Our Mathematical Universe

It was recently brought to my attention that Russell Howell, Professor of Mathematics at the Christian academy of Westmont College in Santa Barbara (California) has taken notice of my article "Fundamental Flaws in Mark Steiner's Challenge to Naturalism in The Applicability of Mathematics as a Philosophical Problem" (2003). He only quotes (in fact somewhat misquotes) a single isolated comment from my article and ignores almost everything else it says, even though the ignored material contradicts his argument in ways he curiously neglects to mention. His paper, "Does Mathematical Beauty Pose Problems for Naturalism?" was published in the 2006 issue of the online Journal of the Association of Christians in the Mathematical Sciences (yes, Christians have an association for everything).

I won't bother discussing the rest of his essay, since my article against Steiner already rebuts the same thesis Howell defends, and more than adequately in my opinion. I am only interested here in Howell's lame mischaracterization of my arguments, insofar as he quotes me at all. Since I'm not the actual target of Howell's article, I'm only mentioned on page 9. He brings me up only when discussing Maxwell's use of a particular heuristic to discover electromagnetic radiation: by combining the assumption of a "conservation of charge" with mathematical descriptions of electrical systems that were already empirically established, he calculated (in effect) that energy should be leaking away from electrical systems (he was right: it was being converted into radio waves).

The Ontology of Time

Ontology is the study of being. Ontologists ask questions like "What does it mean to say something exists?" The ontology of time is therefore the study of what it means to say that time exists or that something exists in time. In other words, what is time? I discuss the ontology of time in some detail in Sense and Goodness without God (pp. 88-96).

In response to what I wrote there, Dave Matson asked:

Why should time be defined in terms of relativity physics where, presumably, it means a fixed future? I would think that time, as defined in quantum mechanics, would be equally preferable. As defined in this latter sense, time is presumably compatible with an undetermined future.

If we accept time as defined in relativity, then it seems that physicists would have to accept that there are "wheels within wheels" within quantum mechanics, which most physicists deny. That denial suggests that time as seen in quantum mechanics is defined differently than in relativity physics. One view seems compatible with a fixed future whereas the other does not obviously fit into that mold, if at all.

So arguing for a fixed future on the basis of relativity theory is tantamount to assuming that its definition of time should be preferred. Therein, I see a problem.

In answering this question I will use RT for Relativity Theory and QM for Quantum Mechanics. And I will not repeat what I said in my book. So if you haven't read it, though you don't have to in order to understand what follows, you probably should read it before commenting on any of this.