Rationally speaking is a presentation of New York City skeptics dedicated to promoting critical thinking, skeptical inquiry, and science education.

For more information, please visit us at NYC Skeptics.org.

Welcome to Rationally Speaking, the podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense.

I'm your host, Massimo Pilucci, and with me, as always, is my co-host, Julia Galeff.

Julia, I wonder what we're going to talk about today.

Well, Massimo, we are here again live at the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism.

Give everyone at home

and applause. Yeah. See what you're missing? And I'm very excited to welcome our special

guest today. Jim Holt is a science writer and author. He's published several books,

including a history of jokes.

And in 2012, a book called Why Does the World Exist, An Existential Detective Story,

which we're going to talk about today. Jim has also published many articles for publications

like The New Yorker, New York Times, Harper's, New York Review of Books, and so on and so forth. Jim, thanks for joining us.

Pleasure to be here.

So I've really enjoyed your book, as I mentioned. It's essentially an investigation of why anything exists at all.

I also really liked your title, although I kind of wished you had titled it just, why is?

It was a nice, concise, because that's really the question.

It's not so much about why is the universe the way that it is.

It's partly about that.

It's not about how did the universe come into being, but really, why is there a universe at all?

Yeah, I was sort of motivated by Wittgenstein, who was the, you know, I think the greatest philosopher of the 20th century.

And Wittgenstein had a very strong, a mystical and religious impulse, although he was not probably not a believer.

...