The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by David DeutschMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The book opens with an innocent remark that knowledge creation is a product of human creativity as opposed to empiricism or inductivism and takes off from there. The author defines a good explanation as the one that can be tested and is hard to vary. E.g Scientific theories. With the example of change in seasons, the author differentiates between the scientific explanation(tilted axis) and the ancient myth(something about a God being angry...Not testable, easy to vary)
The central theme is that we are at the beginning of infinity, that anything not prohibited by laws of physics will come to be(rather can be). That knowledge has no bounds. And all problems are solvable. It is an optimistic view and the author doesn't shy away from accepting that. Rather he proudly declares that pessimism is what hinders the creation of knowledge, if optimism overestimates our capability to overcome problems, pessimism make sure we never do.
The author goes on to say all our problems come(or came) from ignorance. As an example, what keeps humans from dying from extreme conditions which would easily have killed our ancestors is the knowledge that we have not just created but passed on over generations. E.g Knowledge to create fire.
Essentially information/knowledge is passed on in two ways: Genes (biological replicators) and Memes(ideas that are replicators). And so begins the commentary on culture, creativity, creation, objective truth(or beauty)etc
Honestly, it is impossible to write the gist of the book. I lack the intellectual depth to thread all the ideas together.
It was a fun read and yet another book that I will be reading again.
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