A review by david_r_grigg
The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by David Deutsch

4.0

Finished this about a week ago, but I'm still thinking about it. Deutsch's earlier book The Fabric of Reality was fascinating and scary by turns as he explores the implications of a "many-worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics.

While The Beginning of Infinity touches on this too, mainly in one chapter titled "The Multiverse", the book covers a lot of different ground making it rather uneven, and occasionally a little self-indulgent. For example there's one, rather boring chapter where Deutsch attempts his own Socratic dialogue.

His main thrust, though, is very interesting, and it revolves around two points:

* He denies "The Principle of Mediocrity" which says there is nothing special about humanity, the Earth or its place in the universe. Deutsch points out that the surface of a planet is a highly atypical place in the universe. The typical place is in fact far away from any star. When it comes to humans, he argues that "universal explainers" like humans are a highly significant factor in the cosmos.

* He denies "The Spaceship Earth" hypothesis which says that the Earth is a natural, safe home of humanity (if only we we weren't messing it up). He denies it by pointing out that the Earth is not very well adapted to providing a safe environment for animals like humans. It's only by applying technology over millennia that we have created safe environments for ourselves.

He also spends a lot of time putting the boot into what he calls "static" societies, who try to repress innovations, compared with "dynamic" societies which encourage constant ("unsustainable") innovations. Dynamic societies have really only come into their own since the Enlightenment.

Intriguing stuff, well argued. I'll need to re-read the book sometime in the near future.