Book Review: Schulz on Jim Holt’s Why Does the World Exist?
"Why can’t we figure out how the universe began? To help answer that question, Holt hauls out the oft-told tale of the cosmological turtle. In case you haven’t heard it, the gist is this. A famous professor is giving a lecture about the nature of the universe when an elderly woman stands up and tells him he’s talking nonsense: The universe, as everyone knows, rests on the back of an elephant. “Oh?” replies the professor. “And what’s the elephant standing on?” “A turtle,” the woman explains. “I see,” the professor says. “And what’s the turtle standing on?” “Another turtle,” she replies. “And what’s that turtle standing on?” he asks. “Ah, professor.” She smiles. “After that, it’s turtles all the way down.”
That is the problem of existence in a tortoise shell. An account of the origins of the universe is called a cosmogony—but no cosmogony can be complete, because they all invoke entities that themselves require explanation. If, for instance, you believe in divine creation, you need to explain the existence of the divine. To argue that God needs no explanation or is an uncaused cause doesn’t solve the problem; it just assigns the name “God” to the mysterious, unsupported turtle at the base of the ontological heap. Science, too, gets stuck here. “A scientific explanation must involve some sort of physical cause,” Holt writes. “But any physical cause is by definition part of the universe to be explained.” Philosophy is similarly stumped. “From nothing to being,” James wrote, “there is no logical bridge.”"
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