They cobbled together some theories from the currently fashionable positivist school and breathed a sigh of relief.

What were they doing, sitting around dreaming about eternal verities, when physicists had important work to do? The physicists decided they could take care of the philosophy themselves. Physicists, who in the 1920s had been familiar with philosophy and well-disposed towards philosophical ways of thinking, became arrogant and impatient with the philosophers. In particular, it corrupted intellectually. Power, as is well known, corrupts, and this new power corrupted at every level. Even worse, it turned out to be a source of incredible military and economic power: it made possible the development of weapons and technologies that had previously not even been dreamed of. It was also, unfortunately, rather difficult to understand, and could only be explained well in mathematical language. It showed that the nature of reality was completely different from what had previously been believed. This work, which soon started going by the name of 'quantum mechanics', had enormous philosophical implications: in comparison, the Copernican revolution was no more than a minor footnote. It's a complicated answer, and you need a three hundred page book to explain it properly, but I would summarise it like this.Ībout a hundred years ago, a group of physicists made some astonishing discoveries. Rather than limiting himself to one single viewpoint, which as we've seen lets it get away, Adam Becker pursues all three lines of investigation simultaneously, and manages to present something which looks surprisingly like an answer. This book, I am pleased to say, does take the question seriously. If you aren't happy with that, go and talk with the sociologists. The physicists tell you that of course they know the answer: there is no such thing as reality.

The philosophers look embarrassed, and explain that yes, absolutely, they used to be in charge of it, but now it's been handed over to physics. Try philosophy, they're just down the street. They send you over to talk to the sociologists, who shrug their shoulders sorry guv, nuffin to do wiv us. If you ask the adults, no one's sure whose responsibility it is. This ought to be a question of burning interest to almost everyone, and yet, for some reason, hardly anybody over the age of seventeen seems to take it seriously.

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