Destroyer of ignorance and a transformer of reality. People often think he's a destoryer of all reality and experience itself. That's not the case. It's all the same God anyway. Shiva is just one (albeit major) face or aspect of the One.
His ultimate and truest self is non-local, meaning he's beyond the universe and its limitations. All phenomena are aspects of him. The universe is a natural by-product of "his" existence. I put that in quotations because God is neither male or female, yet is in harmony with both when our minds try to understand. That's one of many reasons why you'll see Shiva depicted as being merged with a woman. This seems to be the root philosophy for the idea of a holy matrimony, or two becoming one.
It's interesting because Jesus explains to people of his time that God in heaven is this way (One). Also, Jesus' story is similar to that of Lord Buddha's (born 500 years before the birth of Jesus) with "Mara" (the great deceiver [also known in Christianity as satan]) tempting Buddha, offering to make him king of the world when he went off into the wilderness in search of enlightenment. Buddhism came out of Hinduism, and Buddha shares a lot in common with Siva. There's SO much crossover in the religions and mythologies of the world. A lot of the ideas in Hinduism and Buddhism even have parallels in the world of classical and quantum physics.
Scientists in classical physics are working to find irrefutable proof for their model, which supports the big bang theory of the universe, and conversely singularities. This model utilizes concepts involving classical geodesics, which involve the crossing of trajectories, creating a singularity. Scientists in the quantum paradigm are working on models that would prove the universe as having no beginning or end, with the seemingly alternate view of bohemian trajectories, where there is no singularity point, eliminating the apparently irreconcilable problems in classical physics.
My poetic interpretation is that it's both. Our physical minds being the perceivers of time within the greater reality of a timeless infinity. This also explains why you can't have a result be “quantum” if it's directly measured. That's how the mind interacts with and makes sense of reality. Overcoming your fear of that impending personal singularity requires an ascetics discipline of rejecting the senses that the mind effervesces. This is one way you realize the truth of the infinite, of your consciousness as being much more than the body-self you're currently contained within.
Hinduism and Buddhism often allude to the idea that the gods depicted in their stories are metaphors for aspects of the mind and limited emanations of the One (in Hinduism Brahma, in Buddhism Buddha, in Judaism Elohim/YHWH/JHVH, in certain sects of Christianity Jesus). In Catholicism they have saints which people associate with because of personalities (an aggregate of mind characteristics) they relate to, and through this saints personal understanding, they grow closer to God. Jesus,Shiva, and Buddha were ascetics who subdued the desiring self, which led them to God realization. Jesus was crucified for talking about this realization because he was in the wrong place and wrong time to do so.