In the Beginning

power of good explanations

I have no science background (except college biology) and my own reading, so my understanding of The Beginning of Infinity is somewhat limited (particularly the chapter on the multiverse). But even with that limitation, I found this to be one of the best books I've read in years in terms of developing and pushing my own understanding of the world. I reread two chapters just to try to get some inkling of their meaning (the multiverse and the jump to universality). I also read the infinity chapter twice and on the second reading I finally got the point of the infinite hotel (or at least one point). Even after two reads though, with those chapters I still felt lost. I really need to reread them all, but this is my review with just one reading. Despite my ignorance, I still felt it worthwhile to write a review to encourage others who might think that this book is not for them to tackle it. It is worth the effort to comprehend even for those who are not versed in the sciences. This is what I understood from the book. Deutsch argues that we are at the "beginning" of the creation of good explanations about our world (the infinity of the title is the endless knowledge that humans have the potential to create). We will always be at the beginning (such is the nature of infinity I think--at least that's what the infinite hotel suggested), and this leads to optimism about our world. Our world is filled with (overflowing with might be a better way to think of it because we don't even really know where the world ends)problems and potential solutions. Through conjecture and criticism, humans "solve" many of these problems and this leads to new problems (solutions are not truths but they are the best explanations for the problem after much testing--and stand as objective truths, I think). D systematically builds his case, looking at other science approaches like empiricism or instrumentalism and shows why these are not good explanations. This is not an attack on alternative pers...