Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story (39 page)

singularity:

event horizon and, 173

at moment of the Big Bang, 139

quantum cosmology and, 140

science and, 93

time and, 74–75

Smart, J. J. C. “Jack,” 72, 76, 197

Socrates, 44, 155, 185, 267

solar system, 6

Somewhere in Time
(film), 87

Sontag, Susan, 91

Sophocles, 255

spacetime, 25, 48, 59, 74, 75, 139, 143–44, 183, 189

multiverse and, 165

nothingness and, 49–52

Spinoza, Baruch, 34, 101, 253

evil as viewed by, 213–14

God of, 34, 204–5

spontaneity, 67–68

Sprigge, T. L. S., 193

Steady-State Universe, 83

Steiner, George, 248

Strawson, Galen, 257

string theory, 169, 187, 251

Landscape of, 158–59, 225

universe and, 145–46

Updike on, 251

Weinberg on, 158–59

strong nuclear force, 78

structuralist movement, 188–89

suffering, 31

Sufficient Reason, Principle of, 7, 20, 78, 84, 87, 104, 110, 237–38, 240–42

Susskind, Leonard, 169–70

“Swimmer, The” (Cheever), 274

Swinburne, Richard, 92, 94, 108, 110, 119, 125, 133, 134, 164, 217

on doctrine of atonement, 102–3

God as viewed by, 92–93, 95–106, 204

on Grünbaum, 95–96

on multiverse, 97–98

on simplicity principle, 96–97

Why?
question and, 163

Tegmark, Max, 182–83, 184, 189

Temple, William, 68

Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 3

Thales, 19, 29, 70, 78

Theory of Everything, 78, 145

Weinberg on, 146–47, 155–56, 158, 160–63

thermodynamics, second law of, 61

This I Believe
(radio program), 251

“This Will Be the Last Time” (song), 274

Thom, René, 172

Thomas Aquinas, Saint, 20, 68, 82, 92, 97, 103, 105, 111, 248, 252

Thorne, Kip, 173

Through the Looking-Glass
(Carroll), 44

time, 246, 249, 278

Big Bang and, 71–72, 74–75

emergence of, 39

entropy and, 61

God and, 103

as illusion, 190

infinite, 81–82, 85–86

nothingness, opposites and, 39

in Oscillating Universe, 83

retrocausation and, 73–74

subjective end of, 268

uncertainty principle and, 141

Time,
115

Tipler, Frank, 190

Tolkein, J. R. R., 124

Tolstoy, Leo, 30

Torricelli, Evangelista, 51

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
(Wittgenstein), 17, 23, 162, 248, 262

Tragic Sense of Life
(Unamuno), 268

Treatise of Human Nature
(Hume), 256–57

tribar, Penrose, 173–74

truth, 58–59, 147

beauty and, 251

empirical, 24–25

goodness and, 211

logical, 24

mathematics and, 172, 180–81, 183

in philosophy, 24

in science, 24–25

Tryon, Ed, 141–42, 163

Turing, Alan, 121, 156

twistor theory, 173

Ulysses
(Joyce), 3

“Ulysses” (Tennyson), 3

Unamuno, Miguel de, 268

uncertainty principle, 10, 140–41, 157, 163, 188

universally free logic, 58

universe:

age of, 81–82

anthropic principle and, 98

before Big Bang, 70–71

Big Bang and origin of, 26–27

Cartesian view of, 7–8

chaotic inflation theory and, 12–16, 84

closed, 141–43

as computer simulation, 190–92

consciousness and, 8

cosmic background radiation of, 13–14, 26–27, 83–84

cosmic possibilities and, 224–26

creation
ex nihilo
doctrine and, 19–20, 67–68, 140, 142–43, 161, 162

creation myths and, 18–19

emergence of time and, 39

empty, 58–59

entropy of, 61

ethical need for, 199, 207

expansion of, 25–26, 83, 123, 139, 166

God and, 5–7, 21, 67–68

infinite time and, 81–83, 85–86

as information, 189–90

Islamic view of, 19–22

isomorphic, 109

in Judeo-Christian theology, 19–22, 67–68

and law of mass-energy conservation, 86–87

maximal world, 135

multiverse and,
see
multiverse

no-boundary model of, 5–7

nothing theorists and, 27–28

omega point of, 73

Oscillating, 83–84, 87

pocket, 158–59

as quantum fluctuation, 141–42

quantum tunneling and creation of, 161–62

singularity and, 74–75, 139

Steady-State, 83

string theory and, 145–46

in Western thought, 81–82

zero-energy, 141–42

Universes
(Leslie), 197–98

Updike, John, 18, 32, 39, 243–52, 254

on consciousness, 250–51

existence question and, 244–46, 248–49

on God, 251–52

on reality, 252

on science, 247

on string theory, 251

on theology of Barth, 247

on
Why?
question, 248

“Upon Nothing” (Rochester), 41

vacuum, 140

false, 218–19

nothingness and, 51–52

quantum, 142

Value and Existence
(Leslie), 200

“Vanity of Existence, The” (Schopenhauer), 266

Varghese, Roy Abraham, 6

Vatican, 25

Victoria, Queen of England, 3

View from Nowhere, The
(Nagel), 73

Vikings, 18

Vilenkin, Alex, 50, 142–44, 145, 155, 161, 163, 217

Voltaire, 9, 15, 20, 212

von Cramm, Gottfried, 88

von Neumann, John, 61

Wall Street Journal,
122

Waterfall
(Escher), 174

weak nuclear force, 48, 78, 146

Weinberg, Steven, 77, 146, 150, 153, 154–62, 164, 166, 207, 226, 228

on fecundity principle, 159–60

on final theory, 146–47, 155–56, 158, 160–63

on God, 155

on multiverse, 156–59, 169–70

on Newton’s theories, 155–56, 158, 159

on religion, 147, 154–55

on string theory, 158–59

Wheeler, John Archibald, 35, 40, 121, 128, 189

Whitehead, Alfred North, 198

“Why Anything? Why This?” (Parfit), 222, 234

Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing
(Rundle), 49

Wigner, Eugene, 172

will, 31, 269

Williams, Bernard, 259, 264–65

Williams, Tennessee, 32

Williamson, Timothy, 29–30

Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 17–18, 30, 59, 66–67, 72, 82, 154, 162, 209, 230, 248, 262, 265

mystery of existence and, 23–24, 33–34

Wolfram, Stephen, 190

Wollheim, Richard, 267–68

Woozley, A. D., 10

Word of God and the Word of Man, The
(Barth), 247

World War I, 23

World War II, 65

Zeno of Elea, 82

Zermelo, Ernst, 40

zero, 36–37, 39, 99

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jim Holt is a longtime contributor to
The New Yorker—
where he has written on string theory, time, infinity, numbers, truth, and bullshit, among other subjects—and the author of
Stop Me If You’ve Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes.
He is also a frequent contributor to the
New York Times
and the
London Review of Books
. He lives in Greenwich Village.

Copyright © 2012 by Jim Holt

All rights reserved

First Edition

Excerpt from “Epistemology” from Ceremony and Other Poems,
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