Books by Greg Egan
“This book imagines a far future in which the world is populated with a diverse range of what I will call ‘persons’, rather than ‘humans’. This is a society without significant scarcity. In this society, people have immense freedom to consider what kind of life they want to live because they don’t need to hold down a job to draw an income. Furthermore, you can control your own values, especially if you’re one of the AI systems. You can just tinker with your settings, saying, ‘Okay, I think I’m going to really love math for a little while’, or you can change your values in many other ways. You can voluntarily adopt a new worldview for a while, then shed it. It gives us the existentialists’ question in its purest form.” Read more...
Science Fiction and Philosophy
Eric Schwitzgebel, Philosopher
“This book is by Greg Egan, an Australian science fiction writer. He’s well known in circles that think about what I’ve been talking about and pretty much unknown outside them. To my mind, he’s written better about AI than any other writer, because he takes it seriously. He recognizes it represents enormous change. Permutation City is about a time in history when uploading becomes possible and very rich people can upload themselves into machines which operate quickly and in real time. Poorer people have to upload themselves into machines which process very slowly and so they live very slow versions of life” Read more...
The best books on Artificial Intelligence
Calum Chace, Novelist
Interviews where books by Greg Egan were recommended
Science Fiction Novels Recommended by Scientists
“The best science fiction is heavy on science and light on fiction,” Professor Chris Mason told us in his interview on science fiction and space travel. A geneticist and computational biologist at Cornell, he is just one of several scientists who have recommended the best sci-fi books on our site. Below, we’ve collected all our sci-fi books recommended by scientists—good choices for readers who love their fiction scientific.
The best books on Artificial Intelligence, recommended by Calum Chace
It could lead us all to immortality or spell the end of the human race. Author Calum Chace picks the best books on Artificial Intelligence or AI.
Science Fiction and Philosophy, recommended by Eric Schwitzgebel
Serious philosophy need not take the form of a journal article or monograph, argues the philosopher and U.C. Riverside professor Eric Schwitzgebel, as he selects five science fiction books that succeed both as novels and provocative thought experiments that push us to consider deep philosophical questions from every angle.
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1
Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History
by David Christian -
2
Origins: How The Earth Made Us
by Lewis Dartnell -
3
The Five Ages of the Universe: Inside the Physics of Eternity
by Fred Adams & Gregory Laughlin -
4
Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
by Carl Sagan -
5
Diaspora
by Greg Egan
The best books on Big History, recommended by Toby Ord
The best books on Big History, recommended by Toby Ord
‘Big history’ looks at history on the timescale of the Earth and the universe, rather than just the short period of time that humanity has been around. Here, Toby Ord, a moral philosopher at Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute, recommends books to get a handle on it, and explains why now is a critical time for Homo sapiens.
The best books on Philosophical Wonder, recommended by Eric Schwitzgebel
We think of philosophy as a discipline that interrogates complex dilemmas—the nature of will, right and wrong, human freedom—with logic, reasoned thought and argument. But what do the moments in philosophy that make us stop and look outside ourselves have to teach us? According to Eric Schwitzgebel, philosopher at the University of California Riverside, they can open up worlds of fresh possibility. Here he recommends five books of philosophical wonder.
