The Fabric of Reality (David Deutsch)
A few quotes from the book The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch:
- Reality contains not only evidence, but also the means (such as our minds, and our artefacts) of understanding it.
- We do not experience time flowing, or passing. What we experience are differences between our present perceptions and our present memories of past perceptions. We interpret those differences, correctly, as evidence that the universe changes with time. We also interpret them, incorrectly, as evidence that our consciousness, or the present, or something, moves through time.
- Mathematical knowledge may, just like our scientific knowledge, be deep and broad, it may be subtle and wonderfully explanatory, it may be uncontroversially accepted; but it cannot be certain.
- Our best theories are not only truer than common sense, they make more sense than common sense.
- A prediction, or any assertion, that cannot be defended might still be true, but an explanation that cannot be defended is not an explanation.
- Surely it is more interesting to argue about what the truth is, than about what some particular thinker, however great, did or did not think.
- To say that prediction is the purpose of a scientific theory is to confuse means with ends. It is like saying that the purpose of a spaceship is to burn fuel.“
- Quantum computation is … nothing less than a distinctly new way of harnessing nature“.
- Passing experimental tests is only one of many things a theory has to do to achieve the real purpose of science, which is to explain the world.“
- But in any case, understanding is one of the higher functions of the human mind and brain, and a unique one. Many other physical systems, such as animals’ brains, computers and other machines, can assimilate facts and act upon them. But at present we know of nothing that is capable of understanding an explanation – or of wanting one in the first place – other than a human mind.