I’m short on time today and working on a guest blog which I hope to be able to provide a link to shortly. But I did begin exploring a website that has short video interviews with some of my favorite thinkers. I found among a list of participants on the website Closer To Truth, Gregory Chaitin and David Deutsch. They have each participated in a number of video interviews that seem always short, but always interesting.
I listened to one of Deutsch’s this evening called What is Ultimate Reality? In the interview he described the four fundamental, interdependent aspects of reality, as presented in his book, The Fabric of Reality. These are, quantum physics, the theory of evolution, the theory of computation and the theory of knowledge. Briefly, he says that quantum physics constrains the kinds of theories that one can express and that evolution is the theory of emergent properties that cannot be expressed in terms of atoms. Computation is about the processes in nature that are independent or that transcend the substance in which they are embodied. And knowledge is the kind of information that can do things. Knowledge is embodied in DNA, brains, books, computers, etc. But Deutsch makes the point that what moves things, what changes things or creates things is information, not the substances in which the information is embodied.
For me, the most refreshing and important thought was his observation that all of these aspects of reality have been underestimated by being accepted as the right explanation in their own field. But they have not become integrated. The depth of these specialized fields has made it increasingly more difficult to consider their interdependence.
In another interview, Gregory Chaitin explores his own Platonism.
I recommend listening.
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