Is the Universe a Hologram?: Scientists Answer the Most Provocative Questions
Adolfo Plasencia
Abstract
The place of discovery and generation of human knowledge has become a somewhat fuzzy area, and it is at the crossroads of equally blurred disciplines where new glimpses of the future occur. This book looks at these issues through a series of interconnected and heterodox reflections. It is much more a book of non-linear questions than one of answers, where the index consists of a list of questions with those who address the issues linked to them. In 33 dialogues, the author attempts to draw the participants, researchers and creators—each specialists—out of their “intellectual comfort zones”, an ... More
The place of discovery and generation of human knowledge has become a somewhat fuzzy area, and it is at the crossroads of equally blurred disciplines where new glimpses of the future occur. This book looks at these issues through a series of interconnected and heterodox reflections. It is much more a book of non-linear questions than one of answers, where the index consists of a list of questions with those who address the issues linked to them. In 33 dialogues, the author attempts to draw the participants, researchers and creators—each specialists—out of their “intellectual comfort zones”, and get them to delve into areas of disciplines not considered part of their usual activities, thus enabling different concepts to be discussed. For example, “intelligence”, viewed simultaneously from the perspective of neuroscience, computer science, philosophy, and Artificial Intelligence, or whether quantum physics allows for freewill. The diversity and interconnecting ideas in these conversations is wide ranging and intense. The dialogues, preceded by a foreword from Tim O’Reilly, are arranged in four blocks: I, The Physical World; II, Information, and III, Intelligence; the fourth block is a dialogue-epilogue with the artist and painter J. M. Yturralde, closing the book with a critical foray into the overlap between Art and Science, with tantalizing questions, with an artistic slant, such as the validity of the equation “Beauty ≠ Truth,” or whether we can go back in time to the past and change it.
Keywords:
Physical World,
Intelligence,
Neurons,
Galaxies,
Cross-fertilization,
AI,
Discovery and Invention,
Multidimensional and primordial universe,
Third culture,
Provocative questions
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2017 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780262036016 |
Published to MIT Press Scholarship Online: January 2018 |
DOI:10.7551/mitpress/9780262036016.001.0001 |