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The One True Platonic Heaven: A Scientific Fiction on the Limits of Knowledge
By the author of The Cambridge Quintet, John L. Casti's new book continues the tradition of combining science fact with just the right dose of fiction. Part novel, part science ? wholly informative and entertaining.
In the fall of 1933 the newly founded Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, welcomed its first faculty member, Albert Einstein. With this superstar on the roster, the Institute was able to attract many more of the greatest scholars, scientists, and poets from around the world. It was to be an intellectual haven, a place where the most brilliant minds on the planet, sheltered from the outside world's cares and calamities, could study and collaborate and devote their time to the pure and exclusive pursuit of knowledge. For many of them, it was the "one, true, platonic heaven."
Over the years, key figures at the Institute began to question the limits to what science could tell us about the world, pondering the universal secrets it might unlock. Could science be the ultimate source of truth; or are there intrinsic limits, built into the very fabric of the universe, to what we can learn? In the late 1940's and early 1950's, this important question was being asked and pondered upon by some of the Institute's deepest thinkers.
Enter the dramatis personae to illuminate the science and the philosophy of the time. Mathematical logician Kurt Godel was the unacknowledged Grant Exalted Ruler of this platonic estate ? but he was a ruler without a scepter as he awaited the inexplicably indefinite postponement of his promotion to full, tenured professor. Also in residence was his colleague, the Hungarian-American polymath, John van Neumann, developer of game theory, the axiomatic foundations of quantum mechanics, and the digital computer ? stymied by the Institute's refusal to sanction his bold proposal to actually build a computer. One of Godel's closest friends figures large in this Albert Einstein, by common consensus the greatest physicist the 20th century had ever known. And, of course, the director the Institute, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, must by necessity be key to any story that focuses in on this time and place.
Author Casti elegantly sets the stage and then masterfully directs this impressive cast of characters?with able assists by many "minor-character" icons like T. S. Eliot, Wolfgang Pauli, Freeman Dyson, and David Bohm, to tell a story of science, history, and ideas. As we watch events unfold (some of which are documented fact while others are creatively imagined fiction), we are witness to the discussions and deliberations of this august group? privy to wide-ranging conversations on thinking machines, quantum logic, biology as physics, weather forecasting, the structure of economic systems, the distinction between mathematics and natural science, the structure of the universe, and the powers of the human mind ? all centered around the question of the limits to scientific knowledge.
Imaginatively conceived and artfully executed, The One True Platonic Heaven is an accessible and intriguing presentation of some of the deepest scientific and philosophical ideas of the 20th century.
In the fall of 1933 the newly founded Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, welcomed its first faculty member, Albert Einstein. With this superstar on the roster, the Institute was able to attract many more of the greatest scholars, scientists, and poets from around the world. It was to be an intellectual haven, a place where the most brilliant minds on the planet, sheltered from the outside world's cares and calamities, could study and collaborate and devote their time to the pure and exclusive pursuit of knowledge. For many of them, it was the "one, true, platonic heaven."
Over the years, key figures at the Institute began to question the limits to what science could tell us about the world, pondering the universal secrets it might unlock. Could science be the ultimate source of truth; or are there intrinsic limits, built into the very fabric of the universe, to what we can learn? In the late 1940's and early 1950's, this important question was being asked and pondered upon by some of the Institute's deepest thinkers.
Enter the dramatis personae to illuminate the science and the philosophy of the time. Mathematical logician Kurt Godel was the unacknowledged Grant Exalted Ruler of this platonic estate ? but he was a ruler without a scepter as he awaited the inexplicably indefinite postponement of his promotion to full, tenured professor. Also in residence was his colleague, the Hungarian-American polymath, John van Neumann, developer of game theory, the axiomatic foundations of quantum mechanics, and the digital computer ? stymied by the Institute's refusal to sanction his bold proposal to actually build a computer. One of Godel's closest friends figures large in this Albert Einstein, by common consensus the greatest physicist the 20th century had ever known. And, of course, the director the Institute, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, must by necessity be key to any story that focuses in on this time and place.
