Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story

by Jim Holt

"Why is there a world rather than nothing at all?" remains the darkest and most enduring of all metaphysical mysteries. Following in the footsteps of Christopher Hitchens, Roger Penrose, and even Stephen Hawking, Jim Holt now enters this fractious debate with his lively and deeply informed narrative that traces the latest efforts to grasp the origins of the universe. The slyly humorous Holt takes on the role of cosmological detective, suggesting that we might have been too narrow in limiting our suspects to Yahweh vs. the Big Bang. Tracking down an eccentric Oxford philosopher, a Physics Nobel Laureate, a French Buddhist monk who lived with the Dalai Lama, and John Updike just before he died, Holt pursues unexplored angles to this cosmic puzzle. As he pieces together a solution--one that sheds new light on the question of God and the meaning of existence--he offers brisk philosophical asides on time and eternity, consciousness, and the arithmetic of nothingness.

“The pleasure of this book is watching the match: the staggeringly inventive human mind slamming its fantastic conjectures over the net, the universe coolly returning every serve.... Holt traffics in wonder, a word whose dual meanings—the absence of answers; the experience of awe—strike me as profoundly related. His book is not utilitarian. You can’t profit from it, at least not in the narrow sense.... And yet it does what real science writing should: It helps us feel the fullness of the problem.” (Kathryn Schulz, New York Magazine)

" Jim Holt leaves us with the question Stephen Hawking once asked but couldn't answer, ‘Why does the universe go through all the bother of existing?’” (Ron Rosenbaum, Slate )

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Science, Physics, Religion, History, Book Club

279 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2011

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.

Reviews

[Manny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jessica Q. Rabbit, singer, model, movie star and high-flying academic, talks candidly to The Toon Town Times about Why Does the World Exist?



TTT: Jessica, great to meet and thank you for making space in your busy schedule.

JR: The pleasure's all mine.

TTT: Okay, now I know you have another meeting in half an hour, so let's cut to the chase. What's up with Jim Holt's new book? Why aren't you in it?

JR: Why should I be?

TTT: Ah, come on. Sartre... Proust... cosmology... modal logic... it's Jessica all over. He visited Parfit, Weinberg, Deutsch, Vilenkin. Why not you too?

JR: How do you know he didn't?

TTT: Are you telling me...?

JR: Well, of course he wrote. And I said sure, come on out and we'll talk. And he did that. But in the end he decided not to use the material.

TTT: But... why not?

JR: Look, I'm the kind of gal who likes to speak her mind. He showed me his manuscript, and he asked me what I thought. I told him there were obvious weaknesses. He couldn't handle it.

TTT: Weaknesses? Like what?

JR: Where do I start? Okay, take Sartre. I mean, right, Jean-Paul was a great dramatist, I'd have said that even if he hadn't written Les Mains Sales for me...



TTT: Sartre wrote Les Mains Sales for you??

JR: Hello, why do you think the female lead is called Jessica? Why do you think she hides the gun in her cleavage in Act 1? I was supposed to be playing her on the opening night. You should have seen the bit of hardware I was going to hide there. The audience would have loved it. And then I came down sick and that flat-chested little tramp Marie Olivier got the glory instead. Even though she wrecked the key scene. But sorry, sorry, I'm getting off topic. Sartre, terrific, world-class playwright, pretty good novelist, but as a philosopher, you know, nothing special...

TTT: Nothing special?

JR: Like, really, I told him not to publish L'être et le néant. Said he'd just embarrass himself. Was I right or was I right? But Jim Holt, he just can't stop talking about it. And then on modal logic...

TTT: Modal logic?

JR: Yeah, sure, you know, I love modal logic, but Plantinga's modal version of the Ontological Argument? Puh-lease. It isn't worth mentioning, it's like you need one second more compared to the original Anselm version to spot the obvious fallacy, but Jim just goes on about it. He should have more pride. And then Proust, he mentions Proust like four, five times, and in such trivial ways. I know everyone isn't as interested in Proust as I am, but honestly, if that's all you can think of to say about him then you shouldn't start. I guess I shouldn't have told him that though. He looked kinda crushed.



TTT: Well, you wouldn't have been Jessica if you'd kept quiet.

JR: Hey thanks! But sometimes I think I could use more tact, you know? Whatever. When you come down to it, the Sartre and the Proust, they were just, you know, irritating, because of my personal connections to them. It was the cosmology that really did it. So first he has this historical retrospective, and he like completely, but completely misrepresents the contribution of poor old Georges Lemaître...

TTT: The Belgian priest-scientist?

JR: That was Georges. I met him in 1926 when he came out to California, it was at a party at the Hubble place, and he was, you know, so cute and earnest with that round face and those glasses and that wonderful accent, I just totally fell for him. Such a shame he'd taken a vow of celibacy or there's no telling what could have happened. So yeah, he gets Georges wrong and then he talks about inflation and false vacuums like eight times and never goes into the least bit of detail about how the mechanism works. In the end, I know this was kinda rude but I was riled up, I said Jim, do you really understand it? Because if you don't, I'm going to explain it to you now. And I did, I remember Alan Guth telling it to me just after he'd found the original false vacuum construction like it was yesterday. And I took it slowly, step by step, and I said Jim, don't you see, in the false vacuum the metric is basically just the original de Sitter one so you get exponential expansion. It's easy.

TTT: I'm not sure I'm still following you...

JR: That's what he said too. And I said Jim, you have read de Sitter's 1917 paper, right? And you know what? He hadn't. Just had his head full of trivial philosophy.



TTT: Uh...

JR: But that's not the worst part. He showed me his interview with Roger Penrose, I mean, Roger was doing him such a favor agreeing to talk to him in the first place, and all Jim could do was go on and on about neo-Platonism. He'd read like the first chapter of The Road to Reality and he'd missed all the interesting passages where Roger's using thermodynamic arguments to undermine the validity of the inflationary approach. They could have had like this amazingly interesting discussion, and he totally fluffed it. No wonder Roger made an excuse after half an hour.

TTT: Talking of which...

JR: OMG, is that the time? I'm sorry, I really have to leave like five minutes ago, I hope you got everything you needed. And hey, I feel I've been such a bitch talking about Jim this way, I mean he's a nice guy and all and I'm sorry about his dog and his mother, but you know, he just totally pushes all my buttons. As Jean-Paul would have said, c'est plus fort que moi.

TTT: I understand, Jessica. It's been a real pleasure talking to you. And good luck with your new book.

JR: Thanks! It's been fun. Bye!

[Daniel Bastian · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The lower a man is in an intellectual respect, the less puzzling and mysterious existence itself is to him.” —Arthur Schopenhauer

Jim Holt has made a career out of tracking philosophy’s Moby Dick, or perhaps more appropriately, the explanatory “superturtle”: the question of why there is something rather than nothing. The secret to existence. The riddle of Being.

It’s a question that confronted Plato, haunted Heidegger, religion claims to have answered long ago, and, so declare Lawrence Krauss and Stephen Hawking, has been conclusively settled by physics. That it hugs academic borders so closely and is so charged with ideological subtext are surely clues to its significance. No other question has battled against such a succession of brilliance and come away as unscathed.

