David Deutsch
I’ve just spent twenty minutes watching David Deutsch on TED Talks, a funny speech on our place in the universe (and what to do about that), by the author of The Fabric of Reality. I’ve not read his book, but, if his writing is as fresh as his speaking, i definitely should. Enjoy!
(A mostly unrelated but curious piece of trivia about David Deutsch: he’s also a Mac developer!)
October 14, 2006 at 7:23 pm
Hi Jao! very refreshing, indeed, but also illuminating as to the kind of strange beliefs that physicists can share…
something really strikes me in David’s reasoning… at one point, he notes: “the laws of physics have this special property that physical objects as unlike each other as they could possibly be, can nevertheless embody the same mathematical and causal structure and do it more and more so over time”. now, it is clear to me that this special property is no coincidence at all — it reminds me of an old joke i heard about someone wondering how come a typewriter can be so fit for human fingers… well, human hands and a typewriter are not so unlike as the human brain and a quasar, but what a strange coincidence nevertheless! 
in the end, what makes me worry most is his final recipee about global warming (and others ongoing challenges we endure), that is “our special relationship with the laws of physics, our ability to create new explanations, new knowledge” — but, wait a minute! if this “special relationship” is by no means more special than the relationship between human hands and a typing machine?
or is it?
take care and try to revive a bit your other blog, please!
November 22, 2006 at 5:39 pm
Great speech. Very inspirational. These are concepts and ideas ppl do not talk about nearly often enough.
As far as the typewriter analogy of the other writer, I’d say it is slightly different since a typewriter was designed by humans for humans to fit human hands. Not so much a coincidence.