Is This An Overview?
Progress depends on explanations. On good explanations. Explanations are claims about what something is and how that something behaves. Problems are a conflict within the explanation, with problems resolved by a good explanation that resolves the conflict within them. Problems fail to be resolved when they rely on bad explanations. Problems are inevitable but are soluble with good explanations.

Problems come for various sources such as communication which can create a problem with misinterpretation, and physical reality can create a problem for survival. The various sources create potentially infinite problems. As the potential problems are infinite, they require infinite progress to resolve them. Resolving some or many problems, still leaves an infinite of problems. Making progress always at the beginning of infinity. Progress has no bounds, as there will always be an infinite more to accomplish.

Explanations are an act of creativity. Scientific theories start as guesses that are error corrected and improved upon. Theories are not derived from anything, not even from experiences. But experiences shape which theories survive. Testable predictions are not enough in science, for predictions do not self-explain how something works. Understanding how something works requires an explanation. Explanations themselves are not enough for a variety of claims can be made to explain testable evidence. A fundamental flaw of bad explanations is that they drastically vary their claims without changing the predictions.

What Are The Limits To Empiricism?
Empiricism has limits about what is not experienced. Much of reality cannot be experienced. Predictions about what has not been experienced, and are based on how they are. The problem is that the future is not like the past. Logical deductions based on experiences does not explain anything other than what has been experienced.

Experiences are based on the senses. The senses might not be deceptive, but the interpretations derived from the senses can be. Making them part of the explanation paradigm for the Interpretations are fallible, and therefore can be improved through criticism and testing. Empiricism is flawed because it requires pre-existing knowledge to know what to observe and how to interpret the information.

Does Science Need An Authority?
Science needing authority is a misconception derived from a need for certainly. A bias called justificationism. This leads to trying to prevent ideas from changing.

Static societies remove the source of ideas which is creativity. They generate institutions that prevent people from coming up with new ideas.

Alternatively there is fallibilism which goes against authoritative sources of knowledge. In this view, people create knowledge through better understanding of what is and expecting the ideas to be challenged and improved. That the ideas will change. Knowledge does not have an authority to rely on, it comes from any source. The Enlightenment created a tradition of criticism.

What Makes A Good Explanation?
Testability nor prediction is the purpose of science because appearances are not self-explanatory. If appearances contained self-evident explanations, there would be no need for science. Testable predictions do not explain how something works. That requires an explanation, which are claims about reality for the workings of the appearance.

Bad explanations, even with testable predictions, are unscientific. Many theories are rejected without experimentation because they are bad explanations. Removing a faulty theory is not enough, for a better explanation is needed. Good explanations are hard to vary without being tested. Predictions are made from good explanations, while prophecy are claims about the unknowable.

Claims have become more distant from everyday experiences, which makes misinterpretation more likely. Science becomes better even with the misinterpretations, as science can error-correct the interpretations and fill in data gaps. Misinterpretations can come from communication, as the same words can have different meanings for the recipient and communicator, requiring guesswork which is subject to error correction.

Knowledge that has become common is background knowledge, rules of thumb. They appear to be explanationless predictions, but there are always explanations for them.

How Does Biology Effect Knowledge?
Biological knowledge is non-explanatory which makes it have limited reach and depend on random mutations. Explanatory human knowledge has unlimited reach and are based on conjectures that are constructed intentionally for a purpose.

Evolution has created many defects in the biological species. Evolution can make beneficial and harmful changes to biology. Defects which are in conflict with a designer.

What Is A Better Explanation For Earth’s Status?
Earth is sometimes portrayed as a space ship that provides all that humans needs to sustain themselves. That humans are squandering what the Earth has provided. That humans are insignificant. The problem with this view is that most of the universe is cold, dark, and empty which makes Earth remarkably untypical.

Much of Earth’s environment leads to death for humans rather than a life-supporting system made for humans. It takes human ingenuity to designing technology to enable them to live in the life threatening system. Extinctions of the past occurred because the beings were living the lifestyles they evolved to rather than adept to changing conditions. Nature did provide raw materials for survival, but it took knowledge to make use of the materials to enable people to survive and thrive. Evolution did not provide knowledge on how to transform the materials. It is explanatory knowledge that gives people power to transform nature. It takes the right knowledge to accommodate people no matter the environment, whether space ship or ruined biosphere. Civilizations of the past were destroyed for lack of knowledge on how to resolve their problem.

Caveats?
An explanation is needed to understand how something works, but the logic of what makes a good and bad explanation needs a better explanation, as they can appear contradictory. Most chapters provide an example of a bad explanation, the errors contained in the explanation, how to correct the explanation, and a better explanation. Taking the reader through the process of obtaining better explanations. The examples are diverse, with their quality depending on the readers understanding and interest in the topic. ( )

A profoundly interesting take on humans, knowledge and a whole lot of other seemingly unrelated subjects. This book was a joy to read, with frequent notes of optimism about the present and future of humanity. Will absolutely be returning to reread chapters or maybe the entire book in search of deeper understanding of what Deutsch has written. ( )

This is a philosophy text that is clear, accessible and transformative. It presents a world view that reaches out into many dimensions of human life.

I am a mostly cynical contrarian with respect to simple ideas that explain the world but with this book I find an exception. David Deutsch flips some of the most ingrained views we have into simple explanations, and he orchestrates it into a pragmatic, positive view of the advancement of knowledge.

This book really should be, not only read but understood as a choice of vision by everyone. Whether one then chooses an alternate view on the world, it will be with the awareness of what was lost. ( )

Some interesting ideas about why progress was so slow to get going ( Deutsch pinpoints the Enlightenment as the start of real knowledge). He is a rationalists wanting good science and good philosophy to guide what we think we know and speculates on how long our island of knowledge will expand this quickly, how we will find or unlock creativity in thought.

اصطحبني في رحلة عبر الزمان والمكان، عبر فلسفة العلم والثقافة، موضحاً كيفية تكوين وتحسين المعرفة، وكيف تدعم هذه العملية التقدم اللامحدود —المعروف أيضاً ببداية اللانهاية، وهو اسم الكتاب.
يستعين دويتش بأمثلة من عدة مجالات، خاصةً الفيزياء، لشرح نقاط أساسية في فلسفة العلوم، كاستحالة الاكتفاء بالحواس فقط لتحصيل المعرفة، والحاجة الملحة للافتراض والتكهن ثم التجريب والتنظير. يتناول أيضاً آلية تكاثر الأفكار، ودور المعتقدات الجمعية في تحديد أطر الثقافة. هنا يقسم المجتمعات إلى ستاتيكية ثابتة وديناميكية متغيرة مشيراً إلى تعارض بعض المبادئ الاجتماعية الراسخة مع المنطق. لعل الفكرة الأهم التي يركز عليها هي أنَّ عدم إمكانية التنبؤ بالمستقبل تفتح المجال أمام احتمالات وتطورات لامحدودة يستحيل تخيلها.
جميل جداً ( )