the narrative that is reality. Events occur and are only memorable, relatable, and understandable in time. The fact that reality tells a story implies that there is a story teller -- or perhaps many. There is definitely intelligence behind the narrative quality of time.
He also goes on to address the epistemological grounds of how we know and how we tie that knowing into meaning. He says that "most threads would follow isolated paths that are without sense or meaning," and while that may be true, it is not necessarily true. Being a systemic thinker, I believe that every action -- no matter how insignificant or remote -- has universal consequences and thus eternal meaning. Your choosing to patron McDonald's or Starbucks tomorrow morning may not seem like a significant choice, but this choice may predicate you meeting a future mate or business partner or someone whose interaction changes your life and theirs and perhaps many more for the better. Even if it does not result in a significant meeting, the event still has consequences which may be unseen, perhaps even forever, yet still play into weaving the grand tapestry of heaps that form reality. Each action that we do matters enormously.
He continues by noting the breach between science and our concept of reality, which is an area that most scientists fail at. He notes, "We tend to fence off science from other areas, imagining that a quantum wave function or a set of relativistic field equations express a fundamentally different aspect of time than the kind of time that is embodied in old family tales." But they are not. Reality is unity. It is contiguous, rational, and understandable because of the underlying intelligence in the design.
Another author, Francis Schaeffer, whose book "How Should We Then Live?" I am just finishing now, addresses this disconnect similarly. He addressed the gap by defining two elements that exist, the particulars -- that is you and I and the dog down the street and the lily pad in the bog in Thailand -- and the universals or absolutes. He points out the chief problem with humanism and humanist thought is this gap. As he says,
Beginning from man alone, Renaissance humanism --and humanism ever since-- has found no way to arrive at universals or absolutes which give meaning to existence and morals.All of humanist philosophy, from the Renaissance up until the 19th century, was devoted to attempting to bridge this gap, unsuccessfully because the only crossing that exists is the one thing that they are completely unwilling to even consider, a personal God. Eventually, philosophy devolved into simply ignoring reason and rationality, and from the end of the Enlightenment up until now has been a violent thrashing between rational observation of reality and the corresponding despair and nihilism or seeking meaning in the irrational arenas of spiritualism, drugs, music, and art. Everyone you meet will fall somewhere into this paradigm, and all of their actions and motivations are derived from their underlying world view and the corresponding beliefs and standards derived from it.
Either way though, the world is understandable, rational, and relatable, and I ascribe this intelligence of design to the God of the Bible, because what is stated in the Bible correlates mostly smoothly with what I see in reality. Because of this rationality, I can know and can expect that answers to all questions do exist and that seeking is a worthy endeavor. There are some inconsistencies between the Bible and reality, but none that I cannot attribute to my own incomplete understanding of this reality of which I am a part. Belief in the God of the Bible also has a broad host of other beneficial effects such as certainty of purpose, certainty of self and proper place, and an absolute moral standard by which to judge first myself and secondly everything else in this reality. This moral standard is the basis of order and harmony in society, and compliance with the moral standard is the only means by which utopia will ever be achieved. All of society, law, and justice revolve around this absolute moral standard, and thus it forms the foundation of just and civil society.
Ultimately, though, our perception of this absolute reality is subjective in many ways, and so deception is widespread and easily confused with truth, which is why it is key that each of us be keen of mind and able to sort out truth from fiction by comparing any narrative that we are presented with against what we know and what we believe to be true. In this way, I suppose I identify with Pascal who said, "If I believe in God and you do not; and you are correct, we both lose. However, if I believe in God and you do not; and I am correct, you still lose while I gain everything." Truth is absolute, but our perception of it is not. However, enough hints slip through that we can build a partially complete narrative that God had the kindness to mostly fill out in the Bible. Because of these facts, I can know, I have distinct meaning, and I can judge myself and others accordingly. It is beautiful to begin to see the world as the system that it is, and it certainly makes me regard God even more because of it.
