TED Talk - Jim Holt: Why Does the Universe Exist?

Jim Holt is one of those atheist, elitist, commie pinko scum, you know, a scientist. And in this TED Talk he offers some observations on why the world exists, after dismissing the "God + nothing = the universe" equation. Did God wonder where he came from and why?

Anyway, Holt offers an entertaining talk. He is the author of Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story (2012).

Jim Holt: Why does the universe exist?

Filmed March 2014 at TED2014


Why is there something instead of nothing? In other words: Why does the universe exist (and why are we in it)? Philosopher and writer Jim Holt follows this question toward three possible answers. Or four. Or none.

In his 2012 book Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story, Jim Holt creates a narrative out of one of the biggest questions we can ask -- and how modern scientists and philosophers are asking it. Can answers be found in many-worlds theory, in quantum mechanics, in a theology? Traveling around North America and Europe, he talks to physicists, including David Deutsch; philosophers, including Richard Swinburne; and the novelist John Updike. Why? Because as he tells Vanity Fair, "To me it’s the most sublime and awesome question in all of philosophy and all of human inquiry."

A longtime contributor to the New York Times, Slate, and the New Yorker, Holt has written on string theory, time, infinity, numbers, humor, logic, truth and bullshit, among other topics. Holt studied mathematics at the University of Virginia, and was a faculty fellow in the philosophy department at Columbia. He is now at work on a book about free will, weakness of will, self-knowledge and happiness.

Transcript