Why Is There Anything? A Socratic Dialogue

A very unexpected book. A very funny book.

Basically, this is a Socratic dialogue between two gruff, modern dudes named Achilles and Brutus. I imagine them to be thoughtful butch hipsters with big beards, flannel, tattoos and kind eyes. BOTH OF THEM. Anyway, it's written as a play and HO BOY, it contains that rarest of champagnes: writing/thinking that is both at the heights of fun irreverence (there are references to “Clear and Present Danger” and how good it's ending is) and the depths of some Really Deep Thinking. Covering epistemology (do we know anything?), ontology (why is anything anything?), with the obligatory sidecar ride into “God?! GOD?!?!”/First Mover arguments, this is a traditional Socratic back-and-forth. It reads really easily, it introduces amazing concepts, and it finishes up with - MY OLD FAVORITE - the many-worlds theory of quantum mechanics! Which means, the reason anything exists is because EVERYTHING exists: there are (infinite?) (parallel?) universes where every single counterfactual exists: the one where I don't write this Goodreads review, the one where I decide to be extra-pompous and write it as ‘Sokratic', the one where I am a banana engaged in nuclear war, and so on.

One remark of sadness: I used to be SO INTO THIS SHIT, back in grad school. (As you can no doubt tell by my fluency with the arguments and references, ho ho.) But now, alas, such alas, that part of my brain has been dead for such a long time. I am thinking it is the RIGHT side of my brain, and I am (seriously) considering various ways to re-activate that imaginative, creative, philosophical side. Hallucinogenics? Trying to draw using my left hand, or skateboard with my left foot forward? Reading one of those “how to activate the right side of your brain” books? Suggestions welcome.

Anyway, I liked this a lot. I liked the light sprinkles of weirdness too -the fourth wall-breaking, the ALL HAIL MU magical mu number stuff, and the self-referencing (e.g. the Tom Clancy/Clear and Present Danger thing about ending stuff mid-