Softcover edition
|
|
Author | David Deutsch |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Subject | Modern physics, quantum mechanics |
Genre | Non-fiction |
Publisher | Viking Adult |
Publication date
|
August 1, 1997 |
Media type | Print, e-book |
Pages | 390 pp. |
ISBN | |
Followed by | The Beginning of Infinity |
The Fabric of Reality is a 1997 book by the physicist David Deutsch. The text was initially published on August 1, 1997 by Viking Adult and Deutsch wrote a followup book entitled The Beginning of Infinity, which was published in 2011.
The book expands upon his views of quantum mechanics and its implications for understanding reality. This interpretation, which he calls the multiverse hypothesis, is one of a four-strand Theory of Everything (TOE).
His theory of everything is (weakly) emergentist rather than reductive. It aims not at the reduction of everything to particle physics, but rather at mutual support among multiverse, computational, epistemological, and evolutionary principles.
Critical reception has been generally positive. The New York Times wrote a mixed review for The Fabric of Reality, writing that it "is full of refreshingly oblique, provocative insights. But I came away from it with only the mushiest sense of how the strands in Deutsch's tapestry hang together."The Guardian was more favorable in their review, stating "This is a deep and ambitious book and there were plenty of moments when I was out of my depth (the Platonic dialogue between Deutsch and a Crypto-inductivist left me with a pronounced sinking feeling). But the sheer adventure of thinking not just out of the envelope but right out of the Newtonian universe is exhilarating."