Chapter One: Late-Night Quantum Thoughts Any technology that is sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke Life in Other Universes Gaunt, hair unkempt, and skin a ghostly shade, David Deutsch cuts a strange figure even by the standards of the eccentrics and oddballs that so often inhabit the upper reaches of science. Yet appearances can be deceptive. Talk to Deutsch and you won't find the withdrawn, head-in-the-clouds academic you might expect but someone …showed first 75 words of 8542 total…

…showed last 75 words of 8542 total…it." Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote the screenplay for 2001 and who also wrote The Sentinel, the short story from which the screenplay evolved, once commented that Kubrick had wanted a science fiction tale of "mythic grandeur." If Deutsch's late-night thoughts are right, Homo sapiens is in for another leap forward. Whether it will add up to something of mythic grandeur, though, is a question I hope you will find illuminated in this book. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**