Contents of The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch

How much can our four deepest theories of the world explain?

  1. The Theory of Everything
    Our best explanations are getting deeper and broader.
  2. Shadows
    How we know that there are parallel universes.
  3. Problem-Solving
    Conjecture, criticism and refutation, but not induction.
  4. Criteria for Reality
    If it kicks back, it's real.
  5. Virtual Reality
    Not just a new technology, but a fundamental phenomenon of nature.
  6. Universality and the Limits of Computation
    The existence of universal computers reveals a new law of physics
  7. A Conversation About Justification
    (or "David and the Crypto-Inductivist")
  8. The Significance of Life
    Life and thought create the largest-scale structure in the multiverse
  9. Quantum Computers
    New modes of computation and new insights into physics
  10. The Nature of Mathematics
    Mathematical knowledge is not certain but rests entirely on science
  11. Time, the First Quantum Concept
    Other times are special cases of other universes
  12. Time Travel
    Quantum physics resolves the paradoxes.
  13. The Four Strands
    Our best theories are used pragmatically, yet, perversely, still disbelieved
  14. The Ends of the Universe
    Though the universe has no purpose, we can give it one