The Fabric of Reality

Aargh, Formatting! Try 2 : For the value of ‘best’ that includes (a) had a deep and long lasting impact on how I think about the world and (b) I consider beautiful pieces of writing in their own right, here are some in no particular order: The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman Naming and Necessity, Saul Kripke Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein (These you might want to approach via a gentle introduction if you did not study Philosophy to degree level) The Rediscovery of the Mind, John R Searle Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh Diaries, Samuel Pepys Falling Off the Map, Pico Iyer A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor The Lonely Sea and the Sky, Francis Chichester The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope Bevis, Richard Jeffries The Diary of a Nobody, George and Weedon GrossSmith The Inimitable Jeeves, PG Wodehouse Hitch-22, essays, Christopher Hitchens Collected Essays, William Hazlitt Venice, Martin Gayford The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski The Fabric of Reality, David Deutsch Too obvious a list, perhaps, but some gems for all that! Happy reading.

For the value of ‘best’ that includes (a) had a deep and long lasting impact on how I think about the world and (b) I consider beautiful pieces of writing in their own right, here are some in no particular order: The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman Naming and Necessity, Saul Kripke Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein (These you might want to approach via a gentle introduction if you did not study Philosophy to degree level) The Rediscovery of the Mind, John R Searle Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh Diaries, Samuel Pepys Falling Off the Map, Pico Iyer A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor The Lonely Sea and the Sky, Francis Chichester The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope Bevis, Richard Jeffries The Diary of a Nobody, George and Weedon GrossSmith The Inimitable Jeeves, PG Wodehouse Hitch-22, essaysChristopher Hitchens Collected Essays, William Hazlitt Venice, Martin Gayford The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski The Fabric of Reality, David Deutsch Too obvious a list, perhaps, but some gems for all that! Happy reading.

Writing a Go Interpreter Writing a Go Compiler No One Cares about Crazy People I Heard You Paint Houses UNIX: A History and a Memoir Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine How Asia Works The Dream Machine Black Earth The Fabric of Reality Behave (tried twice, maybe third times a charm?) A Short History of Nearly Everything Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers Genius: The Life and Science Richard Feynman Super Thinking Man's Search for Meaning The Cooking Gene The Vital Question: Why is Life The Way it Is (re-read) The Case Against Sugar The 15 Decisive Battles of the World The History of the Peloponnesian War The Beginning of Infinity The Book of Why

The Strangest Man - Graham Farmelo A biography of Paul Dirac. Very good. --------------- The Fabric of the Universe - David Deutsch What picture can we paint of the universe if we take together the best theories we have about fundamental things like time, life, virtual reality, cosmology etc. Easily the best book i've read in recent years. Consider that Deutsch is a very distinguished scientist in the field of quantum cryptography/computing. He is really good at explaining things in terms that non-physicists and experts alike can learn a lot! --------------- Roadside Picnic - Strugatzky Soviet Science Fiction book about the first and only visit of earth by aliens. The approach is very unusual since there is never any direct contact between humans and the extra terrestrial intelligence. The book is more like a study of human society and how it could develop if suddenly there was some extremely advanced technology available to us which we are too primitive to understand/control.

The Fabric of Reality - David Deutsch Godel, Escher, Bach - Douglas Hoftstadter Karl Popper's books (too many to list) The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

The Fabric of Reality. Why? Find out for yourself. Read the opening paragraphs here: http://www.qubit.org/people/david/FabricOfReality/FoRExtract... (http://www.qubit.org/people/david/FabricOfReality/FoRExtract.html) Also, I second GEB.