Why Does The World Exist? One Man's Quest For The Big Answer By ...

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Proving Lovell wrong … the astrophysicist at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire. Photograph: Phil Noble/PA
Proving Lovell wrong … the astrophysicist at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire. Photograph: Phil Noble/PA
Philosophy books This article is more than 12 years oldReviewWhy Does the World Exist? One Man's Quest for the Big Answer by Jim Holt – reviewThis article is more than 12 years oldAn elegant and enlightening book that takes the reader on an absorbing journey through the physics, philosophy and religion of existencePD SmithFri 5 Jul 2013 17.32 BSTSharePrefer the Guardian on Google

"Don't worry about why there's a world – it's an ill-conceived question!" That's the philosopher of science Adolf Grünbaum's advice to Jim Holt. He may well be right. But in his attempt to explore this question, Holt takes us on an absorbing journey through the physics, philosophy and religion of existence. Along the way he talks to people who have spent their lives mulling the nature of being and nothingness. Physicist Andrei Linde tells him it's not that difficult to create a universe: it might be possible "to cook up a new universe in a laboratory". Richard Swinburne tries (and fails) to convince him that "the simplest hypothesis" explaining life, the universe and everything is the one that posits God. By contrast, David Deutsch tells Holt that "the very concept of existence is a complex one that needs to be unpacked". Cosmologist John Leslie speculates that "goodness can be responsible for existence". The astrophysicist Sir Bernard Lovell once said that trying to explain why there is something rather than nothing could "tear the individual's mind asunder". Holt's elegant and enlightening book suggests he was wrong.

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