Author Casti elegantly sets the stage and then masterfully directs this impressive cast of characters?with able assists by many "minor-character" icons like T. S. Eliot, Wolfgang Pauli, Freeman Dyson, and David Bohm, to tell a story of science, history, and ideas. As we watch events unfold (some of which are documented fact while others are creatively imagined fiction), we are witness to the discussions and deliberations of this august group? privy to wide-ranging conversations on thinking machines, quantum logic, biology as physics, weather forecasting, the structure of economic systems, the distinction between mathematics and natural science, the structure of the universe, and the powers of the human mind ? all centered around the question of the limits to scientific knowledge.
Imaginatively conceived and artfully executed, The One True Platonic Heaven is an accessible and intriguing presentation of some of the deepest scientific and philosophical ideas of the 20th century.
180 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
About the author
John L. Casti
61 books24 followersJohn L. Casti (born 1943) is an author, mathematician, and entrepreneur.
As a mathematician and researcher, Casti received his Ph.D. under Richard Bellman at the University of Southern California. He worked at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, CA, and served on the faculties of the University of Arizona, New York University and Princeton University, before moving to Vienna in 1973 to become one of the first members of the research staff at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria. In 1986, he left IIASA to take up a position as a Professor of Operations Research and System Theory at the Technical University of Vienna. He also served as a member of the External Faculty of the Santa Fe Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, from 1992-2002, where he worked extensively on the application of biological metaphors to the mathematical modeling of problems in economics, finance and road-traffic networks, as well as on large-scale computer simulations for the study of such networks.
His primary research interests have shifted somewhat in recent years from the natural sciences to the exploration of questions in the social and behavioral realm. One thread has been exploration of the relationship between the social "mood" of a population its biasing effect on actions and behaviors. In this direction, his 2010 book, Mood Matters: From Rising Skirt Lengths to the Collapse of World Powers, published by Copernicus Books, NY, addresses the directions and patterns of social causation and their implications for future trends and collective social events, such as styles in popular culture, the outcome of political processes, and even the rise and fall of civilizations. His most recent book is X-EVENTS: The Collapse of Everything, which addresses the underlying cause of extreme events generated by human inattention, misunderstanding, error, stupidity and/or malevolent intent. The English original edition was published in June 2012 by HarperCollins/Morrow, New York. The book now exists in 15 foreign editions, as well, including German, Japanese, Russian, Dutch, Korean and Portuguese.
As an entrepreneur, Casti formed two companies in Santa Fe and London in 2000, Qforma, Inc. and SimWorld, Ltd, respectively, devoted to the employment of tools and concepts from modern system theory for the solution of problems in business and finance, as well as health care. Qforma merged with SkilaMederi in June 2013. In early 2005 he returned to Vienna where he co-founded The Kenos Circle, a professional society that aims to make use of complexity science in order to gain a deeper insight into the future than that offered by more conventional statistical tools.
For several years, Professor Casti was a Senior Research Scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, where he created an initiative for the study on Extreme Events in Human Society. In January 2012 he left IIASA to form a new research institute in Vienna, The X-Center, devoted to the study of human-caused extreme events. The X-Center has now expanded to a network of affiliated X-Centers in Helsinki, Tokyo, Seoul, New York and Singapore. Since early 2013, Dr. Casti has been serving as a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Complex Systems and Enterprises at the Stevens Institute of Technology in the USA.
