Some interesting math leads to some half-baked philosophical speculation. I will resist further plays on the word 'baked' but there is a definite whiff of potsmoke emanating from this book. ( )

Rudy Rucker contemplates, at great length, the idea that perhaps the entire universe can be viewed as the working out of a series of computations, something akin to an immense implementation of cellular automata (like the well-known Game of Life, in which grids of light and dark squares follow simple rules to evolve complicated patterns over time). He looks at this idea on many different scales, from the basic laws of physics, to the workings of the brain, to the behavior of human societies.

It's hard for me to know quite what to say about this book. On the one hand, it offers some interesting and often quite reasonable and worthwhile perspectives on the world, and it does a good job of expressing some complicated mathematical and scientific ideas, such as chaos theory, in a very condensed way that works surprisingly well. (Although there are sections that get a little more technical, and a basic grounding in math, computer science, or physics might be helpful for some of it.) On the other hand, Rucker's writing is very rambly, and he makes a lot more sense on some subjects than on others. He also includes a lot of musings about his own life and snippets of his wacky SF writing, which I don't think were nearly as interesting to me as to him. Plus, he's got an odd and thoroughly unrepentant mystical streak, which doesn't sit particularly comfortably with me.

There's also a big, fundamental flaw at the heart of his whole premise. Namely, he defines "computation," in part, as something fundamentally deterministic. It's difficult to reconcile a fully deterministic universe with the seemingly probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics, though, and he does so mostly with a wishful-thinking argument that basically says, oh, well, I think there ought to be some way to get rid of this aspect of quantum mechanics because I don't like it, so I'm just going to assume it can somehow be made go away. For all I know, there's a chance he's right about that, but to call it unconvincing would be a universe-sized understatement.

So, yeah, while reading this was kind of an interesting journey, there's a limit to how seriously I'm taking it as a whole. I will say that this is the sort of book that if I'd read it in my high school or college years (not that that's possible, since it was published in 2005, well after I graduated), I might have had a little bit of a "Whoa, you just blew my mind!" kind of reaction. Now, though, I fear my response is much more along the lines of a noncommittal "hmm." ( )

Rucker discusses the thesis that everything is a computation, a more complex form of cellular automata, and what that would mean for philosophy. Along the way, he fills us in with a reasonable background in theories of computation, cellular automata, philosophy, and other computer science and mathematical topics.

From that description, the book may sound a bit dry, but it’s really quite enjoyable and engaging. Rucker starts each chapter with a short short story related to the chapter’s subject matter, and he sprinkles bits of his other (fictional) writing in where appropriate, as well. ( )

Disappointing. Half of it seems a rehash of Wolfram's A New Kind Of Science, and the rest a rehash of other, well-known results. Not much new. ( )

Sometime mathematician Rucker is now a disciple of Stephen Wolfram's universal computationalism (cellular automata, etc). From this standpoint he ruminates at length (564 pp) on computer science, physics, biology, psychology, sociology, and philosophy. www.rudyrucker.com/lifebox/