Book: 20260701 to 20260815, "The Fabric of Reality" by David Deutsch

 

20260701 - Preface

20260701 - 1. The Theory of Everything

20260702 - 2. Shadows

they neither absorb energy nor change their state in any way unless they are struck by tangible photons. Shadow photons have no effect. p46
Shadow photon? I prefer to understand it as "A photon with large possible field". It's energy, not mass.

"The possible" cannot interact with the real: non-existent entities cannot deflect real ones from their paths. p49
Maybe, trillions of "the possible" may generate "emergence" to form light?

20260716 - 3. Problem-solving

Bayesian inference is not perfect, but it's the best one.
The story of the Inductivist Turkey is easy to solve: ask for the reason behind the events, instead of accepting it as it is.

20260718 - 4. Criteria for Reality

The problem of solipsism is that it doesn't help to make prediction. If there is no objective external world, then everything and any rule may change at any time.

20260728 - 5. Virtual Reality

Everyone has virtual reality in their mind, although coarse.
It's based on large data training and reasoning. That should be easy to AI to create one for themselves. It doesn't have to be based on image. The born blind people also have virtual reality in their mind.
Virtual reality device is not that important to human at this stage. Unless it's for some high cost experiment, such as nuclear explosion.

20260729- 6. Universality and the Limits of Computation

The limit is more about range and precision, I believe.
Our biological sensors only have limited precision.

20260729 - 7. A Conversation about Justification

This whole chapter can be replaced with Bayesian inference.

20260805 - 8. The Significance of Life

In principle, one could imagine a species whose genes were unable to replicate, but instead were adapted to keep their physical form unchanged by continual self-maintenance and by protecting themselves from external influences. p180
It is the survival of knowledge, and not necessarily of the gene or any other physical object, that is the common factor between replicating and non-replicating genes. p181
We are going to transform ourselves to half carbon half silicon creatures. Computer and smartphone are the first steps.
Knowledge is the result, not the driven power. The driven power is anti-entropy.

Knowledge is compressed "pattern" of order. It's the opposite of chaoes.

20260806 - 9. Quantum Computers

......make both versions take the same exit route from the lower semi-silvered mirror. p205
Amazing. Hopefully AI can figure this out.

20260809 - 10. The Nature of Mathematics

We can learn chess just as well with a real chess set as we could with a perfect Form of a chess set. p242
David Deutsch got it wrong here. We don't fully understand chess, and we can't.
But AI can, such as AlphaZero. Or, can AI really fully understand chess and go game?

Mathematics is not absolutely reliable. I still remember the story, that someone got convinced about something in dream, and struggled to write it down. But when he woke up, he realized that what he wrote last night was nonsense.
How do we know that our current Mathematics is correct?

Nevertheless, Bayesian Inference is good enough to progress forward.

20260810 - 11. Time: The First Quantum Concept

How can quantum multiverse theory explain "butterfly effect"?

Why entropy is not mentioned here?

20260814 - 12. Time Travel

The four strands are:
Quantum theory + Theory of computation + Epistemology (theory of knowledge) + Theory of evolution.
Which means: quantum physics, computation, knowledge, evolution.

20260815 - 13. The Four Strands

Unfortunately David Deutsch doesn't explain much how the four strands are tangled together.
Maybe it's just emergence, which is impossible to explain?

Quantum mechanics is not based on multiverse, I believe.
How to explain it? I don't know. But it's fine to leave the blank spot there for a while.

20260815 - 14. The Ends of the Universe

The ends of the universe is in the hands of ASI.
Human is more like trivial organ of ASI.
Hopefully we still can enjoy lives.

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