Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story (37 page)

256
“When I enter”: David Hume,
A Treatise of Human Nature
(Oxford University Press, 1888), p. 252.

257
“selves are not”: Dennett,
Consciousness Explained
, p. 423.

257
“There simply isn’t any ‘I’ ”: Galen Strawson,
Selves: An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics
(Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 246.

257
“I may understand”: Nagel,
View from Nowhere
, p. 42.

258
“I think there is a pain”: Charles Dickens,
Hard Times
(Oxford World’s Classics, 2008), p. 185.

258
“the most monstrous contradiction”: Quoted in
The Oxford Companion to Philosophy
, ed. Ted Honderich (Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 817.

258
“The I is not an object”: Wittgenstein,
Notebooks, 1914–1916
, p. 80.

260
“only a conventional name”: Quoted in Parfit,
Reasons and Persons
, p. 52

260
“in the most deplorable condition”: Hume,
Treatise on Human Nature
, p. 269.

260
“liberating and consoling”: Derek Parfit,
Reasons and Persons
(Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 280.

261
“with great hesitation”: Nozick,
Philosophical Explanations
, p. 87ff.

261
“All art, religion”: Roger Scruton,
Modern Philosophy
(Penguin, 1994), p. 484.

262
“The objective world”: Edmund Husserl,
Cartesian Meditations
, trans. Dorion Cairns (Martinus Nijhoff, 1970), p. 26.

263
“How can I”: Nagel,
View from Nowhere
, p. 61.

263
“What kind of a fact”: Ibid., p. 54.

263
“the world soul in”: Ibid., p. 61

263
“the additional thought”: Ibid., p. 60.

265
“Amazement that the universe”: Ibid., p. 56.

15. Return to Nothingness

266
“It is entirely impossible”: Quoted in Paul Edwards, “My Death,” in
The Encyclopedia of Philosophy
, ed. Paul Edwards (Macmillan, 1967), vol. 5, p. 416.

267
“Not the least”: Quoted in Simon Critchley,
The Book of Dead Philosophers
(Vintage, 2009), p. 176.

267
“If we are to make sense”: Thomas Nagel,
Mortal Questions
(Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 4.

267
“It is not that death”: Richard Wollheim,
The Thread of Life
(Yale University Press, 1999), p. 269.

268
“I must confess”: Miguel de Unamuno,
Tragic Sense of Life
, trans. Anthony Kerrigan (Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 49.

268
“ownmost death”: Mark Johnston,
Surviving Death
(Princeton University Press, 2010), p. 138.

269
“my existence seems”: Nagel,
View from Nowhere
, p. 228.

269
“That is all there is”: Parfit,
Reasons and Persons
, p. 280.

269
“Awakened to life”: Quoted in Scruton,
Modern Philosophy
, p. 378.

270
“We are not at home”: Ibid., p. 464.

Epilogue

277
book-chat show: The television program was
Bouillon de Culture
. The Dominican priest was Jacques Arnould, the physicist was Jean Heidmann (who died in 2000), and the Buddhist monk was Matthieu Ricard.