In Why Does the World Exist?, Holt deftly navigates the blurred nexus of philosophy and science in search of how deep explanation can go. Have we at last solved the foggiest mystery of all? Are science’s popularizers on to something, or do their assurances, as their critics suggest, amount to slack philosophy and so much polemical posturing? With an appetite for sophisticated conversation and frequent change in scenery, he checks in with a cast of preeminent philosophers, scientists and literary savants for today’s leading theories.

Pivoting from the spiffy Café de Flore in Paris to the regal ambience of Oxford to a brief stint along the quiet Canadian coast, Holt sparks vivid dialogues with John Leslie, Steven Weinberg, Adolf Grünbaum, David Deutsch, Alexander Vilenkin, Richard Swinburne, Roger Penrose, John Updike and Derek Parfit. This roster of genius serve up their strongest and wildest arguments as Holt runs each through an impressive gauntlet of critique, keeping his eyes peeled for a solution that isn’t hobbled by contradiction and doesn’t succumb to the hamster wheel of infinite regress: “a point where all the arrows of explanation converge—where every why is absorbed in an ultimate because.”

Don’t expect winners and losers, however. This isn’t so much a battle royale among talented minds as it is a formal invitation to a debate that’s been underway for thousands of years. And like a bottle of Bordeaux, this one only gets better with age.

And Then There Was Time

Most scientists through the late 20th century accepted the existence of the universe as a brute fact, with explanation outside the bounds of scientific inquiry. Unpacking its history—from its breathtaking early expansion to quasars and circumstellar disks—continued apace, but was regarded as distinct from the project taken up by Holt and his predecessors. It was a matter of specialization, with science angled toward the how and philosophy shoveling below to the ultimate Whys. In response to those who would conflate these projects, Allan Sandage, one of the fathers of modern astronomy, once remarked: “As soon as you ask why there is something instead of nothing, you have gone beyond science.”

Just how far can science take us? According to most cosmologists, the universe has a finite past, ultimately traceable to a singularity event roughly fourteen billion years ago. Though the precise nature of this event remains murky, we can infer from the redshift of distant galaxies and remnant radiation from the early universe the absolute age of all space and all time. This spatio-temporal boundary dictates what questions we can entertain. In short, asking what happened before the Big Bang? may be no more sensible than asking what’s north of the North Pole?

We count this conceit as self-evident today, but it actually harks back to Leibniz, the 17th century polymath, who held that time is not absolute, but can only exist in a universe in which the relationship between mass and energy changes (see relational theory). Otherwise put, if time is not involved, events do not occur. If this view is correct, the singularity gave rise to time itself, beyond which the very concepts of cause and effect break down—along with our known laws of physics. Rather like a curtain that conceals the goings-on behind it, the Big Bang is a comprehensive model whose explanatory scope cuts off at the singularity.
 

 
Horizon or no, one does not need a crash course in the Big Bang-origin of spacetime to surmise that the singularity stands in need of explanation as well. In recent years, a number of prominent scientists have gone further in an attempt to fill in the missing details surrounding our universe’s birth. Pointing up the latest advances in particle physics and cosmology, Krauss, Hawking and Michiu Kaku contend not only that our universe indeed came from nothing, but that we have pinned down the particular nothing from which it emerged.

Naturally, many of these discussions tend to turn on how one defines ‘nothing’. In A Universe From Nothing, Krauss sees it as an unstable vacuum state in which particles and antiparticles dart in and out of existence according to physical laws. In The Grand Design, Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow use quantum theory to argue for a multiverse, where an infinite number of “bubble universes”, and the unique laws to which they are subject, are generated simultaneously from an initial gravitational singularity.

As critics have pointed out, there seems to be a philosophically important gulf between the pre-Big Bang “broth” as described in scientific-cosmological terms and the simplicity of pure nothingness. The physicist David Deutsch gives a strenuous defense of this point in his conversation with Holt. When asked whether quantum field theory could shed light on the something-from-nothing impasse, he takes to task Krauss and colleagues who claim that creation ex nihilo now rests securely in science’s wheelhouse:

“Not the least!…Quantum theory is too parochial to address the question of existence. When you talk about a particle and an antiparticle appearing in the vacuum, that’s not at all like coming into existence out of nothing. The quantum vacuum is a highly structured thing that obeys deep and complex laws of physics. It’s not ‘nothingness’ in the philosophical sense at all. It’s not even as little as the kind of nothing you have in your bank account when there’s no money in it. I mean, there’s still the bank account! A quantum vacuum is much more even than an empty bank account, because it’s got structure. There’s stuff happening in it.” (p. 128)

Whatever representation of nothing we might settle on, it would have to contain some modicum of properties to germinate the something that is the universe, properties that would then oblige explanation. Thus, whether we accept Krauss’ definition or Vilenkin’s—“a closed spacetime of zero radius” (p. 143)—the question lingers: whence those constituent properties? Who or what determined them?

While the cosmic optimist insists we put the matter on ice while we wait for the long-sought and oft-vaunted “final” theory of physics, more sober-minded critics are unamused. For even a theory of everything would be part of the something to be explained. More to the point, even if we were able to conclude, thanks to a more complete understanding of physics, that a cosmogonic singularity was inevitable given the fields, forces or fluctuations involved, we may still ask: why do we find ourselves in a universe (or multiverse) spawned by a vacuum state furnished with the ingredients necessary to wink it into existence? Why not a different mixture of ingredients devoid of universe-issuing potential, or none at all?

“Indeed, such a unified theory might turn out to be the closest we can come to giving a complete physical explanation of why the world is the way it is. But the final theory of physics would still leave a residue of mystery—why this force, why this law? It would not contain within itself an answer to the question of why it was the final theory. So it would not live up to the principle that every fact must have an explanation—the Principle of Sufficient Reason.” (p. 78)

Our exhumation of deep time continues to gather empirical steam, replete with enough discovery and triumph to jolt Galileo from his grave, but does it get us any closer to answering the question at the heart of Holt’s book: Why does anything exist?

Brute Fact: Universe or God?

One way out of this quagmire is to posit a supernatural intelligence that poofed the world into existence. If God exists, then the answer would be: ‘because God did it that way’. This, of course, is also man’s oldest answer. It is valid as concerns the proximate question, but skirts the one underneath. In the same way that positing a multiverse to explain our universe merely kicks the discussion downwind, introducing God to explain our universe naturally begs the question of God’s existence. If the universe needs a cause, does God not need one as well?

Philosophers and theologians have tussled with this dilemma in various ways. Leibniz and Plotinus invoked the principle of causa sui (“cause of itself”) to argue that God is self-caused: among the set of features of an all-powerful being is the ability to answer for its own existence. Aquinas rejected this outright, contending that no entity can cause itself because it would have to exist prior to itself—a logical contradiction. Instead, he adduced the argument from contingency, which says that all causes depend on some prior cause, and since there cannot be an infinite series of causes they must terminate in a necessary, or non-contingent, being. The Thomistic formulation is but another face of Aristotle’s Uncaused Cause (known variously as Unmoved Mover, Prime Mover, or First Cause).

Holt finds these arguments problematic. And he is in good company; Hume, Kant and Russell had their suspicions as well, though for different reasons. Holt’s contention is not so much with the notion of self-explanation but that the cosmological argument simply reframes the original question, trading one conundrum for another. Positing an eternal being with no origin to explain the world’s origin is no answer at all. ‘Why is there a universe rather than no universe?’ becomes, ‘Why is there a God rather than no God?'

