{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-book-page-js","path":"/infinity/4/","result":{"data":{"mdx":{"id":"4a5e186f-8468-5436-ae7b-c93e6b080343","body":"function _extends() { _extends = Object.assign || function (target) { for (var i = 1; i < arguments.length; i++) { var source = arguments[i]; for (var key in source) { if (Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(source, key)) { target[key] = source[key]; } } } return target; }; return _extends.apply(this, arguments); }\n\nfunction _objectWithoutProperties(source, excluded) { if (source == null) return {}; var target = _objectWithoutPropertiesLoose(source, excluded); var key, i; if (Object.getOwnPropertySymbols) { var sourceSymbolKeys = Object.getOwnPropertySymbols(source); for (i = 0; i < sourceSymbolKeys.length; i++) { key = sourceSymbolKeys[i]; if (excluded.indexOf(key) >= 0) continue; if (!Object.prototype.propertyIsEnumerable.call(source, key)) continue; target[key] = source[key]; } } return target; }\n\nfunction _objectWithoutPropertiesLoose(source, excluded) { if (source == null) return {}; var target = {}; var sourceKeys = Object.keys(source); var key, i; for (i = 0; i < sourceKeys.length; i++) { key = sourceKeys[i]; if (excluded.indexOf(key) >= 0) continue; target[key] = source[key]; } return target; }\n\n/* @jsxRuntime classic */\n\n/* @jsx mdx */\nvar _frontmatter = {\n  \"author\": \"David Deutsch\",\n  \"bookTitle\": \"The Beginning of Infinity\",\n  \"isBook\": false,\n  \"numSections\": 24,\n  \"tags\": [\"a\"],\n  \"templateKey\": \"book-page\",\n  \"title\": \"Introduction\"\n};\nvar layoutProps = {\n  _frontmatter: _frontmatter\n};\nvar MDXLayout = \"wrapper\";\nreturn function MDXContent(_ref) {\n  var components = _ref.components,\n      props = _objectWithoutProperties(_ref, [\"components\"]);\n\n  return mdx(MDXLayout, _extends({}, layoutProps, props, {\n    components: components,\n    mdxType: \"MDXLayout\"\n  }), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 0,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, mdx(\"i\", null, \"Progress\"), \" that is both rapid enough to be noticed and stable enough to continue over many generations has been achieved only once in the history of our species. It began at approximately the time of the scientific revolution, and is still under way. It has included improvements not only in scientific understanding, but also in technology, political institutions, moral values, art, and every aspect of human welfare.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 1,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"Whenever there has been progress, there have been influential thinkers who denied that it was genuine, that it was desirable, or even that the concept was meaningful. They should have known better. There is indeed an objective difference between a false explanation and a true one, between chronic failure to solve a problem and solving it, and also between wrong and right, ugly and beautiful, suffering and its alleviation \\u2013 and thus between stagnation and progress in the fullest sense.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 2,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"In this book I argue that all progress, both theoretical and practical, has resulted from a single human activity: the quest for what I call good explanations. Though this quest is uniquely human, its effectiveness is also a fundamental fact about reality at the most impersonal, cosmic level \\u2013 namely that it conforms to universal laws of nature that are indeed good explanations. This simple relationship between the cosmic and the human is a hint of a central role of \", mdx(\"i\", null, \"people\"), \" in the cosmic scheme of things.\"), mdx(ContentRef, {\n    id: 3,\n    mdxType: \"ContentRef\"\n  }, \"Must progress come to an end \\u2013 either in catastrophe or in some sort of completion \\u2013 or is it unbounded? The answer is the latter. That unboundedness is the \\u2018infinity\\u2019 referred to in the title of this book. Explaining it, and the conditions under which progress can and cannot happen, entails a journey through virtually every fundamental field of science and philosophy. From each such field we learn that, although progress has no necessary end, it does have a necessary beginning: a cause, or an event with which it starts, or a necessary condition for it to take off and to thrive. Each of these beginnings is \\u2018the beginning of infinity\\u2019 as viewed from the perspective of that field. Many seem, superficially, to be unconnected. But they are all facets of a single attribute of reality, which I call \", mdx(\"i\", null, \"the\"), \" beginning of infinity.\"));\n}\n;\nMDXContent.isMDXComponent = true;","fields":{"slug":"/infinity/4/"},"frontmatter":{"isBook":false,"title":"Introduction","bookTitle":"The Beginning of Infinity","numSections":24,"tags":["a"],"author":"David Deutsch"}}},"pageContext":{"id":"4a5e186f-8468-5436-ae7b-c93e6b080343"}},"staticQueryHashes":["4080856488"]}