Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story
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111 “infantile”: Dawkins, God Delusion, p. 80.
113 “A hundred real dollars”: Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason, tr. Norman Kemp Smith (Macmillan, 1929), A599/B627.
113 “lost island”: Gaunilo, “On Behalf of the Fool,” in Ontological Argument, p. 11.
115 “purely rationally”: Quoted in Hao Wang, A Logical Journey (MIT Press, 1996), p. 105.
115 “tough-minded intellectualism”: “Modernizing the Case for God,” Time, April 5, 1980, p. 66.
116 “It breaches no laws”: Alvin Plantinga, “God, Arguments for the Existence of,” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig (Routledge, 1988), vol. 4, p. 88.
118 “a sane and rational”: Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 220.
118 “The premise that”: J. L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism (Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 61.
118 “Every philosopher would”: Russell, History of Western Philosophy, p. 417.
7. The Magus of the Multiverse
120 “Deutsch seems more passionate”: Oliver Morton, “The Computable Cosmos of David Deutsch,” American Scholar, Summer 2000, p. 52.
121 “fairly straightforward”: David Deutsch, The Fabric of Reality (Penguin, 1997), p. 210.
122 “Arrogant in tone”: Jim Holt, review of David Deutsch’s The Fabric of Reality, Wall Street Journal, August 7, 1997.
124 “setting international standards”: Morton, “Computational Cosmos,” p. 51.
129 “I do not believe”: Deutsch, Fabric of Reality, p. 17.
129 “It is not enough”: Ibid., p. 139.
Interlude: The End of Explanation
133 “Self-subsumption is”: Nozick, Philosophical Explanations, p. 120.
133 “The ultimate principle”: Ibid., p. 134.
134 “a self-subsuming statement”: Ibid., p. 138.
134 “for surely never”: Swinburne, Existence of God, p. 79.
135 “If it is a very deep fact”: Nozick, Philosophical Explanations, p. 131.
135 “There isn’t”: Ibid., p. 130.
136 “they exist in independent”: Ibid., p. 129.
8. The Ultimate Free Lunch?
138 “The clear light of science”: Julian Huxley, Essays of a Humanist (Harper & Row, 1969), pp. 107–108.
140 “the most profound development”: John Gribbin, Q Is for Quantum (Free Press, 1998), p. 311.
141 “Maybe the universe”: Quoted in Alex Vilenkin, Many Worlds in One (Hill and Wang, 2006), p. 183.
142 “stopped in his tracks”: Quoted in John Gribbin, In the Beginning (Bullfinch, 1993), p. 249.
142 “In answer to the question”: Ed Tryon, “Is the Universe a Vacuum Fluctuation?” Nature, vol. 246 (1973), p. 396.
142 “A proposal that”: Alan Guth, The Inflationary Universe (Addison-Wesley, 1997), p. 273.
145 “A quantum theory”: Stephen Hawking, Black Holes and Baby Universes (Bantam Books, 1993), p. 61.
146 “with the discovery”: Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory, p. 240.
147 “With his crab-apple cheeks”: John Horgan, The End of Science (Addison-Wesley, 1996), p. 71.
147 “With or without religion”: Steven Weinberg, “A Designer Universe?” New York Review of Books, October 21, 1999.
9. Waiting for the Final Theory
160 “supposes that there”: Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory, p. 238.
160 “This may happen”: Steven Weinberg, “Can Science Explain Everything? Anything?” New York Review of Books, May 31, 2001, p. 50.
161 “The tunneling process”: Alex Vilenkin, Many Worlds in One (Hill & Wang, 2006), p. 204.
161 “What is it that breathes”: Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (Bantam, 1998), p. 190.
162 “The whole modern conception”: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness (Humanities, 1961), 6.371.
Interlude: A Word on Many Worlds
164 “a trillion trillion other universes”: Swinburne, Is There a God? p. 68.
164 “there is not a shred”: Martin Gardner, Are Universes Thicker Than Blackberries? (W. W. Norton, 2004), p. 9.
164 “invoking an infinity”: Paul Davies, “A Brief History of the Multiverse,”: op-ed, New York Times, April 12, 2003.
168 “Surely the conjecture”: Gardner, Are Universes Thicker, p. 9.
