R: Look at what I wrote, then look at Mr. Carrol wrote, and see the differences!
NO I do not want to be a Philosopher, but I might have to be. with metta, M PS: how is the paper sorting going or not? On Sun, Aug s14, 2011 at 1:03 PM, Russ Abbott <russ.abb...@gmail.com> wrote: > The author of the review is an interesting guy. After reading the review I > attempted to find some recent publications, but I couldn't. The best I > could find is this Blogging Heads TV > discussion<http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/13487>between him and Sean > Carroll recorded 3 years ago. It's worth watching. If > you watch it at 1.4 speed, Albert sounds like he is talking at a normal > pace, but Carroll sounds quite speeded up. > > *-- Russ Abbott* > *_____________________________________________* > *** Professor, Computer Science* > * California State University, Los Angeles* > > * Google voice: 747-*999-5105 > * blog: *http://russabbott.blogspot.com/ > vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/ > *_____________________________________________* > > > > On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 11:42 AM, Rich Murray <rmfor...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> The Beginning of Infinity, Explanations That Transform the World, >> David Deutsch, NYT review, David Albert: Rich Murray 2011.08.14 >> >> >> >> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/books/review/the-beginning-of-infinity-by-david-deutsch-book-review.html?_r=2&ref=science >> >> Reprints >> This copy is for your personal, noncommercial use only. >> You can order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your >> colleagues, clients or customers here or use the "Reprints" tool that >> appears next to any article. >> Visit www.nytreprints.com for samples and additional information. >> Order a reprint of this article now. >> >> August 12, 2011 >> Explaining it All: How We Became the Center of the Universe >> By DAVID ALBERT >> >> THE BEGINNING OF INFINITY >> Explanations That Transform the World >> By David Deutsch >> [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Deutsch ] >> Illustrated. 487 pp. Viking. $30. >> >> David Deutsch’s “Beginning of Infinity” is a brilliant and >> exhilarating and profoundly eccentric book. It’s about everything: >> art, science, philosophy, history, politics, evil, death, the future, >> infinity, bugs, thumbs, what have you. And the business of giving it >> anything like the attention it deserves, in the small space allotted >> here, is out of the question. But I will do what I can. >> >> It hardly seems worth saying (to begin with) that the chutzpah of this >> guy is almost beyond belief, and that any book with these sorts of >> ambitions is necessarily, in some overall sense, a failure, or a >> fraud, or a joke, or madness. But Deutsch (who is famous, among other >> reasons, for his pioneering contributions to the field of quantum >> computation) is so smart, and so strange, and so creative, and so >> inexhaustibly curious, and so vividly intellectually alive, that it is >> a distinct privilege, notwithstanding everything, to spend time in his >> head. He writes as if what he is giving us amounts to a tight, grand, >> cumulative system of ideas -- something of almost mathematical rigor >> -- but the reader will do much better to approach this book with the >> assurance that nothing like that actually turns out to be the case. I >> like to think of it as more akin to great, wide, learned, meandering >> conversation -- something that belongs to the genre of, say, Robert >> Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy” -- never dull, often startling and >> fantastic and beautiful, often at odds with itself, sometimes >> distasteful, sometimes unintentionally hilarious, sometimes (even, >> maybe, secondarily) true. >> >> The thought to which Deutsch’s conversation most often returns is that >> the European Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries, or >> something like it, may turn out to have been the pivotal event not >> merely of the history of the West, or of human beings, or of the >> earth, but (literally, physically) of the universe as a whole. >> >> Here’s the sort of thing he has in mind: The topographical shape and >> the material constitution of the upper surface of the island of >> Manhattan, as it exists today, is much less a matter of geology than >> it is of economics and politics and human psychology. The effects of >> geological forces were trumped (you might say) by other forces -- >> forces that proved themselves, in the fullness of time, physically >> stronger. Deutsch thinks the same thing must in the long run be true >> of the universe as a whole. Stuff like gravitation and dark energy are >> the sorts of things that determine the shape of the cosmos only in its >> earliest, and most parochial, and least interesting stages. The rest >> is going to be a matter of our own intentional doing, or at any rate >> it’s going to be a matter of the intentional doings of what Deutsch >> calls “people,” by which he means not only human beings, and not all >> human beings, but whatever creatures, from whatever planets, in >> whatever circumstances, may have managed to absorb the lessons of the >> Scientific Revolution. >> >> There is a famous collection of arguments from the pioneering days of >> computer science to the effect that any device able to carry out every >> one of the entries on a certain relatively short list of elementary >> logical operations could, in some finite number of steps, calculate >> the value of any mathematical function that is calculable at all. >> Devices like that are called “universal computers.” And what interests >> Deutsch about these arguments is that they imply that there is a >> certain definite point, a certain definite moment, in the course of >> acquiring the capacity to perform more and more of the operations on >> that list, when such a machine will abruptly become as good a >> calculator as anything, in principle, can be. >> >> Deutsch thinks that such “jumps to universality” must occur not only >> in the capacity to calculate things, but also in the capacity to >> understand things, and in the closely related capacity to make things >> happen. And he thinks that it was precisely such a threshold that was >> crossed with the invention of the scientific method. There were plenty >> of things we humans could do, of course, prior to the invention of >> that method: agriculture, or the domestication of animals, or the >> design of sundials, or the construction of pyramids. But all of a >> sudden, with the introduction of that particular habit of concocting >> and evaluating new hypotheses, there was a sense in which we could do >> anything. The capacities of a community that has mastered that method >> to survive, and to learn, and to remake the world according to its >> inclinations, are (in the long run) literally, mathematically, >> infinite. And Deutsch is convinced that the tendency of the world to >> give rise to such communities, more than, say, the force of >> gravitation, or the second law of thermodynamics, or even the >> phenomenon of death, is what ultimately gives the world its shape, and >> what constitutes the genuine essence of nature. “In all cases,” he >> writes, “the class of transformations that could happen spontaneously >> -- in the absence of knowledge -- is negligibly small compared with >> the class that could be effected artificially by intelligent beings >> who wanted those transformations to happen. So the explanations of >> almost all physically possible phenomena are about how knowledge would >> be applied to bring those phenomena about.” And there is a beautiful >> and almost mystical irony in all this: that it was precisely by means >> of the Scientific Revolution, it was precisely by means of accepting >> that we are not the center of the universe, that we became the center >> of the universe. >> >> This is all definitely incredibly cool. But I have no idea how one >> might go about investigating whether it is true or false. It seems >> more to the point to think of it as something emotive -- as the >> expression of a mood. An incredibly cool mood. A mood that (maybe) no >> human being could ever have been in before right now. A mood informed >> by profound and imaginative reflection on the best and most advanced >> science we have. But not exactly, not even remotely, a live scientific >> hypothesis. >> >> Anyway, it’s that mood, or conceit, or whatever it is, that gives “The >> Beginning of Infinity” its name. But a lot of the meat of this book is >> in its digressions. And of those (alas) I can only, hastily, randomly, >> mention a few. >> >> Deutsch is interested in neo-Darwinian accounts of the evolution of >> culture. Such accounts treat cultural items -- languages, religions, >> values, ideas, traditions -- in much the way that Darwinian theories >> of biological evolution treat genes. They are called “memes,” and are >> treated as evolving, just as genes do, by mutation and selection, with >> the most successful memes being those that are the most faithfully >> replicated. Deutsch writes with enormous clarity and insight about how >> the mechanisms of mutation and transmission and selection of memes are >> going to have to differ, in all sorts of ways, from those of genes. >> >> He also provides an elegant analysis of two particular strategies for >> meme-replication, one he calls “rational” and the other he calls >> “anti-rational.” Rational memes -- the sort that Deutsch imagines will >> replicate themselves well in post-Enlightenment societies -- are >> simply good ideas: the kind that will survive rigorous scientific >> scrutiny, the kind that will somehow make life easier or safer or more >> rewarding because they tell us something useful about how the world >> actually works. Irrational memes -- which are more interesting, and >> more diabolical, and which Deutsch thinks of as summing up the >> essential character of pre-Enlightenment societies -- reproduce >> themselves by disabling the capacities of their hosts (by means of >> fear, or an anxiety to conform, or the appearance of naturalness and >> inevitability, or in any number of other ways) to evaluate or invent >> new ideas. And one particular subcategory of memes -- about which >> Deutsch has very clever things to say -- succeeds precisely by >> pretending not to tell the truth. So, for example: “Children who asked >> why they were required to enact onerous behaviors that did not seem >> functional would be told ‘because I say so,’ and in due course they >> would give their children the same reply to the same question, never >> realizing that they were giving the full explanation. (This is a >> curious type of meme whose explicit content is true even though its >> holders do not