Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story (35 page)

Notes

1. Confronting the Mystery

5
“Time and again”: Richard Dawkins,
The God Delusion
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006), p. 184.

5
“Maybe the ‘inflation’ ”: Dawkins,
God Delusion
, p. 185.

5
“What is it that breathes”: Stephen Hawking,
A Brief History of Time
(Bantam Books, 1998), p. 190.

6
“No scientific theory”: Henry Margenau and Roy Abraham Varghese,
Cosmos, Bios, Theos
(Open Court, 1992), p. 11.

7
“would have no stability”: Arthur O. Lovejoy,
The Great Chain of Being
(Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 168.

9
“a prejudice as deep-rooted”: Nicholas Rescher,
The Riddle of Existence
(University Press of America, 1994), p. 17.

10
“Is it not probable”: David Hume,
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
(Hafner, 1948), p. 60.

12
“All of us”: William James,
Some Problems of Philosophy
(Longmans, Green, 1911), p. 46.

2. Philosophical Tour d’Horizon

17
“the darkest in all”: James,
Some Problems of Philosophy
, p. 46.

17
“tear the individual’s”: A. C. B. Lovell,
The Individual and the Universe
(Mentor, 1961), p. 125.

17
“constitutes one of”: Lovejoy,
Great Chain of Being
, p. 329.

17
“grazed by its hidden power”: Martin Heidegger,
An Introduction to Metaphysics
(Yale University Press, 1959), p. 1.

18
“The lower a man”: Arthur Schopenhauer,
The World as Will and Representation
(Dover, 1966), vol. 2, p. 161.

19
“It has always”: John Colapinto, “The Interpreter,”
The New Yorker
, April 16, 2007, p. 125.

20
“This principle having”: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz,
Philosophical Papers and Letters
, ed. Leroy E. Loemker (University of Chicago Press, 1956), vol. 2, p. 1038.

21
“Whatever we can”: Hume,
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
, p. 58.

22
“the balance wheel”: Schopenhauer,
World as Will
, p. 171.

22
“fools”: Ibid., p. 185.

22
“the main function”: Friedrich Schelling, quoted in
The Oxford Companion to Philosophy
, ed. Ted Honderich (Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 800.

22
“the vanishing of being”: G. F. W. Hegel,
The Logic of Hegel
, trans. William Wallace (Clarendon Press, 1892), p. 167.

22
“spice-seller’s explanations”: Søren Kierkegaard,
Concluding Unscientific Postscript
, trans. David F. Swenson and Walter Lowrie (Princeton University Press, 1968), p. 104.

22
“I want to know”: Henri Bergson,
Creative Evolution
, trans. A. Mitchell (Modern Library, 1944), pp. 299–301.

22
“deepest”: Martin Heidegger,
Introduction to Metaphysics
, p. 2.

23
“being able to ask”: Ibid., p. 206.

23
“Aesthetically, the miracle”: Ludwig Wittgenstein,
Notebooks, 1914–1916
, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Harper Torchbook, 1969), p. 86.

24
“the ultimate ontological”: Quoted in A. J. Ayer,
The Meaning of Life
(Scribner, 1990), p. 23.

24
“Supposing”: A. J. Ayer,
The Meaning of Life
(Scribner, 1990), p. 24.

24
“incredibly shallow”: Quoted in Ray Monk,
Ludwig Wittgenstein
(Free Press, 1990), p. 543.

25
“I should say”: Quoted in John Hick,
The Existence of God
(Collier, 1964), p. 175.

25
“to that primordial”: Address of Pope Pius XII to the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences, November 22, 1951.

25
“scientists who effectively”: Quoted in F. David Peat,
Infinite Potential
(Perseus, 1996), p. 145.

25
“Some younger scientists”: Quoted in Hans Küng,
Credo
(Doubleday, 1993), p. 17.

25
“the notion of a beginning” Quoted in Helge Kragh,
Cosmology and Controversy
(Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 46.

25
“a party girl”: quoted in Jane Gregory,
Fred Hoyle’s Universe
(Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 39.

27
“If the universe”: Quoted in Margenau and Varghese,
Cosmos, Bios, Theos
, p. 5.