168 “there is no reason”: Davies, “A Brief History.”
169 “The many-worlds”: Leonard Susskind, The Cosmic Landscape (Little, Brown, 2005), p. 317.
170 “It is probable”: Quoted in Paul Davies, The Mind of God (Touchstone, 1992), p. 140.
10. Platonic Reflections
172 “there exists, independently”: Alain Connes and Jean-Pierre Changeux, Conversations on Mind, Matter, and Mathematics (Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 26.
172 “Mathematicians should have”: Quoted in Thomas Tymoczko, New Directions in the Philosophy of Mathematics (Princeton University Press, 1998), p. 26.
172 “We do have something”: Kurt Gödel, “What Is Cantor’s Continuum Problem?” in Philosophy of Mathematics, ed. Paul Benacerraf and Hilary Putnam (Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 484.
172 “unreasonable effectiveness”: Eugene Wigner, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences,” in Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics, vol. 13, no. 1 (February 1960), pp. 1–14.
172 “You can recognize”: Richard Feynman, The Character of a Physical Law (MIT Press, 1967), p. 171.
172 “book of nature”: Galileo, Saggiatore, Opere VI, quoted in The Penguin Book of Curious and Interesting Mathematics, ed. David Wells (Penguin Books, 1997), p. 151.
173 “God is a mathematician”: Quoted in John D. Barrow, Pi in the Sky (Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 292.
174 “I imagine that”: Roger Penrose, The Emperor’s New Mind (Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 428.
174 “His argument is”: Quoted in Matt Ridley, Francis Crick (Eminent Lives, 2006), p. 197.
180 “To me the world”: Roger Penrose, Shadows of the Mind (Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 417.
180 “eternally existing”: Ibid., p. 428.
180 “profound and timeless”: Penrose, Emperor’s New Mind, p. 95.
180 “ancient and honorable”: W. D. Hart, The Evolution of Logic (Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 277.
181 “ ‘Imaginary universes’ are”: G. H. Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology (Cambridge University Press, 1940), p. 135.
182 “the essence of mathematics”: Quoted in Loren Graham and Jean-Michel Kantor, Naming Infinity (Harvard University Press, 2009), p. 199.
182 “The elements of this multiverse”: Max Tegmark, “Parallel Universes,” Scientific American, May 2003, p. 50.
182 “have an eerily real feel”: Ibid., p. 49.
183 “It’s just a feeling”: Quoted in Davies, Mind of God, p. 145.
183 “Rightly viewed”: Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic (Doubleday, 1957), p. 57.
183 “largely nonsense”: Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, p. 255.
183 “To be is”: Willard Van Orman Quine, From a Logical Point of View (Harper Torchbooks, 1953), p. 15.
184 “We have the same”: Hart, Evolution of Logic, p. 279.
185 “Avaunt! You”: Bertrand Russell, Nightmares of Eminent Persons (Touchstone, 1955), p. 46.
Interlude: It from Bit
187 “What reason”: Quoted in Marc Lange, Introduction to the Philosophy of Physics (Blackwell, 2002), p. 168.
188 “Kick at the rock”: Richard Wilbur, “Epistemology,” in New and Collected Poems (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988), p. 288.
188 “in language”: Quoted in Jonathan Culler, Saussure (Fontana, 1985), p. 18.
189 “all mathematical structures”: Tegmark, “Parallel Universes,” p. 50.
189 “Our knowledge”: Arthur Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (Cambridge
University Press, 1928), p. 258.
190 “at the most basic ontological”: Frank Tipler, The Physics of Immortality (Anchor Books, 1997), p. 209.
191 “The subjective features”: Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere (Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 15.
191 “frankly, quite crazy”: John R. Searle, Mind (Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 217.
192 “Postulating special inner qualities”: Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained (Little, Brown, 1991), p. 450.
192 “The world just isn’t”: Nagel, View from Nowhere, p. 15.
193 “What has structure”: T. L. S. Sprigge, Theories of Existence (Penguin, 1984), p. 156.
193 “rather like the kind”: T. L. S. Sprigge, “Panpsychism,” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig (Routledge, 1988), vol. 7, p. 196.
193 “the stuff of the world”: Eddington, Nature of the Physical World, p. 276.
194 “Experience is information”: David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind (Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 305.
195 “How can many consciousnesses”: William James, Writings, 1902–1910 (Library of America, 1988), p. 723.
195 “Take a sentence”: William James, Principles of Psychology (Dover, 1950), vol. 1, p. 160.
196 “the unity of a single mind”: Penrose, Shadows of the Mind, p. 372.
196 “I think that something of this nature”: Roger Penrose, The Large, the Small, and the Human Mind (Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 175.
196 “absurd”: John R. Searle, The Mystery of Consciousness (New York Review of Books, 1997), p. 156.
11. “The Ethical Requiredness of There Being Something”
198 “the most interesting”: Larry Kaufman, www.hostagechess.com.
200 “However complex the object”: James, Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, p. 276.
205 “The notion”: Mackie, Miracle of Theism, p. 232.
213 “the noblest and most”: Russell, History of Western Philosophy, p. 569.
214 “Each act of cruelty”: Ibid., p. 580.
214 “overwhelming bleakness”: Interview with Father Robert E. Lauder, Commonweal, April 15, 2010.
Interlude: An Hegelian in Paris
218 “Pure Being makes”: Hegel, Logic of Hegel, p. 135.
218 “simple and indeterminate”: Ibid.
218 “This mere Being”: Ibid., p. 137.
218 “is just Nothing”: Ibid.
218 “No great expenditure”: Ibid., p. 140.
218 “an unsteady unrest”: Ibid.
219 “The worse your logic”: Russell, History of Western Philosophy, p. 746.
219 “an ontological proof of”: Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, trans. Mme. Karl Hillebrand (George Bell and Sons, 1897), p. 13.
219 “The Idea, as unity”: Hegel, Logic of Hegel, p. 323.
219 “very obscure”: Russell, History of Western Philosophy, p. 734.
219 “possess the world”: The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, ed. Robert Denoon Cumming (Modern Library, 1965), p. 331.
12. The Last Word from All Souls
222 “Why Anything? Why This?” Derek Parfit, London Review of Books, January 22, 1998, and February 5, 1998. All Parfit quotations in the chapter are from this essay unless otherwise noted.
223 “The truth is very different”: Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 281.
229 “What interests me”: quoted in Steve Pyke, Philosophers (Distributed Art Publishing, 1995), p. 43.
229 “a florid antique shop”: Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22 (Twelve, 2010), p. 103.
231 “In the Ultimate Multiverse”: Brian Greene, The Hidden Reality (Allen Lane, 2011), p. 296.
231 “Nothingness haunts Being”: Sartre, Being and Nothingness, p. 11.
13. The World as a Bit of Light Verse
244 “skate upon an intense radiance”: John Updike, “The Dogwood Tree,” in Assorted Prose (Fawcett, 1966), p. 146.
244 “Barth’s theology”: Updike, preface to Assorted Prose, p. viii.
244 “Satanic nothingness”: Updike, Picked-Up Pieces, p. 99.
246 “cosmic bootstrap”: Peter Atkins, The Creation (W. H. Freeman, 1981), p. 111.
246 “beset by an embarrassment”: Martin Amis, The War Against Cliché (Vintage, 2002), p. 384.
252 “blot on nothingness”: Updike, Bech, p. 131.
14. The Self: Do I Really Exist
253 “How often have I said”: Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four (Spencer Blackett, 1890), p. 93.
254 “Existence precedes essence”: Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialism Is a Humanism,” in Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, ed. Walter Kaufman (Meridian Books, 1956), p. 290.
254 “The purpose is to live”: Ivan Goncharov, Oblomov, trans. Marian Schwartz (Yale University Press, 2010), p. 254.
255 “the lucky ones”: Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow (Mariner, 2000), p. 1.
255 “There is a general belief”: Russell, History of Western Philosophy, p. 594.
256 “When I enter”: David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (Oxford University Press, 1888), p. 252.
257 “selves are not”: Dennett, Consciousness Explained, p. 423.
257 “There simply isn’t any ‘I’ ”: Galen Strawson, Selves: An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics (Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 246.
257 “I may understand”: Nagel, View from Nowhere, p. 42.
