In terms of making deep existential concepts comprehensible to broad audiences, the contemporary trade competitors of A Concise Theory of Truly Everything are the bestselling books written by respected scientists such as, Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michio Kaku, Frank Wilczek, Lisa Randall, and Paul Davies. Their popular works explore the current frontiers of physics, astronomy, and cosmology for curious laypeople.

Along the way, these authors often restate certain of our fundamental existential questions, and assert that rational answers to them reside in the future of science or are beyond its explanatory scope. A Concise Theory of Truly Everything picks up where these books leave off, by presenting a framework that is consistent with the scientific knowledge they convey, which it philosophically extends to provide the existential answers they cannot.

Although numerous academic and spiritual frameworks attempt to explain the fundamental nature of reality, those with explanatory power comparable to that of modal idealism—the framework underlying this book—include possible world semantics, transcendental idealism, the no-collapse formulations of quantum mechanics, and the diverse schools of polytheistic and monotheistic thought. Of these, possible world semantics, transcendental idealism, and theism are metaphysical frameworks, while quantum mechanics is physical in nature.

Chapter 11 of A Concise Theory of Truly Everything explicitly compares modal idealism to, and contrasts it with the possible world semantics framework that is David Lewis’s modal realism [Lewis, D. (1996). On the Plurality of Worlds. Blackwell] and Immanuel Kant’s doctrine of transcendental idealism [Kant, I. (1781, 1787). Critique of Pure Reason].

Additionally, this chapter relates modal idealism to the Many Worlds and Many Minds formulations of the theory of quantum mechanics [summarized in Barrett, J. (1999). The Quantum Mechanics of Minds and Worlds. Oxford: Oxford University Press].

Finally, Chapter 11 examines both orthodox and perennial theistic doctrines—respectively described in ancient sacred scriptures and modern classics such as Huston Smith’s The World’s Religions and Aldous Huxley’s The Perennial Philosophy—in the context of modal idealism.

A Concise Theory of Truly Everything uses the principles of modal idealism to address key objections to each of these earlier frameworks. These criticisms include:

• Modal realism’s violation of the Law of Parsimony, and its assertions that contradict its premises;
• Transcendental idealism’s extreme skepticism and its contradictory premises;
• The failure of the Many Worlds formulation of quantum mechanics to resolve the measurement problem;
• The Many Minds formulations’ inability the explain the physical origin of the metaphysical minds upon which it is based, and failure to solve the conundrum of a sane person deciding to enter the Schrodinger’s Cat box;
• Theism’s inability to resolve the paradoxes of free will and evil existing in a world created by an omnipotent benevolent God.

In addressing these issues, A Concise Theory of Truly Everything does not compete with these frameworks; it aspires to complement and ultimately integrate them into a concise theory of truly everything.