If the ultimate laws of physics, like Plato’s eternal and transcendent Forms, did have a reality of their own, that would only raise a new mystery—two mysteries, in fact. The first is the one that bothered Hawking. What gives these laws their ontic clout, their “fire”? How do they reach out and make a world? How do they force events to obey them? Even Plato needed a divine craftsman, a “demiurge,” to do the
