The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul: What Gnarly Computation Taught Me About Ultimate Reality, The Meaning of Life, And How to Be Happy

A playful and profound survey of the concept of computation across the entire spectrum of human thought—written by a mathematician novelist who spent twenty years as a Silicon Valley computer scientist. The logic is correct, and the conclusions are startling. Simple rules can generate gnarly patterns. Physics obeys laws, but the outcomes aren’t predictable. Free will is real. The mind is like a quantum computer. Social strata are skewed by universal scaling laws. And there can never be a simple trick for answering all possible questions about our world’s natural processes. We live amid splendor beyond our control.

Rudy Rucker, Ph.D, is professor of computer science at the University of California at San José. He is best known for his popular books about science and consciousness, such as The Fourth Dimension, Infinity and the Mind, and Mind Tools.

The author of thirteen novels, Rucker is considered one of the core cyberpunk writers. His novels Software and Wetware each won the Philip K. Dick Award. Rucker has worked as a software engineer at Autodesk Inc., where he developed several software packages, including James Gleick’s Chaos: The Software. And he was co-editor of the famed cyberdelic how-to book, The Mondo 2000 User’s Guide to the New Edge. Rucker currently teaches game programming using his textbook, Software Engineering and Computer Games.

See Rucker’s website http://www.cs.sjsu.edu/faculty/rucker for a extended bio, complete list of publications, software downloads, etc.