The Beginning of Infinity

Explanations That Transform the World

By: David Deutsch

Narrated by: Walter Dixon

Length: 20 hrs

Publisher's summary

A bold and all-embracing exploration of the nature and progress of knowledge from one of today's great thinkers. Throughout history, mankind has struggled to understand life's mysteries, from the mundane to the seemingly miraculous. In this important new book, David Deutsch, an award-winning pioneer in the field of quantum computation, argues that explanations have a fundamental place in the universe. They have unlimited scope and power to cause change, and the quest to improve them is the basic regulating principle not only of science but of all successful human endeavor. This stream of ever improving explanations has infinite reach, according to Deutsch: we are subject only to the laws of physics, and they impose no upper boundary to what we can eventually understand, control, and achieve. In his previous book, The Fabric of Reality, Deutsch describe the four deepest strands of existing knowledge-the theories of evolution, quantum physics, knowledge, and computation-arguing jointly they reveal a unified fabric of reality. In this new book, he applies that worldview to a wide range of issues and unsolved problems, from creativity and free will to the origin and future of the human species.

Filled with startling new conclusions about human choice, optimism, scientific explanation, and the evolution of culture, The Beginning of Infinity is a groundbreaking audio book that will become a classic of its kind.

©2011 David Deutsch (P)2011 Gildan Media Corp

Critic reviews

“Provocative and persuasive…Mr. Deutsch’s previous tome, The Fabric of Reality, took a broad-ranging sweep… The Beginning of Infinity is equally bold, addressing subjects from artificial intelligence to the evolution of culture and of creativity; its conclusions are just as profound." ( The Economist)

Dry.

Very sophisticated, very intellectual; but contradictory in some arguments and refutes other arguments without explaining why, simply says “that is wrong” or “that is an incorrect explanation”.

Narration is dry and non-engaging.

A Perspective Shifter

This book has flaws. Dr. Deutsch makes a few generalizations that I found a bit unfair -- related to physiological research and sustainability as it relates to environmentalism.

BUT!

It's a perspective shifter.
I think about progress and humanity and our place in the universe differently.
I think about science and the scientific method differently.
It gave me glue to connect concepts I've found and liked from other books.

It's deep. It's complex. It's not "easy".

But certainly valuable.

Kudos.

You have to take the bad with the good

I am not sure if this book is an optimistic anti-dogmatic prescription for unlimited progress or anti-religious liberal ravings about how people should think. Maybe it is a bit of both.

Some nits: The author describes Good Explanations and criticism as the key to progress. Near the end of the book he suggests calling Good Explanations, instead, misconceptions (which I find better, but still not quite right). I would instead use the less loaded term of Story. With a Good Explanation being a Falsifiable Predictive Story. The author also uses Testable which is not quite right. I like Falsifiable as being more to the point.

I was quite unimpressed by the dialog and the description of the multi-worlds interpretation as a Good Explanation.

This book has some of the same undercurrents as The Singularity is Near, but is more rambling, less focused, and more philosophical. Although there were a lot of interesting ideas in this book, there was also quite a lot missing. It seems to me there is much more to a really Good Explanation than is implied, and there is more yin-and-yang to conservative verses progressive than the author presents.

Nevertheless it is a good listen for anyone interested in thinking about how the scientific method really works. Unfortunately some parts are pretty boring or just tedius.

I learned a lot, but it could be more interesting

This is a book mostly about the philosophy of science. Specifically, it's about how the scientific method is the best way to increase our understanding and control of the world and our lives. I learned a great deal from the book -- have listened to it about five times. The book communicates some very important ideas, many of which I agree with and some not. While David Deutsch has unique and important things to say, he is something of a dry writer. If you want to learn more about how science works and how to build knowledge and understanding of the world, read this book. As a note, the narration is great.

I found two of Deutsch's chapters not clear enough to understand--the chapter on the mathematics of infinity and the chapter on the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics. I actually know quite a bit about quantum physics; nevertheless, his explanation of Many Worlds escapes me. Possibly, if I sat down and read it rather than listening, these chapters would have been clearer to me--something that I'm actually planning to try. As a listener, I've given up on them. The other chapters are philosophy of science, and are quite understandable.

While I think that Deutsch has a great grasp of many aspects of how science works--he's both a philosopher and a noted physicist--he doesn't have as much understanding of how human beings work.

For example, he seems to have no awareness of the idea of right-brained knowledge/heart knowledge. He dismisses the wisdom traditions of indigenous peoples and Eastern religions without so much as a mention. To him, these are simply primitive peoples with short, brutal lives. Since they are pre-scientific, they can simply be dismissed. He speaks quite a bit about such peoples without any specifics at all. He seems to assume that we can all know about them in this stereotypical way without ever taking a closer look, as an anthropologist or a more spiritual person might.

As a note, he similarly dismisses any type of spiritual experience, but with no documentation as to why we should. And he conflates spirituality with the fundamentalist religious view that the Bible is a literal history of Earth. I would not rely on Deutsch for learning about spirituality or religion.

Similarly, his chapters on art and socioeconomic/political systems are weak. Deutsch wants to extend the scientific approach of explanation to these areas. I believe, however, that in these areas, we are successful if we do what works, not what should work in some logically worked out "scientific system." Deutsch would have us work out cause and effect principles, for example, for political systems. I can see this as being ideologies like "too much regulation stifles business" or "free trade hurts workers." But I think that we are seeing in the U.S. today, the downside of such ideologies. I think that our state of political knowledge at this point is such that we need, instead, to study and find out what creates the results we want rather than rely on principles and chains of reasoning that we regard as "true."

In summary, I learned a lot from the "Beginning of Infinity" about how science works. Deutsch is a remarkably clear and articulate thinker. While he is limited in his worldview and not the most engaging in his writing style, he has a lot to say to us. This is an important book well worth reading.

Should be required reading.

This book explains how and why nature does it best. Why man made chemicals are not our friends. Big corporations are going to have to become better stewards. Politicians need to wake up. I am going to join the revolution. This book is as powerful as Rachel Carlson’s “ Silent Spring”

the most influential book I have read in a while

truly life altering insights. Deutsch is a master in providing us with bootstraps to pull ourselves out of our most fundamental cognitive flaws.

Creates a deeper understanding of explainability

I will have to read this a few times because it's so important yet deep with useful information.

Profound reading

This book has been strangely, incredibly hopeful. If you are prone to Nihilism, read this book and let it, perhaps, sway you pleasantly.

Highly recommended. Thought provoking

Excellent. Informative and entertaining. A highly recommended read and expertly narrated. One of my favorites.

Interesting perspective, ruined by narration.

The subject matter was interesting, fairly engaging and mostly pleasant to listen to, except for the constant mispronunciations by the narrator and the 'nails on a chalkboard' of referring to a book as an 'audiobook'. Sorry, nobody writes audiobooks.