Mere Reality

Mere Reality is the fourth book contained in the ebook Rationality: From AI to Zombies, by Eliezer Yudkowsky. It focuses on practical and philosophical questions related to science and the character of physical law.

Mere Reality contains six sequences of thematically connected essays, plus the stand-alone essay A Technical Explanation of Technical Explanation. These are all collected in the Rationality: From AI to Zombies ebook, but the essay names below also link to the original blog posts.

The previous book in the series is The Machine in the Ghost, and the next book is Mere Goodness.

 

 

O. Lawful Truth

181. Universal Fire

182. Universal Law

183. Is Reality Ugly?

184. Beautiful Probability

185. Outside the Laboratory

186. The Second Law of Thermodynamics, and Engines of Cognition

187. Perpetual Motion Beliefs

188. Searching for Bayes-Structure

P. Reductionism 101

189. Dissolving the Question

190. Wrong Questions

191. Righting a Wrong Question

192. Mind Projection Fallacy

193. Probability is in the Mind

194. The Quotation is not the Referent

195. Qualitatively Confused

196. Think Like Reality

197. Chaotic Inversion

198. Reductionism

199. Explaining vs. Explaining Away

200. Fake Reductionism

201. Savanna Poets

Q. Joy in the Merely Real

202. Joy in the Merely Real

203. Joy in Discovery

204. Bind Yourself to Reality

205. If You Demand Magic, Magic Won't Help

206. Mundane Magic

207. The Beauty of Settled Science

208. Amazing Breakthrough Day: April 1st

209. Is Humanism a Religion-Substitute?

210. Scarcity

211. The Sacred Mundane

212. To Spread Science, Keep It Secret

213. Initiation Ceremony

R. Physicalism 201

214. Hand vs. Fingers

215. Angry Atoms

216. Heat vs. Motion

217. Brain Breakthrough! It's Made of Neurons!

218. When Anthropomorphism Became Stupid

219. A Priori

220. Reductive Reference

221. Zombies! Zombies?

222. Zombie Responses

223. The Generalized Anti-Zombie Principle

224. GAZP vs. GLUT

225. Belief in the Implied Invisible

226. Zombies: The Movie

227. Excluding the Supernatural

228. Psychic Powers