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

from chaosmogony

Holt took an interesting approach with this book, combining a serious, if somewhat light-hearted, philosophical inquiry into a profound metaphysical question with a non-fiction style situated between autobiography and travelogue. The question is "why is there something rather than nothing?" Holt ...

from TheAmpersand

I tried to be a philosophy for a few semesters at college, but I was never much good at it, so I picked up "Why Does the World Exist" with a certain sense of sadness. The ideas inside are indeed as complicated as the title would suggest: the simplest thoughts here can seem both knotty and positiv...

from jrcovey

Jim Holt's "existential detective story" is really less detective story, more intellectual travelogue about the most basic and intractable question. It turns out to be an excellent framing; his stories of meeting and interviewing this series of leading thinkers bring some levity and context to th...

from mykl-s

This is a book I enjoyed skimming - and reading reviews of - and writing a few notes about. It is about the question why there is something rather than nothing, and reconfirmed my own thought/feeling that I'm just not interested in that question. It's not a real question. It gets lost in trying t...

from neurodrew

Jim Holt seems to be a fellow one would enjoy knowing. He enjoys good food and drink, and has, improbably, the ability to travel to Paris, London, Oxford, Texas at a moment's notice to talk with philosophers and scientists about the fact of existence. The real question he asks is: why is there so...