Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality

by Max Tegmark

So we’ve concocted a strange brew by blending together some of the most cherished ingredients of cosmology and quantum physics, adding some experimental data, and stirring it up. The result? The ingredients don’t mix well, suggesting that there’s something wrong with at least one of them.

the long-term potential for life is literally astronomical, yet we humans have no convincing plans for dealing with even the most-urgent existential risks, and we devote a minuscule fraction of our attention and resources to developing such plans.

problem of meaning seems to have two separate solutions, each of which works quite well for at least some people. I think of these solutions as “top-down” and “bottom-up.”