believe it.)” >> >> Another chapter is devoted entirely to the evolution of creativity. At >> first glance, the ability to come up with new and better ways of doing >> things would appear to confer an obvious survival advantage. But if >> that’s how it worked -- or so Deutsch argues -- then the >> archaeological record ought to contain evidence of the accumulation of >> such better ways of doing things that are contemporaneous with the >> time when the human brain was actually in the process of evolving. And >> it doesn’t, which would seem to amount to a puzzle. Deutsch has a cute >> proposal for solving it. The thought is that the business of merely >> passing on complicated memes, without any thought of innovation, >> requires considerable creativity on the part of their recipients. >> Learning a language, for instance, is a matter of inferring, from a >> small number of examples, a collection of general rules, each with a >> potentially infinite number of applications, governing the uses of the >> words involved. In Deutsch’s view, the work of keeping such complex >> memes in place, from generation to generation, is no less a creative >> business than the work of improving them. >> >> This, as I said, is cute, and typical of the dexterity of Deutsch’s >> mind, but it’s hard to know how seriously to take it. Wouldn’t it be a >> reproductive advantage to have a heritable capacity to think on your >> feet, and outside the box, in a sticky situation, whether or not any >> particular thought you have ends up getting preserved, and passed down >> to your children, and enshrined in the practice of a whole society? >> And isn’t it possible that creativity was never selected for at all, >> but arose as a byproduct of the selection of something else? As to the >> business of learning a language -- well, gosh, haven’t linguists been >> thinking about these sorts of questions very hard, and very >> systematically, and along very different lines, for decades now? If >> Deutsch has reasons for thinking that all of that is somehow on the >> wrong track, he ought to tell us what those reasons are. As it is, >> none of that gets so much as a mention in his book. >> >> And there are, in some places, explicit and outrageous falsehoods. >> Deutsch insists again and again, for example, that the only >> explanation we have for the observed behaviors of subatomic particles >> is a famous idea of Hugh Everett’s to the effect that the universe of >> our experience is one of an infinite and endlessly branching >> collection of similar universes -- and that what resistance there is >> to this idea is attributable to the influence of this or that fancy, >> misguided philosophical critique of good, solid, old-fashioned >> realistic attitudes toward what scientific theories have to tell us >> about the world. This is simply, wildly, wrong. Most of the good, >> solid, old-fashioned scientific realists who take an interest in >> questions of the foundations of physics -- like me, for example -- are >> deeply skeptical of Everett’s picture. And that’s because there are >> good reasons to be worried that Everett’s picture cannot, in fact, >> explain those behaviors at all -- and because there are other, much >> more reasonable-looking proposals on the table, that apparently can. >> >> Deutsch’s enthusiasm for the scientific and technological >> transformation of the totality of existence naturally brings with it a >> radical impatience with the pieties of environmentalism, and cultural >> relativism, and even procedural democracy -- and this is sometimes >> exhilarating and sometimes creepy. He attacks these pieties, with >> spectacular clarity and intelligence, as small-minded and cowardly >> and boring. The metaphor of the earth as a spaceship or life-support >> system, he writes, “is quite perverse. . . . To the extent that we are >> on a ‘spaceship,’ we have never merely been its passengers, nor (as is >> often said) its stewards, nor even its maintenance crew: we are its >> designers and builders. Before the designs created by humans, it was >> not a vehicle, but only a heap of dangerous raw materials.” But it’s >> hard to get to the end of this book without feeling that Deutsch is >> too little moved by actual contemporary human suffering. What moves >> him is the grand Darwinian competition among ideas. What he adores, >> what he is convinced contains the salvation of the world, is, in every >> sense of the word, The Market. >> >> And there are moments when you just can’t imagine what the deal is >> with this guy. Deutsch -- notwithstanding his open and >> anti-authoritarian and altogether admirable ideology of inquiry -- is >> positively bubbling over with inviolable principles: that everything >> is explicable, that materialist interpretations of history are morally >> wrong, that “the only uniquely significant thing about humans . . . is >> our ability to create new explanations,” and on and on. And if the >> reader turns to Pages 64 and 65, she will find illustrations depicting >> two of them, literally, carved in stone. I swear. >> >> Never mind. He is exactly who he is, and he is well worth getting to >> know, and we are very lucky indeed to have him. >> >> David Albert is a professor of philosophy at Columbia and the author >> of “Quantum Mechanics and Experience.” >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >> > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
