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Ep 106: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 4 “Criteria for Reality” Part 2

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What Is the Best Way to Explain a Thing?

In the beginning of infinity, I think we get a more parsimonious version of this, which entails all of those other ways in which we explain whether a thing is real or not. But what is it about an explanation that should make us classify some things as real and other things as illusory or imaginary? Dr Johnson's point was that Berkeley's denial of the rock's existence is incompatible with fighting an explanation of the rebound that he himself felt. Solipsism cannot accommodate any explanation of why that experiment, or any experiment, should have one outcome rather than another. To explain the effect that the rock had on him, Dr Johnson was forced to take a position on the nature of

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