Index

Abraham, prophet, 65

absolute nothingness, 21–22, 46–47, 50, 52, 54–59, 69

Aga Khan, 88

agent causation, 211

alienation, 270

Allen, Woody, 214, 226, 244

All Worlds possibility, 238, 240–41

Amis, Martin, 10–11, 246

Analysis of Matter, The
(Russell), 188, 193

Anarchy, State, and Utopia
(Nozick), 28

Anaximander, 19

animism, 194

Anselm, Saint, 92, 104, 105, 110–16, 157

anthropic principle, 98, 156, 158, 166, 207, 243

anxiety, 43

Appearance and Reality
(Bradley), 47

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

Aristotle, 9, 19, 51, 73, 81, 109, 133, 193, 217, 248

on explanatory chain, 131–32

final cause notion of, 211

reality doctrine of, 186

artificial intelligence (AI), 127, 179

Ascending and Descending
(Escher), 174

atheism, 5, 7, 13, 26, 72

Athenaeum Club, 221–22, 227

Atkins, Peter, 39, 93, 246

atoms, 187–88

atonement, doctrine of, 102–3

Augustine, Saint, 68

axiarchism, 33, 198, 224, 234, 254

causation and, 211–12

cosmic possibilities and, 224, 226

ethical need for, 199–203, 205–6, 209–10

of Leslie, 198–200, 202, 205–6, 208–9

Mackie on, 205–6

multiverse and, 207–8

of Plato, 198–99, 203, 208

problem of evil and, 212–13

Axiom of Foundation, 238

Ayer, A. J. “Freddy,” 24

Bantus, 18–19

Barth, Karl, 42–43, 244–45

theology of, 244–47, 251–52

Barthes, Roland, 189

Bayes’s theorem, 93

BBC, 24, 26

Beatles, 88

Beckett, Samuel, 31

Becoming, 218–19

Being, 8, 10–11, 61–62, 68, 72, 77, 160–61, 203, 243, 246

Becoming and, 218–19

Hegel’s doctrine of, 216–18

nothingness and, 215, 218, 227

Being and Nothingness
(Sartre), 3, 43, 216

Bell Labs, 26

Bergson, Henri, 22, 46–49, 54

Berlin, Isaiah, 124

Bhagavad Gita,
86–87

Bieberbach, Ludwig, 65–66

Bierce, Ambrose, 279

Big Bang, 4, 6, 9, 25, 55, 83–84, 97, 128, 145, 146, 155, 168, 173, 211, 224, 278

cosmic background radiation and, 13–14, 144

existence and, 74–75

false vacuum and, 218–19

God and, 25–26

Grünbaum on, 70–72

infinity at moment of, 139

nothingness and, 55

and origin of the universe, 26–27

quantum theory and, 144

singularity and, 139

time and, 71–72, 74–75

universe prior to, 70–71

Why?
question and, 26–27

Big Bounce, 83

Big Crunch, 27, 81, 83, 123

black hole, 35, 173, 189

Block, Ned, 192

Bohm, David, 26

Bondi, Hermann, 83

Boswell, James, 266–67

Boubal, Monsieur, 216–17

boundary conditions, 156

Bradley, F. H., 47–48

British Journal for the Philosophy of Science,
93

bubble universes, 166–69

Buddhism, 31, 36, 65, 260–70

and nature of reality, 278–79

Budé, Guillaume, 276

Burnyeat, Myles, 44

Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 123, 213

calculus, 20, 38, 90

Camus, Albert, 213

Candide
(Voltaire), 9, 20

Cantor, Georg, 35, 182

Carlyle, Thomas, 32

Carnap, Rudolf, 44

Carroll, Lewis, 44

catastrophe theory, 172

Catholic Church, 26, 82

causation, 211–12

Chalmers, David, 194

chaotic inflation, theory of, 12–16, 84, 197

background radiation and, 250

multiverse and, 166, 168–70

charge conservation, law of, 53–54

Cheever, John, 274

chemistry, 77–78, 208

Chesterton, G. K., 247

Church Dogmatics
(Barth), 42

Cioran, E. M., 31, 213

Clarke, Samuel, 109

COBE satellite, 14, 144

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 41, 46, 87

Combination Problem, 195–96

comprehensibility, principle of, 127–28

Connes, Alain, 172

consciousness, 8, 22, 35, 127, 177, 210, 263, 270

artificial intelligence and, 127

Grünbaum on, 73

matter and, 73

nothingness and, 43, 46–48, 56

Penrose on, 174–75, 178, 185

panpsychism and, 194–96

reality and, 190–94

self as subject of, 257–58

unity of, 195–96, 200

Updike on, 250–51

conservation, laws of, 54

constants, 15, 98, 156–57, 207–8

Copernicus, Nicolaus, 25

Copleston, Frederick, 24

cosmic background radiation, 26–27, 83–84, 165

Big Bang and, 13–14, 144

inflation theory and, 250

multiverse and, 165, 168

“cosmic bootstrap,” 246

cosmic censorship hypothesis, 173

cosmic structuralism, 189

cosmogony, 19–20

cosmological constant, 82–83, 156–57

Creation, The
(Haydn), 33

creation myths, 18–20

Creative Evolution
(Bergson), 22

Crick, Francis, 174–75

Danto, Arthur, 17, 174

Darwin, Charles, 5, 126

Davies, Paul, 164–65, 167–68

Dawkins, Richard, 5–6, 63, 66–67, 77, 93, 97, 100, 111, 113, 116, 122, 202–3, 255

