‘Imagine ... a universe entirely without structure, without shape, without connections. A cloud of microscopic events, like fragments of space-time … except that there is no space or time. What characterizes one point in space, for one instant? Just the values of the fundamental particle fields, just a handful of numbers. Now, take away all notions of position, arrangement, order, and what's left? A cloud of random numbers. 'That's it. That's all there is. The cosmos has no shape at all – no such thing as time or distance, no physical laws, no cause and effect. 'But ... if the pattern that is me could pick itself out from all the other events taking place on this planet... why shouldn't the pattern we think of as "the universe" assemble itself, find itself, in exactly the same way? If I can piece together my own coherent space and time from data scattered so widely that it might as well be part of some giant cloud of random numbers ... then what makes you think that you're not doing the very same thing?'