No short book on the explanation of existence can afford the hubris of claiming to accomplish
this task. And certainly no such claim can be or is being made here. What is at issue is not
and cannot be an actual explanation. Rather what is attempted here is at the very most a rough
sketch of the conceptual architecture that an adequate explanation can be expected to exhibit.
No more is achieved than a rough and general indication of the direction in which a
satisfactory explanation can unfold. A vast amount of detail will have to be filled in to
provide a tenable explanation. Only the rough shape that the explanation will have to take is
something that one can map out in the basis of considerations of general principles giving
reasons why alternative directions are less promising and how objection to the indicated
direction can be removed or mitigated. But the move from a general direction to a specific and
detailed pathway calls for more than is or can be attempted here.