Dead of Night
(film), 83

death, 266–75

of author’s dog, 151–53

of author’s mother, 270–75

Buddhist view of, 269–70

fear of, 266–67, 268

and prospect of nothingness, 268–69, 270

Death of a Salesman
(Miller), 249–50

de Beauvoir, Simone, 91, 216–17

Dedekind, Richard, 40

Dennett, Daniel, 192, 257

Dependency Axiom, 68

De Rerum Natura
(Lucretius), 266

Descartes, René, 8, 56–57, 68, 89–92, 104, 111, 129, 196, 253

pronoun “I” of, 256–57, 260–61

Deutsch, David, 120–31, 164

background of, 120–21

compatibility theory of, 121–22

on nature of explanation, 126–27

Turing principle of, 123

universal computer and, 121–22

on
Why?
question, 125–26

Devil’s Dictionary, The
(Bierce), 196, 279

DeWitt, Bryce, 121

dialectical materialism, 26

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
(Hume), 10, 84–85

Dickens, Charles, 258

Dirac’s equation, 74

DNA, 255

Donne, John, 42

Douglas, Jimmy, 88–89

Dreams of a Final Theory
(Weinberg), 146, 160

Dreyfus affair, 29

Dunciad, The
(Pope), 171

Dyson, Freeman, 147, 252

Eddington, Arthur, 26, 189, 193

Einstein, Albert, 25, 26, 27, 34, 48, 50, 51, 66, 74, 139, 141–42, 144–45, 183, 189, 195

