Chapter 10, Platonic Reflections, Interlude, It from Bit Summary and Analysis

Platonism in philosophy is roughly the view that there exist mind-independent abstract entities like numbers and ideas that are timeline truthmakers of propositions that refer to them. 2 and 2 are four because two doubled equals four, both numbers abstract objections. While some mathematicians deny this (often called nominalists) many are proud Platonists. The suggestion in Chapter 10 is that this immutable reality is itself the answer to why there is something rather than nothing.

Holt didn't take this view seriously until he found out that Roger Penrose, one of the world's great physicists, was a Platonist and believed that our world is an outcrop of the Platonic world. Fortunately for Holt, talking to Penrose only required waiting for him to give a lecture in New York. When Holt arrives at Penrose's...