Why Does the World Exist?

Why Does the World Exist: An Existential Detective Story (2012) is a non-fiction book by American essayist Jim Holt. Based on a series of interviews with philosophers and scientists, the book offers an overview of the various solutions which have been proposed to the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Holt writes on philosophical, scientific and mathematical subjects for the New Yorker and other publications. Why Does the World Exist was a finalist for the 2012 National Book Critics’ Circle Award.

Holt’s narrative is structured as a “detective story,” an investigation into a mystery that has always haunted him: Why does the universe exist? “I cannot help feeling astonished that I exist, that the universe has come to produce these very thoughts now bubbling up in my stream of consciousness.”

His investigation begins with a history of the question. He finds that although ancient Greek and Roman philosophers puzzled over the fundamental nature of the universe (Thales thought it was fundamentally made of water; Heraclitus fire), they didn’t ask the question of why there is a universe at all. This question was first posed in 1714, when the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz wrote: “The first question which we have a right to ask will be, ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’” His answer was: “The sufficient reason [for the universe] is found in a substance which...is a necessary being bearing the reason for its existence within itself.”



Many subsequent philosophers avoided the question: Wittgenstein wrote of his awe at the fact of existence but decided not to make it part of his philosophy. Others put it at the core of their thinking. Holt quotes George Steiner’s description of Heidegger as “the great master of astonishment, the man whose amazement before the blank fact that we are instead of not being, has put a radiant obstacle in the path of the obvious.”

When his reading in the philosophical history of the topic proves unsatisfactory, Holt takes inspiration from something the novelist Martin Amis once said: “We’re at least five Einsteins away from answering [the question of existence].” Holt wonders if one—or more—of these Einsteins might not already be at work. He resolves to find “one, or maybe two or three or even four of them, and then sort of arrange them in the right order…well, that would be an excellent quest.”

Holt’s first such “Einstein” is the philosopher of science Adolf Grünbaum, who responds to Holt’s question with a challenging question of his own: Why be astonished that the universe exists? Grünbaum argues that this astonishment rests on an assumption that for nothing to exist would somehow be more natural or more likely. For Grünbaum, the question itself is therefore flawed, the product of a misunderstanding. Holt accepts that this argument is hard to defeat, but he also finds it unsatisfying.



Next Holt meets the Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne, a Christian apologist who argues that the Christian account of the universe’s creation by God is logically coherent and necessary. While impressed by the consistency of Swinburne’s reasoning, Holt is left with too many unanswered (or unanswerable) questions to sign up to his theory.

To tackle the theory that there are many universes, Holt consults the British physicist David Deutsch. For Deutsch, the most consistent explanation of quantum theory involves the hypothesis that there are very many—perhaps infinite—universes. Holt notes that this theory has the advantage that it provides a solution to the so-called “Goldilocks Problem,” which asks how the minutely exact conditions necessary for conscious life could have arisen by chance. In the “many-worlds” model, our universe is simply the lucky one among a myriad of universes that do not harbor life.

However, Deutsch’s theory does not solve the question of why multiple universes exist in the first place. Next Holt turns to the physicist Alex Vilenkin, whose scientific definition of nothing excites Holt: “Imagine spacetime has the surface of a sphere…Now suppose that this sphere is shrinking like a balloon that is losing its air. The radius grows smaller and smaller. Eventually—try to imagine this—the radius goes all the way to zero.” But while Vilenkin argues convincingly that everything which exists could be generated from a very small amount of matter, he does not explain how matter exists at all.



Another physicist, Steven Weinberg, argues that Holt’s question is insoluble for now—but might be solved when physics can formulate a coherent and total explanation of matter and energy.

The mathematician and physicist Roger Penrose takes as his starting point the puzzle that reality appears to obey mathematical laws, which mathematicians discover through reason alone before they are empirically verified. He argues that “Platonic objects”—the pure objects of mathematics—may pre-exist matter. If so, these objects and their laws may create matter of necessity.

Holt returns to the philosophers, exploring John Leslie’s argument that the universe exists because it is good for it to exist and Derek Parfit’s argument that the only logically consistent basis for existence is an abstractly self-cognizant, formless consciousness.



Holt’s final interview is with the novelist John Updike, who wonders whether “God created the world out of boredom? Well, Aquinas said that God made the world ‘in play.’ In play. In a playful spirit he made the world. That, to me, seems closer to the truth…Could God then have suffered boredom to the point that he made the universe? That makes reality seem almost a piece of light verse.”

The final chapters consider the mystery of existence from the angle of personal existence, discussing Thomas Nagel’s writings on the mystery of “selfhood,” together with some reflections on death prompted by the final illness of Holt’s mother, whom he witnesses making “the infinitesimal transition from being to nothingness.”