02147cam a2200265 i 4500 295933538 TxAuBib 20100106120000.0 090602s2009||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2009022560 9781439148211 hardcover $26.00 143914821X hardcover $26.00 eng rda TxAuBib rda Landsburg, Steven E., 1954- The big questions [BOOK] : tackling the problems of philosophy with ideas from mathematics, economics, and physics / Steven E. Landsburg. First Free Press hardcover edition. New York : Free Press, 2009. xviii, 267 pages ; 22 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier The beginning of the journey -- What this book is about : using ideas from mathematics, economics, and physics to tackle the big questions in philosophy : what is real? what can we know? what is the difference between right and wrong? and how should we live? -- Reality and unreality -- On what there is -- Why is there something instead of nothing? the best answer I have : mathematics exists because it must and everything else exists because it is made of mathematics, with an excursion into artificial intelligence -- Unfinished business -- Unfinished business from chapter two : the nature and purpose of economic models -- How Richard Dawkins got it wrong -- Why Dawkins's argument against intelligent design can't be right and a mathematical analysis of the arguments for the existence of God -- Belief -- Daydream believers -- Most beliefs are ill-considered because most false beliefs are costless to hold -- The next several chapters will explore the consequences of this observation before we return to the question of where our beliefs and knowledge come from -- Unfinished business -- Unfinished business from the preceding chapter : how color vision works, sound, and water waves, the sheer craziness of economic pro. 20100106. Philosophy.