“[God] is a fitting ontological foundation for a contingent world. Yet he himself has no ontological foundation. His essence does not include existence. His being is not logically necessary. He might not have existed. There might have been no God, nothing at all.” (p. 119)

Whatever logic we apply to God can also be applied to the Universe. If the Universe requires something to create it, why not God? Likewise, if you want to say that God is uncaused and requires no explanation, on what non-arbitrary grounds can the Universe not exist uncaused and unexplained as well? In the assertion 'X exists as a function of its own essence', neither term comes out obviously ahead. Both represent unique metaphysical claims, and both propositions can be derived through logical means.

Nor does God fulfill the precondition of ex nihilo that is often thrown at the naturalist’s feet. Like quantum fields and the laws governing the spontaneous creation of particles from a vacuum, God certainly is not ‘nothing’. In both cases we start with ‘something’ to produce another ‘something’, neither of which is ‘nothing’. Whatever new entities we might insert to fill the explanatory void ushers us right back to square one.

This Great Chain of Regress is the kind of gridlock that prompts Adolf Grünbaum, a philosopher of science Holt interviews early on, to shoo away the question as prima facie incoherent. He says there can’t be a reason, and that those who demand one are buying into a bit of Christian theology (ex nihilo) that arose in the second century in order to counter the Hellenistic competition. “Don’t worry about why there’s a world,” he says, “it’s an ill-conceived question.”

If we decide to ignore Grünbaum’s counsel and, like Holt, persist in the astonishment of Being, we are left with two options. We can throw up our hands, reject the aforesaid PSR and accept one or another brute fact, the balance of which tends to settle along ideological lines. Or we can take solace in the words of Martin Amis, who once responded when the question was put to him, “we’re at least five Einsteins away from answering that question”, and get on with the hunt.

The Road to Abstractification

Having given the less exotic ideas a fair shake, Holt ventures off into ever more obscure pastures. He gestures toward the monistic simplicity of panpsychism—the idea that “mind-stuff” is the fundamental constituent of reality—espoused by folks like David Chalmers, Christof Koch and Thomas Nagel. He dives under the currents of Platonism and the many colorful interpretations currently jostling for stature, such as the notion that math and morality have an external reality as opposed to being mere human constructions. Engaging those who push Platonism to radical heights, Holt asks how mathematical abstractions—per Penrose’s pure Forms and Max Tegmark’s mathematical universe hypothesis (also known as the Ultimate Ensemble)—or moral imperatives—vis-à-vis John Leslie’s extreme axiarchism—could be responsible for summoning a world like ours into existence.

Names, theories and seminal texts are dropped routinely, but not at random. It’s all very orderly, meticulous in approach, and laced with perfectly placed metaphor. It would take more than a review to do any kind of justice to such intricate theories, but Holt’s encyclopedic knowledge of both philosophy and science makes for the ideal inquisitor. Some of the answers he fields prove just as mysterious as the question itself.

From Dust to Dust

Without a universe, there would be nothing to ask and no one to do the asking—no angst, no joy, no existential weariness. Holt wishes to remind us that things did not turn out this way. We are here, questions in hand, and this fact alone is of unexampled significance. As Steven Weinberg once wrote, our “effort to understand the universe is one of the very things that lifts human life above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.” It is the absence of answers that drives us forward. It is also what compels philosophers like Holt to obsess over the intellectual hunt.

After criss-crossing the globe and contemplating existence alongside some of the greatest minds past and present, even offering a “proof” of his own for why Being prevailed over Nonbeing, the sun sets not far from where we began. Holt remains content to bask in this greatest of mysteries, coveting a verdict yet wary of relinquishing his skepticism prematurely. Perhaps our human perspective limits our ability to ask the right questions. Or, as equally disconcerting for someone who expects reimbursement for their intellectual labors, perhaps not every question has an answer.

Alas, if there is ever to be an ultimate explanation of reality, how would we know we had found it? As Deutsch laments to Holt, the vexing why this way and not another would always keep the ball in play, hence rendering the matter “forever insoluble.” (p. 125)

Why Does the World Exist? is a seeker’s memoir, at turns stimulating and saturnine. The intellectual rigor is interrupted as Holt grieves the death of his dog and later the loss of his mother, only to be picked up over lavish dinners at the local brasserie. His transitions from abstract argument to the definite realities of his own existence make this more than a pallid retread of ideas. Holt’s refreshing humility, wit and sheer eloquence breathe new life into this ancient mystery. Like riding shotgun to Sherlock Holmes on a midnight caper, he doesn’t guide you to one conclusion or pull you away from another, but instead revels in the chase itself.

In the end, Holt’s ambitious book should be appreciated for effectively demonstrating that the titular question is not to be flippantly dismissed and has not been answered with any degree of precision. It’s less about making genuine strides toward resolution than about clarifying the problem, capturing the nuance and lending a sympathetic ear to those brave enough to hazard a hunch. And given the ultimacy of the quest before us, is that not as much as we could expect?

Note: This review is republished from my official website.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't argued with a book as much as this one.....ever. I was furious, outraged, bombastic. What?! How can people get away with such partial and idiotic arguments, and how can anyone take them seriously. The book irritated me, to say the least, and all I wanted to do was sit across a table from Holt and from everyone he interviewed (except David Deutsch and Steven Weinberg) and ask them if they were really kidding.

It's an unanswerable question, why there is something rather than nothing, and anyone who says they have the answer (especially with certainty) is suspect, to say the least (and I'm trying hard to say the least, here). With such an essentially and inherently unanswerable question, the question then becomes why are you asking it? What does it mean to you? What would the various answers mean to you? THOSE are the interesting questions.

grrr. Recommended if you want to have an argument and there's no one around.

[Ed · Rating 1 out of 5]

This supremely unimportant book raises three deep and troubling questions.
The first is: Why in blazes did I buy it? By way of apology more than explanation I did struggle with Heidigger in graduate school back in 1970 and thought this might be a good way to revive my earlier befuddlement. Befuddlement revived? Check. Good way? Not so much. Here’s a good sample: Expanding upon his conversation with Robert Nozick (Who I am sure is a very smart fellow.), Holt writes, “Let’s call this deepest-of-all principles P. The principle P explains why other laws hold true: because they have characteristic C. But what explains why P is true? Well, suppose that P turned out to have characteristic C. Then the truth of P would logically follow from P itself! In that case, principle P would be self-subsuming to use Nozick’s term.” [ italics in original] No, really. I’m not making this up. I am not a believer, but by the end of the book, the only chapter that made any sense at all was the one outlining a theological answer. Didn’t make me a believer, but I wound up saying “thank God” when I finished.
Second: Why would anyone buy this book? Say you’re a nerdy kind of guy in graduate school and want to get the attention of hot undergraduate chick majoring in philosophy. Carrying around a copy of Why does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story might just do it. Could work, right? Or maybe you’re a nerdy kind of woman and want to get the attention of that hunk majoring in philosophy. Or - maybe you just have trouble falling asleep.
Third: Why all the personal details? Why do we care if Jim only finishes half a bottle of St. Emilion? Or eats biscuits and tea. I do, however, understand why he repeatedly reminds the reader that he was born and raised a Roman Catholic and, at an early age, rejected the faith. This is now de rigueur to establish one’s bona fides as a serious intellectual. (See, I can inject foreign phrases just like Jim.) It’s gotten to the point where I expect to read a philosophical treatise written by someone who wouldn’t know a scapula from a novena but regales me with the story of how he rejected Catholicism the same time as he gave up breast feeding. Coming soon to a kindle near you.
One star? That’s for me for finishing the volume.

