Ep 124: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 6 “Universality and the limits of Computation”

This chapter traverses a terrain of "computers" - the abstract ideas of Turing and Church, the physical computers envisaged by Deutsch and hence quantum computation, the relationship between what computers can do and what mathematics makes possible and ultimately what people can explain and why the universe and reality broadly is comprehensible. We look at the science, the physics and the philosophical consequences of all of this. An inspiring chapter about technology, people and the unbounded possibility of coming to understand reality ever better and thus the physical possibility of always being able to solve problems and make progress.

Om Podcasten

This is a podcast primarily about the work of philosopher and physicist David Deutsch and related matters (such as Popperian epistemology). I read from and comment upon the books ”The Beginning of Infinity” & ”The Fabric of Reality” (both by Deutsch), ”The Science of Can & Can’t” (by Deutsch’s collegue Marletto) and ”Rationality” by Pinker (so far). In addition I make stand alone episodes about topics like resources, environmentalism, economics, science, philosophy, epistemology (especially explanations) and reason broadly.