David Deutsch argues that the growth of knowledge is unbounded: that good explanations — hard to vary, reaching far beyond the evidence that prompted them — are the engine of all progress, from physics to morality to art. Where most accounts treat human understanding as limited, Deutsch contends that beings capable of creating explanations are “universal explainers,” able in principle to understand anything that can be understood.
The book ranges across quantum theory, evolution, computation, and the philosophy of mind, and its optimism has made it influential among thinkers about AI: if knowledge creation is the deepest kind of intelligence, the open question is whether artificial systems are explainers or only ever sophisticated pattern-matchers.