[Craig Werner · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book came to me via the very positive New York Times Book Review review, and it made the Times list of best books of the year. I wish I'd read Freeman Dyson's review in the New York Review of Books first and saved my time.

Certianlyk the organizing question--why does the universe exist?--is interesting. Or at least I thought it was until I read the book. After reading it, I'm convinced that almost everyone who addresses it is deeply mired in circular thinking of the sort where the argument is determined in advance by the desired conclusion. Some of the people Holt talked to are familiar names in the worlds of philosophy and cosmology and I'll take his word that the others are Well Thought Of in their professional worlds. But almost all of them, if we can trust Holt's reporting, are prone to imperial pronouncements and/or technical academic argot. Almost all come off as smug and self-important.

And Holt simply drove me nuts. The chapters where he veers into his own speculations are simply awful.I think he was trying to provide a sense of an intellectual journey, but his attempts at synthesis are trite. I got really tired of hearing about what he ate for dinner before he went to talk to the man of the moment. Some of the sketches of the interviewees are well drawn. But that's about it.

What strikes me in retrospect is how sure the speakers are that the fundamental questions can be answered in rational, logical (and fundamentally Western) terms. I read a fair amount of eastern philosophy--Buddhism, Taoism--and on this question I radically prefer the humility and openness to wonder of the Tao Te Ching or Huang Po.

[Chris Horsefield · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author considers all possible perspectives, a strategy which makes the discussion a bit vague and directionless in my opinion.

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 2 out of 5]

Science cannot answer the deepest questions. As soon as you ask why there is something instead of nothing, you have gone beyond science.
~ Allan Sandage, the father of modern astronomy

The author basically takes this one question and runs around brandishing it at books, pubs and at author interviews. If you are curious to see how people like Parfit, Penrose, Weinberg and even Updike think outside of their books, some of the chapters here could be fun reads. And to be honest, after all the conversations with the Physicists, the one where Updike tries to sound all scienc-ey feels a bit, what can I say, philistine? To be honest, this is as much as you will get from the book. After all the author had no real hope of tackling his real objective, and we know it all along.

Philosophy, n. A route of many roads leading from
nowhere to nothing.
~ Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even with some limitations, this was a very stimulating book to read. Inconclusive as any such book must be, so don't pick it up expecting one definitive version of an answer.

I enjoyed this book a great deal. It's a bit self-indulgent, with lots of little segues where Holt sits around drinkin' and thinkin' at the same Paris cafe where Sartre wrote Being and Nothinginess or soaking in a bathtub in the Athenaeum club, but they add a few much-needed downbeats to what might have been a somewhat gruelling book otherwise.

Basically, Holt meets a bunch of a white male, mainly English-speaking philosophers and scientists and quizzes them on their ideas about why reality exists. He's so white-Anglophone-guy-oriented that he even speaks to John Updike because apparently Updike once read about the quantum fluctuation model of how the universe happened and used it as a way for a fellow in a novel to mock the fellow who may have cuckolded him. It would have been nice if Holt had met people outside of his chosen demographic. I don't say this because of a need for political correctness but because of the simple fact that surely there are more kind of people with something valuable to contribute, and not everyone here has anything valuable to contribute (John Leslie and that theologian bloke for instance; and nobody in the world needs to know what Woody Allen thinks about anything, okay?).

Anyway, Holt is no Alain de Botton, he actually gets into the issues at hand with some rigour and avoids glib answers that explain nothing. I am not sure if he gets all the cosmology right, but he presents the philosophy interestingly and gives you a good grand tour of the issue.

What I found most interesting is what the book revealed about my own leanings. Intellectually, I feel that philosophy has as good a chance of answering the basic question of existence as science; I even think that the Buddhist monk briefly glimpsed in the epilogue may be the only person who does not offer a basically circular answer. But I feel emotionally drawn to the idea that existence simply tunneled out of nothingness as a consequence of quantum fluctuation. I also sometimes suspect that there may some questions we may never be able to answer because we are too fundamentally embedded in the topic being investigated to contextualise it accurately enough to frame a useful, answerable question.

[Paula Koneazny · Rating 3 out of 5]

An exuberant romp of a book. Holt ponders that most enduring & impossible of questions: why is there something rather than nothing. All well & good & I enjoyed the ride, even though one should know from the outset that nothing will be decided. The author won't even get to the bottom of what exactly "nothing" IS. But that's to be expected & doesn't diminish the pleasure of the quest. Midway through the book, however, I began to wonder why all the philosophers, scientists or simply very smart people the author consulted & conversed with were white males & pretty exclusively North American or British (perhaps a few Frenchmen, since the author does journey to Paris a few times & he does at least mention Buddhism at the very end of the book). It's not like there aren't very smart women & non-English or French speaking women & men in the world who might have contributed some interesting thoughts on the subject. The author seems very willing to travel, since he crossed the Atlantic to Paris & London several times. So, he wasn't forced by lack of funds, time, or physical disability from seeking answers further afield. Even if he were limited to New York City, his home base, there must be a goodly supply of female thinkers in that city alone. I have to assume that an exclusionary principle operated at the level of personal inclination, or disinclination, as it were. Such thoughts did spoil the fun a bit, I must admit.

[fleurette]

Why, oh, why I did it to myself?!

Okay, so I generally know why and there are several reasons for this. Although none is good enough for me to read this book to the end.

First of all, and it made me borrow this book from the library at all, I desperately needed this book for one of my reading challenges. It is a challenge that I would love to finish as soon as possible, preferably this year. And unfortunately it turns out that I can do it faster by reading books that I usually don't read, outside my usual comfort zone. Sometimes that's good. I have read several books that I would not otherwise read, at least not now. But unfortunately it didn't work in this case.

I never liked philosophy. I avoided it as much as I could, and throughout my studies I chose all the other possible classes to avoid philosophy. I almost succeeded, only when I got my PhD I had to pass the philosophy exam.

But it's also true that when I do something of my own choice, and not because I need it for school or university, I often like it a lot more. So I thought I would give this philosophical book a try. Thanks to this exam I passed I know some basics. I'm in no hurry. I have plenty of time to read this book. Nobody will question me about it. I can read it slowly and who knows, I may even like it. Or so I thought.

And it even promised to be a good book. Such a little science for the uninitiated. You know, philosophical detective story ... I was expecting something well-written, which will allow me to finally immerse myself in philosophy and have some fun while doing on the way.

But unfortunately, it's still a philosophical book, and I still hate philosophy. And this book not only cites extensive quotes from many famous philosophers, but also strongly relates to religion and the issue of God's existence. And if there is something I don't like as much as philosophy, it's theology. The combination of the two had to end in failure for me.

This book was a kind of experiment for me. I wanted to know if I would be able to enjoy a book about philosophy if I chose it of my own free will and if it was a popularized version. And my experiment brought a clear result. The hypothesis has been refuted. I still hate philosophy and can't read a book about philosophy for pleasure.