As an author, Casti has written more than 120 scientific articles and seven technical monographs and textbooks on mathematical modeling. In addition, he was formerly editor of the journals Applied Mathematics & Computation (Elsevier, New York) and Complexity (Wiley, New York). In 1989 his text/reference works Alternate Realities: Mathematical Models of Nature and Man (Wiley, 1989) was awarded a prize by the Association of American Publishers in a competition among all scholarly books published in mathematics and the natural sciences. In 1992, he also published Reality Rules (Wiley, New York), a t
As a mathematician and researcher, Casti received his Ph.D. under Richard Bellman at the University of Southern California. He worked at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, CA, and served on the faculties of the University of Arizona, New York University and Princeton University, before moving to Vienna in 1973 to become one of the first members of the research staff at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria. In 1986, he left IIASA to take up a position as a Professor of Operations Research and System Theory at the Technical University of Vienna. He also served as a member of the External Faculty of the Santa Fe Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, from 1992-2002, where he worked extensively on the application of biological metaphors to the mathematical modeling of problems in economics, finance and road-traffic networks, as well as on large-scale computer simulations for the study of such networks.
His primary research interests have shifted somewhat in recent years from the natural sciences to the exploration of questions in the social and behavioral realm. One thread has been exploration of the relationship between the social "mood" of a population its biasing effect on actions and behaviors. In this direction, his 2010 book, Mood Matters: From Rising Skirt Lengths to the Collapse of World Powers, published by Copernicus Books, NY, addresses the directions and patterns of social causation and their implications for future trends and collective social events, such as styles in popular culture, the outcome of political processes, and even the rise and fall of civilizations. His most recent book is X-EVENTS: The Collapse of Everything, which addresses the underlying cause of extreme events generated by human inattention, misunderstanding, error, stupidity and/or malevolent intent. The English original edition was published in June 2012 by HarperCollins/Morrow, New York. The book now exists in 15 foreign editions, as well, including German, Japanese, Russian, Dutch, Korean and Portuguese.
As an entrepreneur, Casti formed two companies in Santa Fe and London in 2000, Qforma, Inc. and SimWorld, Ltd, respectively, devoted to the employment of tools and concepts from modern system theory for the solution of problems in business and finance, as well as health care. Qforma merged with SkilaMederi in June 2013. In early 2005 he returned to Vienna where he co-founded The Kenos Circle, a professional society that aims to make use of complexity science in order to gain a deeper insight into the future than that offered by more conventional statistical tools.
For several years, Professor Casti was a Senior Research Scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, where he created an initiative for the study on Extreme Events in Human Society. In January 2012 he left IIASA to form a new research institute in Vienna, The X-Center, devoted to the study of human-caused extreme events. The X-Center has now expanded to a network of affiliated X-Centers in Helsinki, Tokyo, Seoul, New York and Singapore. Since early 2013, Dr. Casti has been serving as a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Complex Systems and Enterprises at the Stevens Institute of Technology in the USA.
As an author, Casti has written more than 120 scientific articles and seven technical monographs and textbooks on mathematical modeling. In addition, he was formerly editor of the journals Applied Mathematics & Computation (Elsevier, New York) and Complexity (Wiley, New York). In 1989 his text/reference works Alternate Realities: Mathematical Models of Nature and Man (Wiley, 1989) was awarded a prize by the Association of American Publishers in a competition among all scholarly books published in mathematics and the natural sciences. In 1992, he also published Reality Rules (Wiley, New York), a t
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 5, 2026
Tämän olisi pitänyt olla erittäin kiinnostava kirja. Aihe on ehkä kiinnostavin mahdollinen. Löysin tämän sitä paitsi Gregory Chaitinin suosittelemana oman teoksensa loppusanoissa. Ylipäätänsä, aiheena on One True Platonic Heaven. Juuri se aika matematiikan historiassa (1900-luvun alku), jolloin tarkasteltiin fundamentaalisia ja fundamentaalisen kiinnostavia kysymyksiä: tiedon rajoja, logiikan rajoja, matematiikan rajoja, koko maailman tiedettävyyden rajoja. Perustavanlaatuiset mullitukset matematiikassa ja fysiikassa. Kvanttiteoria jne. Myös kirjan henkilökaarti on optimaalisen kiinnostava. Gödel, Einstein, von Neumann, Oppenheimer jne.
