The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality

The New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A poet, a physicist, and a philosopher explored the greatest enigmas in the universethe nature of free will, the strange fabric of the cosmos, the true limits of the mindand each in their own way uncovered a revelatory truth about our place in the world [A] mind-expanding book. . . . Elegantly written. The New York Times Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges was madly in love when his life was shattered by painful heartbreak. But the breakdown that followed illuminated an incontrovertible truththat love is necessarily imbued with loss, that the one doesnt exist without the other. German physicist Werner Heisenberg was fighting with the scientific establishment on the meaning of the quantum realms absurdity when he had his own epiphanythat there is no such thing as a complete, perfect description of reality. Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant pushed the assumptions of human reason to their mind-bending conclusions, but emerged with an idea that crowned a towering philosophical systemthat the human mind has fundamental limits, and those limits undergird both our greatest achievements as well as our missteps. Through fiction, science, and philosophy, the work of these three thinkers coalesced around the powerful, haunting fact that there is an irreconcilable difference between reality out there and reality as we experience it. Out of this profound truth comes a multitude of galvanizing the notion of selfhood, free will, and purpose in human life; the roots of morality, aesthetics, and reason; and the origins and nature of the cosmos itself. As each of these thinkers shows, every one of us has a fundamentally incomplete picture of the world. But this is to be expected. Only as mortal, finite beings are we able to experience the world in all its richness and breathtaking majesty. We are stranded in a gulf of vast extremes, between the astronomical and the quantum, an abyss of freedom and absolute determinism, and it is in that center where we must make our home. A soaring and lucid reflection on the lives and work of Borges, Heisenberg, and Kant, The Rigor of Angels movingly demonstrates that the mysteries of our place in the world may always loom over usnot as a threat, but as a reminder of our humble humanity. 1. Unforgettable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 A man shows up in Moscow with an apparently flawless memory, and Borges writes a story pushing the idea to its extreme, touching on a paradox unearthed by Kant and explored by Heisenberg 2. A Brief History of This Very Instant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 Kant’s struggle with Hume leads us back to ancient Greece, where we encounter a very “queer creature,” the instant of change 3. Visualize This!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 Heisenberg discovers discontinuity at the heart of reality and defends his chunky model against Schrödinger’s smooth waves PART II. NOT BEING GOD 4. Entanglements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 Citing special relativity, Einstein sides with Schrödinger, and they come up with a crazy thought experiment that turns the physics world on its head 5. Sub Specie Aeternitatis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 Back in Prussia, Kant asks what knowledge would be like for an omniscient being, and we are transported to the warring factions of early Christianity 6. In the Blink of an Eye. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 Borges turns to the kabbalistic idea of the aleph to get over Norah, and finds new love while exploring the paradoxes of simultaneity PART III. DOES THE UNIVERSE HAVE AN EDGE? 7. The Universe (Which Others Call the Library) . . . . . . . . . 000 As his country flirts with fascism, Borges organizes the shelves of a municipal library he imagines to be without borders 8. Gravitas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 Heisenberg’s conversations with Einstein reveal an underlying reconciliation between relativity and quantum mechanics in a vision of the cosmos foreseen by Dante 9. Made to Measure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 Kant writes his third and final “Critique,” and his notion of beauty paves the way for an understanding of what guides inquiry in the physical sciences PART IV. THE ABYSS OF FREEDOM 10. Free Will . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 Kant’s search for free will in a deterministic cosmos conjures the Roman patrician Boethius, who salvages freedom from fate while awaiting execution for treason in a dungeon in Pavia 11. Forking Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 The physicist Hugh Everett has the wild idea that new universes are birthed continuously, and Borges explores the same idea in a spy story 12. Putting the Demon to Rest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 Heisenberg defends his decisions during the war, as we consider what his discovery meant for questions of free will and determinism Postscript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 Wherein we see how Borges, Kant, and Heisenberg, each in his own way, worked to undermine the e!ects of metaphysical prejudice Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000 Introduction: Where Did It Go? Standing On A Sliver of Time Unforgettable A Brief History of This Very Instant Visualize This! Not Being God Entanglements Sub Spicie Acternitatis In the Blink of an Eye Does The Universe Have an Edge? The Universe (Which Others Call the Library) Gravitas Made to Measure The Abyss of Freedom Free Will Forking Paths Putting the Demon to Rest Postscript Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Further Reading Index We perceive time and space, but do we understand them? Answers from literature (Borges), physics (Heisenberg) and philosophy (Kant). It was only midmorning on April 13, 1929, but Solomon Shereshevsky was already having a bad day.