The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes--and Its Implications

Facts cannot be understood just by being summarized in a formula, any more than by being listed on paper or committed to memory. They can be understood only by being explained. Fortunately, our best theories embody deep explanations as well as accurate predictions.

For even in purely practical applications, the explanatory power of a theory is paramount and its predictive power only supplementary.

Quantum theory is, as I have said, one such theory. But the other three main strands of explanation through which we seek to understand the fabric of reality are all ‘high level’ from the point of view of quantum physics. They are the theory of evolution (primarily the evolution of living organisms), epistemology (the theory of knowledge) and the t

The oracle only predicts the outcomes of experiments. Therefore, in order to use it at all we must first know what experiments to ask it about.

Facts cannot be understood just by being summarized in a formula, any more than by being listed on paper or committed to memory. They can be understood only by being explained.

understanding is one of the higher functions of the human mind and brain, and a unique one. Many other physical systems, such as animals’ brains, computers and other machines, can assimilate facts and act upon them. But at present we know of nothing that is capable of understanding an explanation – or of wanting one in the first place – other than

Scientific theories explain the objects and phenomena of our experience in terms of an underlying reality which we do not experience directly.

High-level phenomena about which there are comprehensible facts that are not simply deducible from lower-level theories are called emergent phenomena.

We can see that the ancient idea that living matter has special physical properties was almost true: it is not living matter but knowledge-bearing matter