Mikä tämä ylipäätänsä on? Kyseessä on RPF-ficci. Sellaisena suorastaan konventionaalinen. Kyseessä ei siis ole historiallinen katsaus tai elämänkerta tms. (kuten aluksi luulin) vaan nimenomaan hyvin spesifisti RPF-ficci. En tietenkään paheksu tätä, päinvastoin, jos jostakusta reaalisesta henkilöstä haluaisin lukea ficcejä, niin kaikista mahdollisista maailman ihmisistä ehkäpä juuri nimenomaan näistä spesifesitä matemaatikoista ja fyysikoista.
Ongelma on kuitenkin se, että tämä on yllättävän laimea. Alku on erittäin lupaava ja kerronta on tunnistettavan ficcimäistä. Tyyli ja kieli ovat tunnistettavia. Myös nimenomaan nuori Gödel (joka elämänkerrallisten faktojen perusteella vaikutti, kuten aika moni muukin täällä, turbo autistilta) on kiinnostava hahmo.
Mutta ongelma on siinä ettei lupaava alku kuitenkaan lähde tarpeeksi mihinkään. Vaikka keskustelut ovat kiinnostavia, ne eivät etene sellaiselle lupaillulle tasolle. Kirja koostuu lähinnä keskustelukohtauksista, muuta siinä ei ole eikä tarvitsekaan. Välillä keskustelut menevät kuitenkin varsin teknisiksi, ja sekä kiinnostava hahmokuvaus (jonka kirjottaja kyllä jotenkin näyttää osaavan) että varsinaiset kunnon filosofiset aiheet jäävät sivummalle. Dialogi on hyvää ja toimivaa, mutta lopputulos jää kuitenkin vähän keskinkertaiseksi.
Kyllä tämä laatu ficci on, ja tosi hyvin kirjoitettu, mutta odotin paljon enemmän. Aihe, hahmot, tapa jolla kirjoittaja heidät kirjoitti, olisivat antaneet aineksia parempaan. Toisaalta, joskus minimalistinen dialogi on parempi kuin viktoriaanistyylinen (Shelley) vuodatus. Ehkä pitäisi lukea uudestaan.
Mikä tämä ylipäätänsä on? Kyseessä on RPF-ficci. Sellaisena suorastaan konventionaalinen. Kyseessä ei siis ole historiallinen katsaus tai elämänkerta tms. (kuten aluksi luulin) vaan nimenomaan hyvin spesifisti RPF-ficci. En tietenkään paheksu tätä, päinvastoin, jos jostakusta reaalisesta henkilöstä haluaisin lukea ficcejä, niin kaikista mahdollisista maailman ihmisistä ehkäpä juuri nimenomaan näistä spesifesitä matemaatikoista ja fyysikoista.
Ongelma on kuitenkin se, että tämä on yllättävän laimea. Alku on erittäin lupaava ja kerronta on tunnistettavan ficcimäistä. Tyyli ja kieli ovat tunnistettavia. Myös nimenomaan nuori Gödel (joka elämänkerrallisten faktojen perusteella vaikutti, kuten aika moni muukin täällä, turbo autistilta) on kiinnostava hahmo.
Mutta ongelma on siinä ettei lupaava alku kuitenkaan lähde tarpeeksi mihinkään. Vaikka keskustelut ovat kiinnostavia, ne eivät etene sellaiselle lupaillulle tasolle. Kirja koostuu lähinnä keskustelukohtauksista, muuta siinä ei ole eikä tarvitsekaan. Välillä keskustelut menevät kuitenkin varsin teknisiksi, ja sekä kiinnostava hahmokuvaus (jonka kirjottaja kyllä jotenkin näyttää osaavan) että varsinaiset kunnon filosofiset aiheet jäävät sivummalle. Dialogi on hyvää ja toimivaa, mutta lopputulos jää kuitenkin vähän keskinkertaiseksi.
