[dotsam]

The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch. Has an exceptionally high density of good ideas.

The first time I read it, I didn't love it and only engaged with it superficially. But gradually I began thinking about it more and came back to it, and I read it with more attention. After re-reading it several times I think it is one of the deepest and most important books I have ever read. It has changed how I see the world.

[a_tartaruga]

It is probably the most hopeful thing I've ever read and more or less believed. Internalizing parts of it has made almost everything easier to think about. I love the idea that flowers are objectively beautifully.

[loveparade]

I read that book and didn't take away anything from it. It left no impression. Maybe it should give it another try. Can you explain why you think it is so good?

[dotsam]

Here are some things that I think about often from that book.

* Problems are inevitable, but problems are soluble

* All evils are the result of insufficient knowledge

* Knowledge being the result of trial and error, and there being no such thing as certain knowledge.

* The idea of 'wealth' being the set of all physical transformations you can bring about.

* The thing that distinguishes people from non-general intelligences is the ability to create an endless stream of explanatory knowledge; that is, to have unbounded creativity.

* People are universal explainers; anything that can be understood, we can understand

* If something is permitted by the laws of physics, then the only thing that can prevent it from being technologically possible is not knowing how

* How commitment to knowledge growth entails a commitment to particular moral values (tolerance, openness to being wrong, valuing the truth); objective morality

I love how the ideas support each other and have such tremendous reach (morality, politics, epistemolgy, computing). And it is written very cleanly and lucidly, which perhaps makes it easy to read quickly and miss how dense and deep the ideas actually are.