LETTERS: The logic of nothingness

PAUL Davies's article "Is the Universe a free lunch?" (Review, 3 March) was fascinating, but why did he try to bring that old fraud God back into the picture in order to explain the presence of physical laws which "permit a Universe to create itself".

If in the beginning there was no matter or energy, there would surely also be no physical laws and no logic. In such a concept anything could exist, including universes obeying every conceivable and inconceivable set of physical laws. In some of these universes there would be self-aware intelligences. These creatures would perceive logical worlds obeying the rules of cause and effect simply because intelligence would not live in any other type of universe. Unfortunately, their thinking patterns would be so steeped in the notion of cause and effect that they would feel the need to invent creation myths and God.

Grant Le Sage

London E6