28
“sucking things into”: Robert Nozick,
Philosophical Explanations
(Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 123.

28
“Someone who proposes”: Ibid., p. 116.

29
“in philosophy”: Marcel Proust,
In Search of Lost Time
, trans. D. J. Enright et al. (Modern Library, 2003), vol. 3, p. 325.

29
“were asking one”: Timothy Williamson, in
Proceedings of the 2004 St. Andrews Conference on Realism and Truth
, ed. P. Greenough and M. Lynch (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

30
“from nothing to”: James,
Some Problems of Philosophy
, p. 40.

31
“philosophy, like the overture”: Schopenhauer,
World as Will
, p. 171.

31
“When you have understood”: Quoted in John Updike,
Hugging the Shore
(Vintage Books, 1984), p. 601.

31
“choked with rage”: Jean-Paul Sartre,
Nausea
, trans. Lloyd Alexander (New Directions, 1964), p. 134.

32
“a vacuum is a hell”: Quoted in John D. Barrow,
New Theories of Everything
(Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 93.

32
“looked around the ring”: John Updike,
Bech
(Fawcett, 1965), p. 131.

32
“He believed, if”: Ibid., p. 175.

34
“I believe in Spinoza’s”: Quoted in
Einstein for the 21st Century
, ed. Peter Galison et al. (Princeton University Press, 2008), p. 37.

35
“I see it”: Quoted in Joseph W. Dauben,
Georg Cantor
(Harvard University Press, 1979), p. 55.

35
“He who has not”: Quoted in
The Encyclopedia of Philosophy
, ed. Paul Edwards (Macmillan, 1967) vol. 8, p. 302.

Interlude: The Arithmetic of Nothingness

39
“Opposites”: P. W. Atkins,
The
Creation
(W. H. Freeman, 1981), p. 111.

40
“a little speck of”: David K. Lewis,
Parts of Classes
(Blackwell, 1991), p. 13.

3. A Brief History of Nothing

41
“
nothing
(n.)”:
Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language
, ed. David B. Guralnik (William Collins, 1976), p. 973.

41
“simpler and easier”: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz,
Philosophical Papers and Letters
, ed. Leroy E. Loemker (University of Chicago Press, 1956), vol. 2, p. 1038.

42
“The less anything is”:
The Works of John Donne
, vol. 6, ed. Henry Alford (John W. Parker, 1839), p. 155.

42
“that which God”: Quoted in John Updike,
Picked-Up Pieces
(Fawcett, 1966), p. 97.

43
“Nothingness haunts being”: Jean-Paul Sartre,
Being and Nothingness
, trans. Hazel E. Barnes (Philosophical Library, 1956), p. 11.

43
“fullness of being”: Ibid., p. 9.

43
“
Anxiety reveals
”: Martin Heidegger,
Basic Writings
, ed. David Farrell Krell (HarperCollins, 1993), p. 101.

43
“Nothing is neither”: Quoted in John Passmore,
One Hundred Years of Philosophy
(Penguin, 1968), p. 477.

44
“a vacuum force”: Nozick,
Philosophical Explanations
, p. 123.

44
“By the time”: Myles Burnyeat, review of Nozick’s
Philosophical Explanations
,
Times Literary Supplement
, October 15, 1982, p. 1136.

44
“venerable and awesome”: Plato,
Theaetetus
, 183e, in
The Collected Dialogues of Plato
, ed. Edith Hamilton et al. (Princeton University Press, 1961), p. 888.

46
“There is just”: Bede Rundle,
Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing
(Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 113.

46
“an embroidery on”: Bergson,
Creative Evolution
, p 278.

47
“In order for me”: A. Luria,
The Mind of a Mnemonist
(Avon, 1969), pp. 131–132.

49
“Our attempt to”: Rundle,
Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing
, p. 116.

49
“Space is not”: Ibid., p. 111.

58
“strictly meaningless”: Milton K. Munitz,
The Mystery of Existence
(New York University Press, 1974), p. 149.

58
“strictly a technical convenience”: W. V. O. Quine,
Philosophy of Logic
(Prentice-Hall, 1970), p. 53.

59
“a triumph of triviality”: Ibid., p. 54.