I decided not to rate this book, since obviously it is my fault that I didn't like it. Those who are interested in philosophy or religion can enjoy it.

[Mac · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holt's book is very thought provoking and very clearly written with an occasional touch of humor. That said, though I left with a pleasant reading experience, a deeper understanding of the issues, and lots to ponder, I didn't leave with the answer (but then one shouldn't expect to, given the complexity of the question).

I have read other books on related topics, and Holt's book is the most enlightening, the clearest, and the most informative by far. Sentences are carefully presented; ideas flow logically from one to the other (I often found Holt addressing my next question just coming to mind); and the overall direction of the book is clearly drawn as the journey progresses. Perhaps the detective story subtitle could have been emphasized a bit more; i.e., the occasional summary could provide more detail on what has been learned and what still needs to be discovered before the mystery is "solved." These summaries exist from time to time, but they could be more explicit.

Typically, with books like these, I understand a little, barely understand some, and am confounded by all the rest. Here, I was able to follow most of the time. That's not to call attention to me as reader; it's to praise Holt as writer for a job well done.

[Raphaela · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really, really don't like not finishing books, so congratulations to Mr. Holt for being one of the chosen few (I gave up with about 90 pages to go). Part of this is my fault: I forced myself through the equally terrible Assholes: A Theory last year and should know by now that navel-gazing logic-heavy philosophical books based around thought experiments are not my cup of tea. It was paining me to get through this to begin with, because at the end of the day, though armed with plenty of jargon and intimidating vocabulary, Jim Holt is a bad writer, plain and simple; when I realized that in this guy's oh-so-noble quest to get to the bottom of no less comprehensive a question than why the world exists, he didn't deem it necessary to interview, cite, consult, credit, or indeed acknowledge a single person who wasn't a white man, I was done. Gives me a fresh perspective on that tired "turtles all the way down" story a certain kind of person loves to reference: in the context of this book, whose author clearly doesn't think women have anything of value (well, anything at all, actually) to contribute to the pressing concerns of humanity, the one woman who gets a mention is one who made a stupid comment to a brilliant man delivering a lecture she obviously didn't understand and thus sealed her legacy as a droll punchline and illustration of the hilarious antics of uneducated plebeians for class acts like the author of this book and his cohorts.

[Rob Adey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm used by now to this kind of book not actually providing a satisfactory answer to the question posited, but this one is really infuriating.

Holt speaks to an admirably wide range of thinkers about this ultimate question, but doesn't provide enough detail on their theories for us to get much of a handle on them. Given that the range is so wide it wouldn't be surprising if some of the actual interviewees were unfamiliar with some of the other ideas in the book, it's a bit unfair for Holt to assume we're totally up to speed with what he's talking about. It makes one wonder if Holt is totally up to speed with what he's talking about.

To give him credit, Holt has come up with his own actual answer to the question of why there is something rather than nothing. Unfortunately, it's too boring to read - which doesn't make it wrong, of course. (He sends it to philosopher Derek Parfit, who says, 'Interesting, I'll get back to you' and that is the last we hear about it.)

On top of this, Holt is one of those annoying writers who assumes everyone learned French and Latin as well as he did, and his writing style is basically Niles Crane.

I wish there was nothing, sometimes.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the discussion in this book on why there is something rather than nothing utterly charming and totally befuddling. There was not a single page where I thought to myself ah yes that obviously makes sense, each page elicited a headache.

In face of my own inability to understand any of this book, it is of course equally impossible for me to give any sense of whether this book is any good or not. Lack of understanding, leads one to either write the book off as the rubbish produced by a pretentious wannabe absolute nonsense, or to hail it as a work of genius inaccessible to the likes of me.

For example, the theory of axiarchism which is essentially the view that the universe was created by an absolute need for goodness. The author sits down and interviews an identified expert who then takes the question and blows it out into ever greater levels of complexity and reasoning. A lot of these arguments rely on the reduction of logical assumptions into utter absurdity and of course represent arguments which on the face of it are more cultural cul de sacs reminiscent of the how many angels can dance on top of a pin then truly illuminating advances.

After the early discussion of physics and math, the majority of the book is given over to the attempts by philosophers and logicians to solve the question, in all cases this is western thought, a fact that impoverishes this book. I like the fact that there is a small but dedicated group of people happy to devote there lives to constructing purely metaphysical arguments without chucking in the towel and saying this makes my brain hurt. I was struck by the counter argument to the tenet I have always held that our minds are far too limited to ever understand the something versus nothing that so much that was impenetrable to former generations has now been explained (admittedly in some cases explained to a very small group of people), and therefore why would this mystery not be equally solvable. I regret that my academic and professional life always focused on fast answers driven by reducing complexity rather then leisurely contemplation of the unknown. Finally I sympathise with another reader who said the question I was left with was I did I ever even try and read this book.

So in summary I got a lot out of this book, in fact almost everything but an answer into why the universe exists that I can even begin to understand.

[Brenton · Rating 2 out of 5]

An intriguing and hopeless search for the meaning of existence. William James called the question of existence "the darkest in all philosohpy." Sadly, the book sheds no light on the question. Jim Holt is an excellent writer who can explain philosophical, scientific and existential themes with skill. He conducts interviews with leading scientists and philosophers who have explored the mysteries of existence using the tools of mathematics, quantum mechanics, platonic philosophy, and philosophical inquiry. Unfortunately, the book is dominated by the materialistic assumption that the ultimate explanation will be physical rather than Personal. There's nothing essentially new--reality consists of Pythagorean numbers, the Platonic good, superstrings, qunantum fluctuations, or perhaps nothing at all--one wonders if philosophy ever advances beyond Thales' water ontology! To his credit, Holt does interview one theistic philosopher, Richard Swinburne, but his report on the interview seems biased strongly in favor of naturalism.

Two episodes in the book leave the Christian reader feeling pity rather than frustration for Holt given his anti-theistic bias. First, he grippingly narrates the agonizing ordeal of watching his dog die. Second, in the final chapter he narrates the death of his mother (following the previous passing of his father) and admits he has no final solution to the existential mystery of his own existence. He writes, "And what is the endpoint of this longed-for journey of expiation, atonement, and restored unity? That warm maternal sea from which we emerged--the eternal home of contented unconsciousness. Nothingness....I would not be reunited with my parents until I, too, entered the nothingness that had already absorbed both of them. That was the real eternal home. And now I had a clear run to the Void."

Holt, like most materialists, fails the recognize that exploring numerous materialistic possibilities will never produce more than possible explanations of the underlying basis of matter. But what of the ontological status of personhood, the self, emotions, moral values, desires, and everything else that makes us human? Unless a Personal metaphysic is adopted, one will never solve the riddle of existence.

[John Alt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why does this book review exist? Because its author poured himself a cup of coffee the other morning and sat down in front of the computer to write it. Why did he write it? Because he wanted to, silly. Where did the book come from? Its author wrote it. This is becoming tedious.

Okay, how about this?

Where did the universe come from? One interpretation of the Big Bang theory is that it emerged from nothing--in the final analysis, then, it, time, space, cups of coffee, blogs, book reviews, books, you and me, the kitchen sink, everything came from nothing.

