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The cover of Why Does the World Exist?

Why Does the World Exist?

Jim Holt

Why is there something rather than nothing at all, and can philosophy, science or religion answer it?

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At a glance

Author
Jim Holt

Why read it

  • You will learn the main answers people have given, from God to physics to pure logic, and where each one runs out
  • You will see why asking why anything exists at all may lie beyond the reach of science
  • You will weigh the claim that God explains the world, since even its defender concedes a new mystery

Who it is for

  • A curious reader who has wondered why anything exists
  • A philosophy or physics student
  • Someone comfortable with big questions and no final answer

Contents

  1. PROLOGUE: A Quick Proof That There Must Be Something Rather Than Nothing, for Modern People Who Lead Busy Lives
  2. 1. Confronting the Mystery
  3. INTERLUDE : Could Our World Have Been Created by a Hacker?
  4. 2 . Philosophical Tour d’Horizon
  5. INTERLUDE: The Arithmetic of Nothingness
  6. 3. A Brief History of Nothing
  7. 4. The Great Rejectionist
  8. 5. Finite or Infinite?
  9. INTERLUDE: Night Thoughts at the Café de Flore
  10. 6 . The Inductive Theist of North Oxford
  11. INTERLUDE: The Supreme Brute Fact
  12. 7. The Magus of the Multiverse
  13. INTERLUDE: The End of Explanation
  14. 8. The Ultimate Free Lunch?
  15. INTERLUDE: Nausea
  16. 9. Waiting for the Final Theory
  17. INTERLUDE: A Word on Many Worlds
  18. 10. Platonic Reflections
  19. INTERLUDE: It from Bit
  20. 11. “ The Ethical Requiredness of There Being Something”
  21. INTERLUDE: An Hegelian in Paris
  22. 12. The Last Word from All Souls
  23. EPISTOLARY INTERLUDE : The Proof
  24. 13. The World as a Bit of Light Verse
  25. 14. The Self: Do I Really Exist?
  26. 15. Return to Nothingness
  27. EPILOGUE: Over the Seine

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