61
“Among the great things”: Quoted in Michael J. Gelb,
How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci
(Delacorte Press, 1998), p. 25.

4. The Great Rejectionist

63
“If there is”: Jim Holt, review of Dawkins’s
The God Delusion
,
New York Times Book Review
, October 22, 2006, p. 1.

68
“collapse into non-existence”: Quoted in
A Dictionary of Philosophy
, ed. Antony Flew (St. Martin’s Press, 1984), p. 80.

71
“Absolute, true”: Sir Isaac Newton, “Scholium on Absolute Space and Time,” in
Time
, ed. Jonathan Westphal et al. (Hackett Publishing Co., 1993), p. 37.

72
“profoundest”: J. J. C. Smart,
Our Place in the Universe
(Blackwell, 1989), p. 178.

76
“the truth always”: Richard Feynman,
The Character of a Physical Law
(MIT Press, 1967), p. 171.

76
Suppose you have two equally well-confirmed theories: The example is due to Richard Swinburne.

77
“part of what we mean”: Steven Weinberg,
Dreams of a Final Theory
(Pantheon Books, 1993), p. 149.

77
“any God capable”: Dawkins,
God Delusion
, p. 176.

5. Finite or Infinite?

85
“How can anything”: David Hume,
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
, p. 59.

Interlude: Night Thoughts at the Café de Flore

90
“His movement is”: Sartre,
Being and Nothingness
, p. 59.

92
“The very same criteria”: Richard Swinburne,
Is There a God?
(Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 2.

93
“Why, oh why”: Adolf Grünbaum, “Rejoinder to Richard Swinburne’s ‘Second Reply to Grünbaum,’ ”
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
, vol. 56 (2005), p. 930.

93
“a breathtaking piece”: Dawkins,
God Delusion
, p. 148.

93
“beyond satire”: Ibid., p. 64.

93
“May you rot”: Quoted in ibid., p. 89.

6. The Inductive Theist of North Oxford

99
in a 1989 essay: Richard Swinburne, “Argument from the Fine-Tuning of the Universe,” in
Physical Cosmology and Philosophy
, ed. John Leslie (Macmillan, 1990), p. 158.

106
“vastly improbable”: Richard Swinburne,
The Existence of God
(Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 151.

Interlude: The Supreme Brute Fact

111
“So truly, therefore”: Saint Anselm, “Proslogion,” in
The Ontological Argument
, ed. Alvin Plantinga (Anchor Books, 1965), p. 5.

111
“a charming joke”: Arthur Schopenhauer, “The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason,” in
Ontological Argument
, p. 66.

111
“I remember the precise”:
The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell
, ed. Robert E. Egner et al. (Touchstone, 1961), p. 42.

111
“it is easier”: Bertrand Russell,
A History of Western Philosophy
(Touchstone, 1972), p. 586.

111
“infantile”: Dawkins,
God Delusion
, p. 80.

113
“A hundred real dollars”: Immanuel Kant,
The Critique of Pure Reason
, tr. Norman Kemp Smith (Macmillan, 1929), A599/B627.

113
“lost island”: Gaunilo, “On Behalf of the Fool,” in
Ontological Argument
, p. 11.

115
“purely rationally”: Quoted in Hao Wang,
A Logical Journey
(MIT Press, 1996), p. 105.

115
“tough-minded intellectualism”: “Modernizing the Case for God,”
Time
, April 5, 1980, p. 66.

116
“It breaches no laws”: Alvin Plantinga, “God, Arguments for the Existence of,” in
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
, ed. Edward Craig (Routledge, 1988), vol. 4, p. 88.

118
“a sane and rational”: Alvin Plantinga,
The Nature of Necessity
(Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 220.

118
“The premise that”: J. L. Mackie,
The Miracle of Theism
(Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 61.

118
“Every philosopher would”: Russell,
History of Western Philosophy
, p. 417.

7. The Magus of the Multiverse

120
“Deutsch seems more passionate”: Oliver Morton, “The Computable Cosmos of David Deutsch,”
American Scholar
, Summer 2000, p. 52.

121
“fairly straightforward”: David Deutsch,
The Fabric of Reality
(Penguin, 1997), p. 210.