In short, this leads to the most fundamental question of all: How does something come from nothing? In the 5th Century BC, Parmenides explored this question and since then a long line of philosophers have tackled it.

A related question: How about these words you are reading? How did they get from something called my brain to this page? From this page to your brain? Yeah, I know all that stuff about brain lobes and light spectrums, but how did they really get there? After all, your brain is enclosed in darkness. How does it get lit up? Consciousness is supposed to occur inside your skull and yet you experience it as empty space.

So how do you get around this something-nothing issue? Somebody's grandmother had one idea. Turtles. In A Brief History of Time, physicist Stephen Hawking tells a joke about that.

"A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.

At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: 'What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.'

The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, 'What is the tortoise standing on?'

'You're very clever, young man, very clever,' said the old lady. 'But it's turtles all the way down!' "

Then there is William James who said this about something coming from nothing: “From nothing to being there is no logical bridge.”

Of course, there is a way around the problem. Just order a taller stack of turtles. If you say because E because F because G (H, I, J, K … ), and on and on, your explanation can become an infinite regress.

Enough of all this, said Bertrand Russell, who wouldn't even give the problem a go: “I should say that the universe is just there, and that is all.”

Still, the fact remains that we are baffled by two phenomena. One is the hard problem of consciousness. How can science explain what it is like to be you? To be me? The other is the origin of the universe.

With regard to the Big Bang, it really does look like something--spacetime--came from nothing, and how can that be? If this were a contest, religions would score one point for themselves, with zero for science.

In Why Does the World Exist? Jim Holt asks questions about cosmology of eminent thinkers. A reviewer says "More philosophical than scientific in bent, Holt wants not only an explanation of how you get something from nothing but also how such an explanation might be possible at all."

[Jay Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat disappointing, in large part because of its approach, which entails attempting to answer an ontological/metaphysical question by asking analytical philosophers and physical scientists. Holt was never going to get much beyond a detailed description of "what is" or "why what is is the way it is," when the book's central question is actually "Why is there something rather than nothing?" The use of value theory and the ontological argument provide brief interludes that might have sent the book off in an interesting direction - they indicate paths not taken - and some of the physical scientists report on the evidence for creation ex nihilo but without following up on the philosophical implication that both nothingness and being are unstable and permeate one another; there cannot be nothing simply because Absolute Nothingness cannot exist, it is a mental abstraction, not something that can exist in reality. By focusing on analytical philosophers, who generally believe in the law of identity (that A=A), Holt misses entire avenues of philosophical possibility where real objects are never identical with themselves but always decaying and changing and becoming something else. Sartre, Heidegger, Hegel, and phenomenology recieve a passing nod, Castoriadis (whose theory of magmas came [ahead of its time] to an explanation of creation ex nihilo) is nowhere to be seen. Jim Holt clearly knows whereof he speaks, but whereof he speaks is a little off-piste for the resolution of this issue.

[Emanuela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Il libro è molto avvincente, non per niente è definito una detective-story.
Il libro è anche difficile perché richiede una certa concentrazione. Dal mio punto di vista le teorie scientifiche esposte non mi erano poi così estranee in quanto seguo con una certa regolarità questo argomento. Quelle filosofiche un po' meno, anche se l'autore aiuta nella comprensione di certe teorie o ragionamenti logici dei super filosofi mondiali.

Credevo che alla fine si arrivasse a un nulla di fatto, a una presa d'atto di tanta teoria che non ha possibilità di essere provata con sufficienti evidenze.
Invece, invece, questi signori danno buoni spunti per riflettere, anche sulla propria esistenza.

Certo, l'attuale probabilità di una soluzione alla domanda "Perché c'è qualcosa anzichè il nulla?" è ancora molto lontana, ma già ascoltare le discussioni dell'élite scientifica mondiale, (in verità molto strana e variegata) presente e passata, è un bel gioco mentale e, forse, anche utile.

Cinque stelline meritatissime, e anche qualche Nobel.

[Tim Pendry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This review of contemporary thinking on the question of existence represents the best of North American intellectual journalism where the writer tries to represent the intelligent 'ordinary joe' in his search for knowledge.

Of course, it has its irritations. The American literary style is almost defined by its narcissism - the fact that Jim Holt is sitting in the cafe that was patronised (or matronised) by Sartre and De Beauvoir is of very little interest.

We want to get to the meat but that's just how they do things over there and he is possibly the least narcissistic of American literary types that I have come across in a long time. At least he does not spend ten pages describing the snow in Nebraska as if it was a creative writing class.

What is of interest is the selection of well edited interviews with various leading academics and intellectuals on the meaning of existence, interspersed with some excellent guidance notes from Holt himself.

When he stops being fascinated by local colour, his own personal reactions to such fundamental matters as death are well written and thoughtful. I am averse to sentimentality over animals but he helps me to 'get' why the death of his 'pooch' actually matters. That is quite an achievement.

Indeed, death is the existentialist sub-text - a close call on the road with Professor Grunbaum, the atheist, and the interview with Updike just before his death, the death of the dog and the death of the author's mother. The dog and the mother seem to be strikingly equalised in death.

Holt's final conclusions are mine because there seems to be no other conclusion. Rarely, I won't reveal what that conclusion is because, equally rarely, the 'detective story' structure of the book would make that a spoiler.

What I can say is that this highly readable book will give an intelligent lay person an insight into the general trends in modern thought on the question of existence with plenty of solid background on the history behind such thinking that is necessary to get a sense of what is going on here, especially for those with no significant philosophical background. This really should work as a book for the general reader.

We have the aggressive Jewish-atheist secure in his lack of interest in the big questions, the outre theories of physicists and cosmologists as well as their more measured responses, the rather soppy theism of Swinburne and the unconvincing aestheticism of the mathematical Platonists.

I rather liked the idea of the universe coming into being as the accidental by-product of some alien lab experiment where the alien universe continued to exist quite happily with us having no way of knowing who our absent-minded and disinterested creators may have been. But it is just an idea.

We then have the completely unjustified insistence on prior ethical meaning of Leslie (talk about 'wishful thinking'!), the response of Parfit to the question of existence as the contribution to the book of traditional analytical philosophy and a humane if perhaps philosophically unconvincing coda from the very type of the American liberal litterateur, John Updike.

Any one of these interview-essays would be a stimulating article in itself in 'The New Yorker' (Holt's journalistic home) but, taken together with the excellent introductions, explanations and personal experiences, they all create a book that will inform, educate but, best of all, make you think.

My own non-spoiler conclusion on the book is that it helps to bring these extremely clever people down to earth for us. There are some questions where, for all their intelligence, they know no more than we may know.

The intellectual legerdemain and intense and complex constructions of theoreticians and moralists all end up eventually where we all end up - making our own choices about meaning on the basis of our own stance in relation to the world.

The interview with Swinburne on his theism perhaps brings this out most clearly but it is a theme throughout the book - even the Platonists who seem to have at least Number on their side fall at the last gate on the possibility that we cannot know that number does not break down beyond our own comprehension of it. Mathematics may describe our world but not the world - which may be unknowable.

One senses the long shadow of ultimate unknowability over the book and the resort to belief of anyone who goes beyond the somewhat rigid and closed-in world of Grunbaum. It is as if we are all engaged in a sentimental 'best bets' strategy based on preferences and that rather does throw one back on to classic existentialist views of our relationship to meaning and to the world. Certainly, the book is a corrective to the enthusiasm of those who think higher mathematics and cosmology necessarily rather than possibly describe the ultimate nature of existence.

Nevertheless, the sheer pleasure, aesthetics and excitement of trying to understand the world and making discoveries on the way (since philosophy gives us a scientific approach of sorts to language and phenomena as well as to science itself) come out of this book. It shows us that philosophy is what (intelligent) humans do.

Perhaps this is best expressed by the severely analytical Oxonian Derek Parfit who must be regarded as the thinker's thinkers in terms of rigour. This does not mean that he is the most right but only the most committed to the method: indeed, one suspects that his rigour can often 'miss the point' even where his actual argumentation stands up but that is another matter.

In a lovely passage, Parfit(who is rather obviously being very patient with his slightly less capable interviewer) comes to a view of the self (which I happen not to share) that might depress others but says:

"My life seemed like a glass tunnel, through which I was moving faster every year, and at the end of which there was darkness."

He felt himself liberated from the self by dint of analysis and "the walls of my glass tunnel disappeared. I now live in the open air" [Page 260]

Others will recognise the sentiment though it is just sentiment. The point is not whether Parfit was right or wrong in his analysis of the self but that, ultimately, his stance (in his case, the virtue of analysis as enabling description of the world) led to a 'way of seeing' that made him happier or more whole or more integral (whatever!).

This is what philosophy does - not necessarily make people happier or more integral but it changes them and enables them to become more aligned with who they are (with the risk that who they are is something that wants not to be). The power of the intellect (as is shown in almost every example in the book) is placed at the service of a stance towards existence.

We do not understand existence so much as invent it. And the ending of the detective story (which will not be revealed) tells us more about Holt (and probably me) than it does about the world.

[Abu Hayat Khan · Rating 5 out of 5]

why do we think that the universe is made of electron and quark? in a precise sense, "electron" and "quark" are just names for human convenience, to indicate that they are two different stuff. their properties like charge, mass, spin etc are also just indicative of certain interaction they engage with. the real things those matters, let say for an electron, are (-1, 1/2, 9.10938356 × 10^-31, etc) which represent charge, spin, and mass respectively. same goes for quark as well. so the question would be, why do we think that the universe is not made out of just numbers like (-1, 1/2, 9.10938356 × 10^-31, etc) instead of some abstract entities like electron and quark?

or, if Einstein’s description of space-time and gravitation is correct, and the notion of spacetime curvature requires Riemannian manifolds and tensors, then why we think that the manifolds and tensors are abstract but the spacetime is real? why not the opposite?

put it in another way, if you think (2 + 2 = 4) is so true that even (2 unicorns + 2 unicorns = 4 unicorns) doesn’t make an invalid operation, will this (2 + 2 = 4) still hold true in the context of absolute nothingness? if yes, from where this rule came from? isn't it makes more sense that the numbers and the mathematics make up the true reality? and the spactime is just a unicorn?

modern platonic thinking like this stemmed from a famous thought experiment by Plato known as “Allegory of the Cave”. in which Plato stated that we might never know the true reality of the world. for us, reality will be like the shadow in the cave’s wall.

platonic existentialism of our time states that the numbers, manifolds, tensor, etc, in other words, the mathematical are the Platonic reflection of reality, which gives rise to physical reality like the universe itself, then the universe created the brain consequently the consciousness came to be, and with consciousness, we perceive the idea of mathematics, manifolds etc and the circle repeats itself. thus platonic thinker claims that consciousness must be a fundamental property of everything that exists and makes up the reality.

wait a minute, one might argue, but not all mathematical realities are true! they would say that all mathematical realities those are not true in our universe must be true for other universes. such ensemble of many universes is called "the mathematical multiverse", it is not the same thing as the cosmological multiverse. (to get a hint, please see, "Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Realit" by Max Tegmark))

this book is a metaphysical one, a concoction of 80% ontology and 20% cosmology.

human perception has two philosophical singularities, “infinity” and “nothing”. among this two infinity is the easiest to handle compare to nothingness. if you try to imagine the infinity, it would be all-inclusive, i.e. you will include yourself inside the infinity. the only trouble you will face is that your trillions of synaptic connections would be overwhelmed by the vastness of infinity, you would simply fail the grasp to the boundary of an infinity. but, thinking of the nothingness is far more difficult, how can you imagine something which does not include your own conscious observation? so, the question is, does nothingness really exist? or ever existed?

how can something come from nothing? cosmologically energy of Higgs field tunneled into quantum fluctuation inside a false vacuum caused the big bang. well, from where this Higgs field and quantum rule came from? this can be answered only if we drop the idea of nothing and introduction of the cosmological multiverse.

ontologically a divine entry wouldn’t help either. basically, "what caused the big bang?" and "who created the supreme entity?" are the same questions, both are an infinite regression, though the formal is considered a checkmate while the later a blasphemy.

like the book ‘A Universe From Nothing,’ by Lawrence Krauss, which is a 90% cosmology and 10% ontology, Mr. Holt didn't have a definitive answer. but still it is a five star book. there are few points I should take a note of:

one, there was a fuzz about the scientific entitlement of Steven Hawking. what new innovation he has contributed to science? we all know what he did, but in short, the answer would be, he is the father of quantum cosmology.

second, despite our sheer knowledge we simply cannot outsmart one ancient gentleman (probably two), Plato (and most probably his student, Aristotle). it is often quoted that "all philosophy is a footnote to Plato". no matter how hard you try, you can't be smarter than Plato. this is a personal opinion.

third, to be a philosopher you need to know the formal logic rigorously. it is an academic discipline. luckily I was halfway through a great course called "An Introduction to Formal Logic" by Steven Gimbel, otherwise, this book would be a flood of neutrino passing through my brain with negligible interaction, as if it never existed at all.

[Evin Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I cannot emphasize the great relief that comes in finally finishing this book. The struggle with which I waded through the muddy creek of Jim Holt's "Why there is Something rather than Nothing," can be attributed to both (1) the unyielding stream of incredibly dense scientific theory and philosophy flowing forth from Holt's babbling brook of conscious narrative, and (2) his own subconscious, surfeited ego which rudely interrupted much of said running commentary.

I eagerly immersed myself into this book like a doe-eyed forest nymph; curious to explore its depths, and alas, I emerge from its relentless onslaught like an irritable swamp monster; both scaly and barnacled, squinting in the glare of the merciful sun, groaning a la Chewbacca, and finally collapsing in a heap on dry land.

Basically, a lot of the material was dense, and it was honestly difficult for me to traverse without either (1) further independent study, from more than one source, and/or (2) further discussion, in order to digest the material more accurately. There was so much going on in this book, and often times I felt Jim would jump from concept to concept upon convenience; if it aligned with his general teleological "hunch", he would dive more in-depth. This was hard for me to gauge, however, without the level of theoretical knowledge either he or his subjects possessed. It became a constantly frustrating feeling, like witnessing a debate tournament on a topic you feel passionately about, but cannot participate in. So, I should educate myself more on these topics, and appreciate Holt's narrative in bringing them to my awareness.

The second frustration I derived from this book stemmed from the author's unassuaged ego in the midst of all this exploring, making it a lot more personal than need be. I appreciate that he wanted to pepper quite a few dry, technical concepts with lively, tangible anecdotes, but they came across as pompous and self-indulgent. I grew tired of hearing about the entire contents of his dinner and flamboyant midnight strolls in Europe. I wanted to get back on track - I didn't need a break, as he did.

Another aspect of the book that brought me great frustration: I noticed how he always wound up at Oxford University, and he even admitted to believing the quest for unlocking all the universe(s)'s mystery lied within All Souls College. It is evident in his broad offerings of theory that he was quite rabidly focused on the tenets of Western schools of thought. At the very end of the book, he threw in a random anecdote about a Buddhist puppet on a French TV program; his only acknowledgement of Eastern philosophy. He also had a romantic bent in him, which craved manifesting itself as a cohesive and biased thread throughout his musings, often times infatuating himself in the sensuality of his expert subjects. He would describe the mood and environs leading up to encounters with knowledgeable men (never women!) he admired, and scoff at the men with whom his ideas did not perfectly align. So, when he sojourned to Texas or Canada, things were bizarre and earthly; but back at good old All Souls, things were ethereal, pristine and just as they should be. He then came up with a bizarre "proof" at the end of his musings, like a lump sum of all the contents of his pleasing interviews, which he intended to pass off as yes indeed, a proof as to why the world exists.

Overall, this is a book written by a clearly knowledgeable lad to inspire thinking in others, but lacking in humble acknowledgement of what he does not know. I think the vast metaphysical musings of this book might best be boiled down to an understandable groan: https://youtu.be/Pr3sBks5o_8

[Harold · Rating 3 out of 5]

I took a college philosophy class more than two decades ago. it was taught by a complete asshole whose only pleasure was ridiculing and tormenting others. Although not related to my major I wanted an A in that class more than anything. True to the story I missed it by like .1 of a point. That was my introduction to the mystery of existence. I was hooked as I'm sure most of you reading a review of this book would have been.

Holt relates his introduction as a high schooler reading Satre's Being and Nothingness. This book takes on the Zen Koan of the title. The author studies and meets famous philosophers, theologians, particle physicists,cosmologists, mystics and even the late John Updike. All weave fantastic webs in the language of their expertise that take you so deep into their esoteric language that you forget it's still a Zen Koan. Which came first the chicken or the egg or the tree falling with no one to hear it.

I did learn that Satre hung out at the Cafe de Flor in Paris and if I make it I will ponder the great questions over more drinks than he typically did. This book was entertaining. It did have a moving plot twist. I got out of it what I expected but not much more. I would give 3.5 stars if I had the chance but since I don't it's 3 stars for me.

If you liked it more I am happy for you. Good luck to all of you on your quests for Grails and metaphysical certitude, unless you are my asshole philosophy professor that is.

[slowtime · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much belly button lint in here for my taste. This book helped clarify for me that I’m much more interested in the whats and hows of existence than the why of it.

Also, I was pretty skeezed out by the depiction of Lolla, David Deutsch’s teenaged...girlfriend? daughter?...who ate macaroni and cheese and gazed “adoringly” at Deutsch while he and Holt discussed their Very Deep Thoughts. I’m pretty sure her presence for that discussion was described in the book as a way to add human texture to an abstract subject, but that texture rubbed me so wrong that I felt compelled to scan the index and confirm: no female philosophers, physicists, or novelists were consulted in the writing of this book.

Not that I would have gotten anything more out of women’s belly button lint, but still. Sigh.

[Kyle Muntz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice, well written survey of contemporary metaphysics/science, mostly trying to explain "why there is something rather than nothing". It's more engaging than most surveys, with some nice cameos by prominent scientists/philosophers, and less shallow than most things aimed at a general audience. Because of my background, the philosophy felt a little basic, but a lot of the physics were engaging and new, and seeing them together was a nice treat. Like most metaphysics surveys, it spent a while grappling with the Christian god but fortunately didn't take long before dismissing the idea (though Holt did it with tact I guess which might help some readers). Altogether: this is nice and worth checking out, and there's probably a lot for you here unless you're a specialist in both physics and metaphysics... which, well, I doubt many people are, and even then it might do a good job summarizing and contextualizing a lot of the major issues. Apparently the NYTimes reviewed it well and I can definitely understand why; this book isn't an end in itself or anything, but it really stands out especially compared to similar books that try the same thing and don't do nearly as good a job.

[Julio Pino · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Let the world die. At least it will be out of its misery." Humphrey Bogart, CASABLANCA. Jim Holt is not satisfied with this answer and tackles the ultimate question for us all: Why is there something rather than nothing? Along the way, we meet the usual theists ("God is the simplest answer") to astrophysicists: The universe does not feature a condition called nothing, so why shouldn't the world exist? The witty conversations in this book will have you pondering DEEP THOUGHTS for months or years.

[Ericka Clou · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the approach of asking both religious scholars and scientists the same question about the universe and getting their different perspectives on both the answer and the question itself. I like how differently even the scientists he chose to interview see things from one another.

I read a fair bit of physics for laymen books, so I wonder how people that don't might follow the physicists in the book, but it didn't seem overly complicated to me.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually more like 4.5. Engaging and thoughtful and deftly told (probably all these adjectives are used in the blurbs, but in this case they're accurate). Anyhow, it's fascinating stuff. Holt reminds us philosophy can be fun, too. Three cheers for deep thought and wild conjecture!

[Taras Dmytrus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Чудова книжка, автор з різних точок зору досліджує чому є щось а не ніщо. Він це робить в цікавий спосіб ніби справді якийсь детектив де він проводить інтервʼю з людьми експертами в різних сферах (часто філософами) з різними поглядами на це питання. Було дуже цікаво і пізнавально

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Philosophy meets physics, with a sprinkling of religion thrown in.

I wanted to give this book a higher rating, but its content was so far above my head that I found it a real slog to get through. The later chapters were a little easier to understand but not by much. People smarter than me would rate it higher.

What was impressive was the amount of knowledge the author has on the subject and the extent of the research he went through to write the book. Even though I understood so little of the text, I could tell the chapters were well-organized with good progression through the subject at hand.

[Senni Oksanen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kirjan aihe on mitä mielenkiintoisin ja koen saaneeni kirjasta paljon uusia ajatuksentynkiä irti! Valitettavasti kuitenkin varsinkin kirjan keskiosa täyttyy kappaleista, joista muodostuu iso, muodoton möykky, joka pyörii jumalakysymyksen äärellä - toisaalta, miten tällaiseen kysymykseen voi vastata ilman jumalaa tai muuta vastaavaa.

Ehkä en vain ole tarpeeksi filosofinen vatvomaan mahdollisia skenaarioita, joiden pohjana on aivotoiminnan tuottamat lauseet vailla mitään punaista lankaa (jatkuvat filosofiset pohdinnat asian ympäriltä tuntuivat pitkästyttäviltä). Nauratti lisäksi se, miten kirja tuntui olevan monesta asiasta eri mieltä kanssani, mutta sen selittänee keittiöfilosofian tutkintoni.

Kuitenkin rakastin kirjan alku- ja loppuosaa ja mielestäni kirja oli kaiken kaikkiaan hyvä. Minuus- ja kuolemakysymykset sekä matemaattinen taivas olivat varsinkin mieleeni.