A poet, a physicist, and a philosopher explored the greatest enigmas in the universe—the nature of free will, the strange fabric of the cosmos, the true limits of the mind—and each in their own way uncovered a revelatory truth about our place in the world. [Amazon]
Author(s): Egginton, William
Edition: 1
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Year: 2023
Language: English
Commentary: This is a review copy. The contents section does not include page numbers, and there is no index. As far as I can tell, there are no other differences form the published work. [Uploaded by Astrophel: 2023]
Pages: 332
City: New York
Tags: Philosophy, Physics Literature, Quantum Theory, Time/Space
1. Unforgettable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
A man shows up in Moscow with an apparently flawless memory,
and Borges writes a story pushing the idea to its extreme, touching on
a paradox unearthed by Kant and explored by Heisenberg
2. A Brief History of This Very Instant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Kant’s struggle with Hume leads us back to ancient Greece, where we
encounter a very “queer creature,” the instant of change
3. Visualize This!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Heisenberg discovers discontinuity at the heart of reality and defends
his chunky model against Schrödinger’s smooth waves
PART II. NOT BEING GOD
4. Entanglements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Citing special relativity, Einstein sides with Schrödinger, and they
come up with a crazy thought experiment that turns the physics
world on its head
5. Sub Specie Aeternitatis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Back in Prussia, Kant asks what knowledge would be like for an
omniscient being, and we are transported to the warring factions of
early Christianity
6. In the Blink of an Eye. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Borges turns to the kabbalistic idea of the aleph to get over Norah,
and finds new love while exploring the paradoxes of simultaneity
PART III. DOES THE UNIVERSE HAVE AN EDGE?
7. The Universe (Which Others Call the Library) . . . . . . . . . 000
As his country flirts with fascism, Borges organizes the shelves of a
municipal library he imagines to be without borders
8. Gravitas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Heisenberg’s conversations with Einstein reveal an underlying
reconciliation between relativity and quantum mechanics in a vision
of the cosmos foreseen by Dante
9. Made to Measure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Kant writes his third and final “Critique,” and his notion of beauty
paves the way for an understanding of what guides inquiry in the
physical sciences
PART IV. THE ABYSS OF FREEDOM
10. Free Will . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Kant’s search for free will in a deterministic cosmos conjures the
Roman patrician Boethius, who salvages freedom from fate while
awaiting execution for treason in a dungeon in Pavia
11. Forking Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
The physicist Hugh Everett has the wild idea that new universes are
birthed continuously, and Borges explores the same idea in a spy story
12. Putting the Demon to Rest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Heisenberg defends his decisions during the war, as we consider what
his discovery meant for questions of free will and determinism
Postscript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Wherein we see how Borges, Kant, and Heisenberg, each in his own
way, worked to undermine the e!ects of metaphysical prejudice
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000
