Not just as a means of tempering mathematical logic, but as a way to find undiscovered truths - about ourselves as well as the rest of the universe.

Understanding an idea meant entangling it so thoroughly with all the other symbols in your mind that it changed the way you thought about everything.” This is the function of art. In other words there are limits to strictly mathematical reasoning: “The only way to grasp a mathematical concept was to see it in a multitude of different contexts, think through dozens of specific examples, and find at least two or three metaphors to power intuitive speculations. It can lead to disaster, particularly that of exponential growth, as previous generations of the original creation had discovered on numerous occasions.

Through collective reasoning the polis has recognised that reliance on pure deduction is dangerous. Such citizens are free to explore the Truth Mines containing not just the records of human experience, but the mathematical implications of that experience ‘experienced’ by its fellow-citizens. Moving from the self-referential algorithms necessary to produce consciousness, to the algorithms of transformational topology necessary to impose that consciousness on the world coherently, he provides step by step instructions for the evolution of primitive pyschoblasts, embryonic minds as pure bits of energy, into citizens of the polis, an entirely electronic civilisation. One of those flaws, perhaps the most destructive, is the vulnerability of the universe to arbitrary and uninformed divine intervention.Įgan lays out a blueprint for how a very different form of life than has been previously known comes into existence. In fact, this is a history of how the defects and design flaws of the original creation story are corrected by hard experience. Only one comparison seems even remotely appropriate - to the biblical Book of Genesis.ĭiaspora is a history of the re-creation of the universe, one in which there is no need for divine power to either start it off or continue its development. As is usual with everything by Egan, Diaspora is so densely packed with ideas that all summaries are inadequate.

Diaspora by greg egan