Why does the world exist? : an existential detective story / Jim Holt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Holt, Jim, 1954-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cosmology.

Physical Description:

309 pages ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Liveright Pub. Corp., [2012]

Summary:

In this astonishing and profound work, an irreverent sleuth traces the riddleof existence from the ancient world to modern times.

Contents:

1 Confronting the Mystery 3

Interlude: Could Our World Have Been Created by a Hacker? 13

2 Philosophical Tour d'Horizon 17

Interlude: The Arithmetic of Nothingness 36

3 A Brief History of Nothing 41

4 The Great Rejectionist 63

5 Finite or Infinite? 81

Interlude: Night Thoughts at the Café de Flore 88

6 The Inductive Theist of North Oxford 95

Interlude: The Supreme Brute Fact 108

7 The Magus of the Multiverse 120

Interlude: The End of Explanation 131

8 The Ultimate Free Lunch? 138

Interlude: Nausea 149

9 Waiting for the Final Theory 154

Interlude: A Word on Many Worlds 164

10 Platonic Reflections 171

Interlude: It from Bit 186

11 "The Ethical Requiredness of There Being Something" 197

Interlude: An Hegelian in Paris 216

12 The Last Word from All Souls 221

Epistolary Interlude: The Proof 237

13 The World as a Bit of Light Verse 243

14 The Self: Do I Really Exist? 253

15 Return to Nothingness 266.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0871404095

9780871404091

OCLC:

793973660

Publisher Number:

99949622613