The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

by David Deutsch

Roy Porter marks 1688 as the beginning of the English Enlightenment. That is the date of the ‘Glorious Revolution’, the beginning of predominantly constitutional government along with many other rational reforms which were part of that deeper and astonishingly rapid shift in the prevailing world view.

Every one of those deeply unforeseeable new ideas that make the future unpredictable will begin as a speculation. And every speculation begins with a problem: problems in regard to the future can reach beyond the horizon of prediction too – and problems have solutions.

The laws of physics make sense: the world is explicable. There are higher levels of emergence and higher levels of explanation. Profound abstractions in mathematics, morality and aesthetics are accessible to us. Ideas of tremendous reach are possible.

Death does not make sense.

There is only one way of thinking that is capable of making progress, or of surviving in the long run, and that is the way of seeking good explanations through creativity and criticism.