{"id":78,"date":"2012-09-07T20:53:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-07T19:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2012\/09\/why-is-there-something-rather-than-nothing.html"},"modified":"2014-11-12T03:20:15","modified_gmt":"2014-11-12T02:20:15","slug":"why-is-there-something-rather-than","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2012\/09\/why-is-there-something-rather-than.html","title":{"rendered":"Why is there something rather than nothing?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
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One of the perks of writing a blog is that sometimes publishers offer to send you\u00a0 copies of new books. Sadly, they are mostly not the books that I actually want to read.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s one that was really enjoyable, but was also (tangentially) relevant to this blog. So here\u2019s a brief review \u2013 consider it an advertorial \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

The book Why does the World Exist?<\/i> is framed as an \u2018existential detective story\u2019. Basically what this means is that the writer, Jim Holt, has shuttled around the world chatting to a bunch of intellectuals (mostly philosophers, but the occasional scientist and even one or two theologians) who give their spin on the question.<\/p>\n

Now, the idea that Holt set out on a pilgrimage of enlightenment in the way depicted in the book is clearly a bit of narrative fiction. It\u2019s obvious from the way he writes that the guy knows his stuff, and I\u2019m sure he knew pretty much what he was going to hear each of them say before he met them. But it\u2019s a fiction that works well, and makes the book very readable despite what are often pretty tough topics.<\/p>\n

The questions he starts off with were not what I was expecting at all \u2013 what is nothing, and is it actually possible for nothing to exist? What does it mean to say that A causes B, and does A have to precede B in order to cause B?<\/p>\n

That last point turns out to be pretty critical to the whole story.You see, Holt\u2019s not interested in what caused the universe to exist \u2013 well, he is but, as the Oxford Quantum Theorist David Deutsch points, the problem with conventional explanations is that even if you find an explanation, it needs to have some context. There\u2019s always the problem of why this explanation and not some other explanation.<\/p>\n

That, of course, is the problem with using the existence of the universe to argue for the existence of God. What explains the existence of God and, as importantly, why this God and not some other God?<\/p>\n

The theological explanations (from Richard Swinburne and John Leslie) were not terribly convincing. But what I liked about this book is that Holt treats all the arguments put forward with a great deal of sympathy. He carefully explains why it is that they might be right \u2013 sometimes to the point where I was on the verge of putting the book down in exasperation \u2013 before methodically pulling the arguments to pieces!<\/p>\n

If you are into this sort of stuff, then many of the themes (Anslem\u2019s and Goedel\u2019s arguments, the many worlds hypothesis, platonic forms etc) will be familiar to you. But even when I knew the philosopher and the argument, I found myself enjoying the ride because Holt really has a gift for writing about these topics. There are some tough concepts to digest, but Holt paces it well and keeps it interesting.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m sure I won\u2019t be spoiling the story if I reveal to you that, sadly, Holt does not reveal the mystery of existence at the end of the book. <\/p>\n

However, he does get rather closer than I was expecting. At least now I have some idea what kind of explanation could possibly suffice. And that\u2019s got to be a step forward!<\/p>\n

\n

\"Creative<\/a><\/span> This article by Tom Rees<\/b> was first published on Epiphenom<\/a>. It is licensed under Creative Commons<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the perks of writing a blog is that sometimes publishers offer to send you\u00a0 copies of new books. Sadly, they are mostly not the books that I actually want to read. But here\u2019s one that was really enjoyable, but was also (tangentially) relevant to this blog. So here\u2019s a brief review \u2013 consider […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2091,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy is there something rather than nothing?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"One of the perks of writing a blog is that sometimes publishers offer to send you  copies of new books. 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