The One

Disclaimer: I received an advance copy of this book from Basic Books.

I enjoyed Päs's attempt at explaining the important and sometimes misunderstood reality that the universe is fundamentally quantum-mechanical in nature. The first 3 chapters do a marvellous job of taking the reader on a tour of the development of the Copenhagen and many-worlds interpretations of quantum mechanics, with some of the well-known names in the history of the subject making an appearance and with their interactions recounted in an interesting manner. It was the first time that I was brought to reflect a bit more carefully on Everett's many-worlds interpretation.

The detour he takes in the next 2 chapters through the history of the philosophy of monism turned out to be less appealing to me, simply because it is based on much speculation and interpretations that seem to draw parallels between a quantum reality and the impression that everything seems to be coming from a single entity.

In the remaining chapters, Päs delves into relatively recent developments in theoretical physics (black hole entropy, adS/CFT correspondence, EPR=ER, etc.) to try to bring this all together, but I remain quite skeptical about whether the threads that he's so nicely woven throughout his book could be connected via the use of these speculative ideas.

Overall, I found the book an entertaining and quite enlightening tour of many ideas from physics, philosophy (almost exclusively western, unfortunately), and religion, all with the idea of drawing parallels among schools of thought and effectively trying to show how they intersect. What seems to result from this coming together is what the author calls a monistic vision of fundamental reality as a unified whole. Although I remain unconvinced about whether the philosophical concepts have meaningful things to say about physical reality, I would still recommend the book as an interesting appreciation of the unity of physical reality from a theoretical physicist.