“ The whole [scientific] process resembles biological evolution. A problem is like an ecological niche, and a theory is like a gene or a species which is being tested for viability in that niche. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 3.2K
“ The second fundamental misconception in inductivism is that scientific theories predict that ‘the future will resemble the past’, and that ‘the unseen resembles the seen’ and so on. (Or that it ‘probably’ will.) But in reality the future is unlike the past, the unseen very different from the seen. Science often predicts – and brings about – phenomena spectacularly different from anything that has been experienced before. For millennia people dreamed about flying, but they experienced only falling. Then they discovered good explanatory theories about flying, and then they flew – in that order. Before 1945, no human being had ever observed a nuclearfission (atomicbomb) explosion; there may never have been one in the history of the universe. Yet the first such explosion, and the conditions under which it would occur, had been accurately predicted – but not from the assumption that the future would be like the past. Even sunrise – that favourite example of inductivists – is not always observed every twentyfour hours: when viewed from orbit it may happen every ninety minutes, or not at all. And that was known from theory long before anyone had ever orbited the Earth. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 3.9K
“ The overwhelming majority of theories are rejected because they contain bad explanations, not because they fail experimental tests. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 2.4K
“ Quantum computation is… a distinctively new way of harnessing nature… It will be the first technology that allows useful tasks to be performed in collaboration between parallel universes. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 1.8K
“ The truly privileged theories are not the ones referring to any particular scale of size or complexity, nor the ones situated at any particular level of the predictive hierarchy, but the ones that contain the deepest explanations. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
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“ Our best theories are not only truer than common sense, they make more sense than common sense. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 3.7K
“ I myself believe that there will one day be time travel because when we find that something isn't forbidden by the over-arching laws of physics we usually eventually find a technological way of doing it. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 633
“ The theory of computation has traditionally been studied almost entirely in the abstract, as a topic in pure mathematics. This is to miss the point of it. Computers are physical objects, and computations are physical processes. What computers can or cannot compute is determined by the laws of physics alone, and not by pure mathematics. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 2.8K
“ Quantum computation is… a distinctively new way of harnessing nature… It will be the first technology that allows useful tasks to be performed in collaboration between parallel universes. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 1.4K
“ The theory of computation has traditionally been studied almost entirely in the abstract, as a topic in pure mathematics. This is to miss the point of it. Computers are physical objects, and computations are physical processes. What computers can or cannot compute is determined by the laws of physics alone, and not by pure mathematics. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 114
“ Quantum computation is… a distinctively new way of harnessing nature… It will be the first technology that allows useful tasks to be performed in collaboration between parallel universes. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 3.2K
“ The theory of computation has traditionally been studied almost entirely in the abstract, as a topic in pure mathematics. This is to miss the point of it. Computers are physical objects, and computations are physical processes. What computers can or cannot compute is determined by the laws of physics alone, and not by pure mathematics. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 2.6K
“ Quantum computation is… a distinctively new way of harnessing nature… It will be the first technology that allows useful tasks to be performed in collaboration between parallel universes. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 2.8K
“ The theory of computation has traditionally been studied almost entirely in the abstract, as a topic in pure mathematics. This is to miss the point of it. Computers are physical objects, and computations are physical processes. What computers can or cannot compute is determined by the laws of physics alone, and not by pure mathematics. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 4K
“ It is possible to build a virtual-reality generator whose repertoire includes every possible environment. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 544
“ Quantum computation is… a distinctively new way of harnessing nature… It will be the first technology that allows useful tasks to be performed in collaboration between parallel universes. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 1.7K
“ I myself believe that there will one day be time travel because when we find that something isn't forbidden by the over-arching laws of physics we usually eventually find a technological way of doing it. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
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“ I myself believe that there will one day be time travel because when we find that something isn't forbidden by the over-arching laws of physics we usually eventually find a technological way of doing it. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 3.8K
“ It is possible to build a virtual-reality generator whose repertoire includes every possible environment. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 2.9K
“ Quantum computation is… a distinctively new way of harnessing nature… It will be the first technology that allows useful tasks to be performed in collaboration between parallel universes. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 3.9K
“ Every potential angle is being looked at the same way as the previous crimes,... We do have investigative leads. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
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“ Every potential angle is being looked at the same way as the previous crimes,... We do have investigative leads. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 3.5K
“ It is possible to build a virtual-reality generator whose repertoire includes every possible environment. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 3.4K
“ The quantum theory of parallel universes is not the problem, it is the solution. It is not some troublesome, optional interpretation emerging from arcane theoretical considerations. It is the explanation, the only one that is tenable, of a remarkable and counter-intuitive reality. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 1.2K
“ The overwhelming majority of theories are rejected because they contain bad explanations, not because they fail experimental tests. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 3.1K
“ The theory of computation has traditionally been studied almost entirely in the abstract, as a topic in pure mathematics. This is to miss the point of it. Computers are physical objects, and computations are physical processes. What computers can or cannot compute is determined by the laws of physics alone, and not by pure mathematics. ”
- David Deutsch- Copy
- 3.5K
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