David Deutsch
David Deutsch
David Elieser Deutsch, FRS, is an Israeli-born British physicist at the University of Oxford. He is a non-stipendiary Visiting Professor in the Department of Atomic and Laser Physics at the Centre for Quantum Computationin the Clarendon Laboratory of the University of Oxford. He pioneered the field of quantum computation by formulating a description for a quantum Turing machine, as well as specifying an algorithm designed to run on a quantum computer. He is a proponent of the many-worlds interpretation of...
program programming ifs
If we can't program it, we can't understand it.
almost cannot computers determined entirely laws mathematics miss physical physics point pure studied theory topic
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.
angle looked potential previous
Every potential angle is being looked at the same way as the previous crimes, ... We do have investigative leads.
cannot certain mathematics merely necessary object reward truth
Necessary truth is merely the subject-matter of mathematics, not the reward we get for doing mathematics. The object of mathematics is not, and cannot be, mathematical certainty. It is not even mathematical truth, certain or otherwise. It is, and must be, mathematical explanation.
chapter likely mathematics next provoke
The next chapter is likely to provoke many mathematicians. This can't be helped. Mathematics is not what they think it is.
tests failing explanation
Where we have good, testable explanations, they then have to be tested, and we drop the ones that fail the tests.
play interesting people
I chop and change between what is called 'work' and what is called 'recreation.' There are no discontinuities in my day. I only play tennis with people I find interesting.
believe law one-day
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.
fall apples numbers
The brain is the only kind of object capable of understanding that the cosmos is even there, or why there are infinitely many prime numbers, or that apples fall because of the curvature of space-time, or that obeying its own inborn instincts can be morally wrong, or that it itself exists.
thinking ideas political
I don't think it would be a good idea for scientists to have more political power. Scientists as a group are more inclined to try to derive an ought from an is, than the population at large.
reality law understanding
To me quantum computation is a new and deeper and better way to understand the laws of physics, and hence understanding physical reality as a whole.
reality environment virtual-reality
It is possible to build a virtual-reality generator whose repertoire includes every possible environment.
may suggestions cynicism
Despite the unrivaled empirical success of quantum theory, the very suggestion that it may be literally true as a description of nature is still greeted with cynicism, incomprehension, and even anger.
biblical years data
The theory that the biosphere was created without evolution, a few thousand years ago, is ruled out by overwhelming scientific evidence. To claim that there are 'alternative (always better) Biblical explanations of the same data', which make creationism a reasonable alternative to our best theories of biology and physics, is appalling intellectual dishonesty.