258 “I think there is a pain”: Charles Dickens, Hard Times (Oxford World’s Classics, 2008), p. 185.
258 “the most monstrous contradiction”: Quoted in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Ted Honderich (Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 817.
258 “The I is not an object”: Wittgenstein, Notebooks, 1914–1916, p. 80.
260 “only a conventional name”: Quoted in Parfit, Reasons and Persons, p. 52
260 “in the most deplorable condition”: Hume, Treatise on Human Nature, p. 269.
260 “liberating and consoling”: Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 280.
261 “with great hesitation”: Nozick, Philosophical Explanations, p. 87ff.
261 “All art, religion”: Roger Scruton, Modern Philosophy (Penguin, 1994), p. 484.
262 “The objective world”: Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, trans. Dorion Cairns (Martinus Nijhoff, 1970), p. 26.
263 “How can I”: Nagel, View from Nowhere, p. 61.
263 “What kind of a fact”: Ibid., p. 54.
263 “the world soul in”: Ibid., p. 61
263 “the additional thought”: Ibid., p. 60.
265 “Amazement that the universe”: Ibid., p. 56.
15. Return to Nothingness
266 “It is entirely impossible”: Quoted in Paul Edwards, “My Death,” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards (Macmillan, 1967), vol. 5, p. 416.
267 “Not the least”: Quoted in Simon Critchley, The Book of Dead Philosophers (Vintage, 2009), p. 176.
267 “If we are to make sense”: Thomas Nagel, Mortal Questions (Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 4.
267 “It is not that death”: Richard Wollheim, The Thread of Life (Yale University Press, 1999), p. 269.
268 “I must confess”: Miguel de Unamuno, Tragic Sense of Life, trans. Anthony Kerrigan (Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 49.
268 “ownmost death”: Mark Johnston, Surviving Death (Princeton University Press, 2010), p. 138.
269 “my existence seems”: Nagel, View from Nowhere, p. 228.
269 “That is all there is”: Parfit, Reasons and Persons, p. 280.
269 “Awakened to life”: Quoted in Scruton, Modern Philosophy, p. 378.
270 “We are not at home”: Ibid., p. 464.
Epilogue
277 book-chat show: The television program was Bouillon de Culture. The Dominican priest was Jacques Arnould, the physicist was Jean Heidmann (who died in 2000), and the Bud
dhist monk was Matthieu Ricard.
Index
Abraham, prophet, 65
absolute nothingness, 21–22, 46–47, 50, 52, 54–59, 69
Aga Khan, 88
agent causation, 211
alienation, 270
Allen, Woody, 214, 226, 244
All Worlds possibility, 238, 240–41
Amis, Martin, 10–11, 246
Analysis of Matter, The (Russell), 188, 193
Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Nozick), 28
Anaximander, 19
animism, 194
Anselm, Saint, 92, 104, 105, 110–16, 157
anthropic principle, 98, 156, 158, 166, 207, 243
anxiety, 43
Appearance and Reality (Bradley), 47
Aquinas, Saint Thomas, 20, 68, 82, 92, 97, 103, 105, 111, 248, 252
Aristotle, 9, 19, 51, 73, 81, 109, 133, 193, 217, 248
on explanatory chain, 131–32
final cause notion of, 211
reality doctrine of, 186
artificial intelligence (AI), 127, 179
Ascending and Descending (Escher), 174
atheism, 5, 7, 13, 26, 72
Athenaeum Club, 221–22, 227
Atkins, Peter, 39, 93, 246
atoms, 187–88
atonement, doctrine of, 102–3
Augustine, Saint, 68
axiarchism, 33, 198, 224, 234, 254
causation and, 211–12
cosmic possibilities and, 224, 226
ethical need for, 199–203, 205–6, 209–10
of Leslie, 198–200, 202, 205–6, 208–9
Mackie on, 205–6
multiverse and, 207–8
of Plato, 198–99, 203, 208
problem of evil and, 212–13
Axiom of Foundation, 238
Ayer, A. J. “Freddy,” 24
Bantus, 18–19
Barth, Karl, 42–43, 244–45
theology of, 244–47, 251–52
Barthes, Roland, 189
Bayes’s theorem, 93
BBC, 24, 26