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The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

David Deutsch · 3 HN comments
HN Books has aggregated all Hacker News stories and comments that mention "The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World" by David Deutsch.
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Amazon Summary
The New York Times bestseller: A provocative, imaginative exploration of the nature and progress of knowledge “Dazzling.” – Steven Pinker, The Guardian In this groundbreaking book, award-winning physicist David Deutsch argues that explanations have a fundamental place in the universe—and that improving them is the basic regulating principle of all successful human endeavor. Taking us on a journey through every fundamental field of science, as well as the history of civilization, art, moral values, and the theory of political institutions, Deutsch tracks how we form new explanations and drop bad ones, explaining the conditions under which progress—which he argues is potentially boundless—can and cannot happen. Hugely ambitious and highly original, The Beginning of Infinity explores and establishes deep connections between the laws of nature, the human condition, knowledge, and the possibility for progress.
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I prefer David Deutsch's optimistic approach to our problems: use science to find solutions. Rebellion is beyond the pale. We don't need rebels; we need scientists and more good science.

"The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World" by David Deutsch

https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Infinity-Explanations-Trans...?

> why do you believe whatever makes us smart cannot be replicated by a computer program?

Turing's Universality of Computation actually guarantees that whatever is feasible in the physical world can be replicated as a computation in bits. However, I don't share the belief that AI research is anywhere close to achieving this in the most general sense of intelligence. Most AI researchers seem to agree: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9109140

Did you have a chance to look at David Deutsch's work on this topic?

http://aeon.co/magazine/technology/david-deutsch-artificial-...

http://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_a_new_way_to_explain_...

http://www.amazon.com/The-Beginning-Infinity-Explanations-Tr...

Although Deutsch is not as charismatic a speaker as Kurzweil or as lucid a writer as Bostrom, his arguments make the most sense to me, given my limited experience doing AI research at Stanford. It would be interesting to know your thoughts on Deutsch's theory that the ability to create 'good' explanations is what separates human intelligence from the rest. (maybe through another blog post?)

P.S. Since I have your attention here, I took CS183B last quarter and it was really fun. Thanks!

Aug 06, 2013 · dsizzle on Digital physics
Conceiving the universe as the "output of a computer program" seems like an empty idea, as computation depends on a physical substrate (its laws of physics). It leads to an infinite regress: What laws of physics govern that physical substrate? David Deutsch (mentioned in the WP article) has a discussion of this (and many other related deep topics!) in his excellent "The Beginning of Infinity" http://www.amazon.com/The-Beginning-Infinity-Explanations-Tr...
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