Kyllä tämä laatu ficci on, ja tosi hyvin kirjoitettu, mutta odotin paljon enemmän. Aihe, hahmot, tapa jolla kirjoittaja heidät kirjoitti, olisivat antaneet aineksia parempaan. Toisaalta, joskus minimalistinen dialogi on parempi kuin viktoriaanistyylinen (Shelley) vuodatus. Ehkä pitäisi lukea uudestaan.
July 12, 2025
Kurt Godel, mad mathematician, made one of the most disturbing discoveries of the twentieth century, far scarier than his pal Einstein's Theory of Relativity or their acolyte Robert Oppenheimer and atom bombs built on nuclear fission, though both men appear here in John Casti's fictional treatment of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton. Godel, in his Incompleteness Theorem of mathematics, held that "in any mathematical system there are truths which are self-evident and discoverable but can never be proven using the rules of that system". Yawn you say? Nay. If Godel is correct everything, literally everything from math problems to physics to the universe itself, is self-referential. All knowledge, in other words, is ultimately a play on itself; a form of self-knowledge. This is frightening since it follows that all that can be known is limited by the rules we use to attain knowledge. Somewhere out there there may indeed be eternal truths, or forms, according to Plato, but they are unknown and must remain so. (There is an echo here of Wittgenstein's theory of language games, but, curiously, Casti does not pursue this parallel.) I'd like to give THE ONE TRUE PLATONIC HEAVEN a higher number of stars but cannot. Compared to Casti's other ventures into fictional scientific debates the writing here is dull and the characters plastic. Great topic, though, to start an argument.
March 1, 2021
John Casti is a first-rate popular science writer. I can only assume it's for that reason that Joseph Henry Press decided to publish The One True Platonic Heaven, considering that: John Casti is a seriously mediocre fiction writer. And a cringingly misogynist one to boot. This very short very dull book reads like the response of a college freshman in a 'physics for poets' class to the prompt:
"In the first decades of the 20th century, Princeton's Institute for Advanced Studies was the locus of a number of important developments in physics, mathematics, computer science, and economics. Discuss them. (Note: you may optionally submit your response in the form of a creative work of fiction.)"
If you're at all familiar with the (fascinating, awe-inspiring) intellectual/scientific-historical developments -- and the various personages -- this book treats, prepare to encounter them here in the blandest presentation possible.
My hardcover copy of this book cost some unsuspecting rube $22.95. I bought it used for a dollar and got about 5 cents' pleasure reading it. And off it shall soon go to the little library down the block.
Even at superfast-reading pace (I finished it in a couple hours + a few somnambulant stretches), The One True was a complete waste of my time.
"In the first decades of the 20th century, Princeton's Institute for Advanced Studies was the locus of a number of important developments in physics, mathematics, computer science, and economics. Discuss them. (Note: you may optionally submit your response in the form of a creative work of fiction.)"
If you're at all familiar with the (fascinating, awe-inspiring) intellectual/scientific-historical developments -- and the various personages -- this book treats, prepare to encounter them here in the blandest presentation possible.
My hardcover copy of this book cost some unsuspecting rube $22.95. I bought it used for a dollar and got about 5 cents' pleasure reading it. And off it shall soon go to the little library down the block.
Even at superfast-reading pace (I finished it in a couple hours + a few somnambulant stretches), The One True was a complete waste of my time.
February 15, 2024
So... this is something I downloaded years ago, forgot about, then after rereading the Republic & having a few break-throughs, found again, mistaking the title as an indication of the contents. Turns out the Platonic heaven is a place to work & think about nothing but ideas, which has nothing to do with Plato's idea of what heaven could be or what could be know about it.
This book is a condensed dramatized history of von Neumann at Princeton's IAS. It's ok, but there are better sources since this came out.
This book is a condensed dramatized history of von Neumann at Princeton's IAS. It's ok, but there are better sources since this came out.
October 26, 2014
It really doesn't address the outer limits of knowledge very deeply witch is a pity.More a book about mathematicians then about mathematics. According to the author the dates and the dialogs are fictional. The people are real Godel, Einstein, von Neumann. I don't know what to make of it. It's OK to read I guess
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews