Why does the world exist? : an existential detective story

Holt, Jim 1954- (Author).

Summary: An irreverent sleuth traces the riddle of existence from the ancient world to modern times. Jim Holt examines our latest efforts to grasp the origins of the universe, contending that we have been too narrow in limiting our suspects to God versus the Big Bang.

Record details

ISBN: 0871404095 (hardcover)
ISBN: 9780871404091 (hardcover)
Physical Description: vi, 309 p. ; 25 cm.
print
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: New York : Liveright Pub. Corp., c2012.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 283-294) and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

A quick proof that there must be something rather than nothing, for modern people who lead busy lives -- Confronting the mystery -- Interlude : Could our world have been created by a hacker? -- Philosophical tour d'horizon -- Interlude : The arithmetic of nothingness -- A brief history of nothing -- The Great Rejectionist -- Finite or infinite? -- Interlude : Night thoughts at the Café de Flore -- The inductive theist of North Oxford -- Interlude : The supreme brute fact -- The Magus of the Multiverse -- Interlude : The end of explanation -- The ultimate free lunch? -- Interlude : Nausea -- Waiting for the final theory -- Interlude : A word on many worlds -- Platonic reflections -- Interlude : It from bit -- "The ethical requiredness of there being something" -- Interlude : An Hegelian in Paris -- The last word from All Souls -- Epistolary interlude : The proof -- The world as a bit of light verse -- The self : do I really exist? -- Return to nothingness -- Over the Seine.