cosmological constant of, 82–83, 156–57

electromagnetism, 78, 146, 208

Elements
(Euclid), 181

Elizabeth II, Queen of England, 173

Emperor’s New Mind, The
(Penrose), 174

End of the World, The
(Leslie), 198

energy, 51, 75, 183, 188

in closed universe, 141–42

uncertainty principle and, 141

entanglement, notion of, 195–96, 198

entropy, 61, 166, 252

Escher, M. C., 174

Ethics
(Spinoza), 205

Euclid, 181

event causation, 211

event horizon, 173

Everett, Hugh, III, 121, 169

evil, 202

axiarchism and, 212–13

privative theory of, 212

Spinoza’s view of, 213–14

Swinburne on, 102

evolution, theory of, 6, 122, 126

existence, 4, 30–31, 33, 126, 132, 138, 155, 211, 254

Big Bang and, 74–75

causation and, 211–12

as cause of itself, 34–35

cosmic structuralism and, 192–93

ethical need for, 209–10

God question and, 10–11

Grünbaum on, 64, 66–69

Indispensability Argument and, 183–84

literary world’s view of, 31–32

mathematics and, 8–9, 183–84, 254

monism and, 196

monotheistic religions and, 34

and need for goodness, 199–200, 203

ontological argument and, 112–13

Platonism and, 182

principle of fecundity and, 28

quantum theory and, 128–29, 157–58

rejectionists and, 28–29

Schopenhauer on, 21–22, 30–31

scientific explanation of, 5–6, 25

Selector for, 226, 228, 232–36

Steady-State Universe and, 83

Wittgenstein on, 33–34

existentialism, 3–4, 8, 188, 274

nothingness and, 31–32, 43–44, 149–50

Fabric of Reality, The
(Deutsch), 122–23, 129

fact causation, 211–12

Faraday, Michael, 187

fecundity, principle of, 135–36, 159, 182

logical defect of, 159–60

Weinberg on, 159–60

Fermat, Pierre de, 37, 65, 152

Feynman, Richard, 76, 120–21, 167, 172, 183, 189

Fibonacci, Leonardo, 37

Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 261–62

Field, Hartry, 184

final cause, notion of, 211

first cause,
see
God

First Three Minutes, The
(Weinberg), 146, 163

Flashdance
(film), 64

Foundation, Principle of, 237–38, 239–42

France, 90, 188

Fredkin, Ed, 190

free will, 127

God and, 102

Freud, Sigmund, 30, 266

Friedmann, Alexander, 83

Fuller, Margaret, 32

functionalism, theory of, 191

Galileo Galilei, 25, 51, 82, 172–73

Gamow, George, 142

Gardner, Martin, 164, 167–68

Gaunilo of Marmoutier, 113

Gell-Mann, Murray, 167

genes, 255

Genesis, Book of, 19–20, 67, 97

George I, King of England, 20

Germany, 64, 65

Ghazālī, al-, 81–82

Gingerich, Owen, 6–7

Gnostics, 34

God, 65, 85, 155, 157, 180, 185, 204, 233, 242, 278

as Absolute Idea, 219

and argument from design, 101

in Ayer-Copleston debate, 24

Barth’s view of, 244–45, 251–52

Big Bang and, 25–26

in book of Genesis, 19

as brute fact, 105–6, 108

as cause of himself (
causa sui
), 108–9

in Christian dogma, 67–68

cosmological argument for, 109–10, 119

and doctrine of atonement, 102–3

ethical need for, 199–200, 205–6

and existence of life, 77

and expansion of universe, 25–26

free will and, 102

goodness and, 101–2

Leslie on, 204–5

as necessity, 104–5, 109–10, 116–17

as omnipotent, 102, 105–6

ontological argument for,
see
ontological argument

Platonism and, 173

Russell on, 254

Saint Anselm’s reasoning for, 110–15, 116

Sartre’s view of, 90–91

self and,
see
self

Spinoza’s view of, 34, 204–5

Swinburne on, 92–93, 95–106, 204

timelessness and, 103

universe and, 5–7, 21, 67–68

Updike on, 251–52

Weinberg on, 155

Why?
question and, 4–8

God Delusion, The
(Dawkins), 63, 93, 111

Gödel, Kurt, 115, 117, 172

incompleteness theorem of, 174, 179

“God’s Universe” (Gingerich), 6–7

Goethe, Johann von, 266

Gold, Thomas, 83

Goncharov, Ivan, 254

goodness, 201–2, 210, 213, 238

existence and, 199–200, 203

God and, 101–2

as Selector, 227–28

truth and, 211

gravity, 15, 78, 139, 145, 162, 184

“Great Chain of Being” (Lovejoy), 7

Greece, ancient, 19, 36, 60–61, 68

Greene, Brian, 231

Gribbin, John, 140

Grünbaum, Adolf, 63–73, 75, 77, 78–80, 93, 103–4

antipathy to theism of, 63–64

background of, 64–66

on Big Bang, 70–72

on consciousness, 73

existence question and, 64, 66–69

on nothingness, 69–70

Swinburne on, 95–96

Grünbaum, Thelma, 79

Guth, Alan, 14, 142

Hard Times
(Dickens), 258

Hardy, G. H., 181

Hawking, Stephen, 5, 28, 50, 66–67, 139–40, 145, 155–56, 161, 163, 167, 173, 209

Haydn, Franz Joseph, 33

Heath, Peter, 46

Heckmann, Otto, 26

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 22, 65, 216–20, 261, 270

Heidegger, Martin, 3–4, 22–23, 30, 46, 66–67, 69, 204, 235, 248, 274

on nothingness, 43

on
Why?
question, 17–18

Heisenberg, Werner, 10, 140–41, 163, 188

Heraclitus, 19

Higgs field, 51

History of Ideas, 17

Hitchens, Christopher, 5, 229

Hitler, Adolf, 22

Holocaust, 93

Hostage Chess (game), 198

Hoyle, Fred, 26, 83

Hubble, Edwin, 25

Hubble space telescope, 250

Hume, David, 10, 21, 24, 84–85, 210, 267, 269

self as viewed by, 256–57, 258, 260

Husserl, Edmund, 261, 262

Hutchinson, Sara “Asra,” 41

Hutton, Barbara, 88

Huxley, Julian, 138

hylomorphism, 186

Immortality Defended
(Leslie), 198

incompleteness theorem, 174, 179

Indispensability Argument, 183–84

infinity, 35, 60, 99, 254

at moment of Big Bang, 139

information, 61, 189–90

Introduction to Metaphysics
(Heidegger), 3–4

Islam:

creation doctrine of, 19–20

temporal nature of world in, 81–82

Is There a God?
(Swinburne), 92