The book expands on his views of
quantum mechanics and its implications for understanding
reality. This interpretation, which he calls the
multiverse hypothesis, is one of a four-strand
theory of everything (TOE).
The four strands •
Hugh Everett's
many-worlds interpretation of
quantum physics, "The first and most important of the four strands". •
Karl Popper's
epistemology, especially its anti-
inductivism and its requiring a
realist (non-instrumental) interpretation of scientific theories, and its emphasis on taking seriously those bold conjectures that resist being
falsified. •
Alan Turing's
theory of computation, especially as developed in Deutsch's "Turing principle", where Turing's
Universal Turing machine is replaced by Deutsch's
universal quantum computer. ("
The theory of computation is now the quantum theory of computation.") •
Richard Dawkins' refinement of
Darwinian evolutionary theory and the
modern evolutionary synthesis, especially the ideas of replicator and
meme as they integrate with
Popperian problem-solving (the
epistemological strand).
Deutsch's TOE His theory of everything is (weakly)
emergentist rather than
reductive. It aims not at the reduction of everything to
particle physics, but rather at mutual support among multiverse, computational,
epistemological, and evolutionary principles. ==Reception==