Beyond the Invisible

An extended Q&A session with philosopher, physicist, engineer, and inventor of the microprocessor, Federico Faggin.

Following the immense success of his previous title, Irreducible, Federico Faggin—physicist, philosopher, engineer, entrepreneur, and inventor of the microprocessor—found himself tackling a variety of questions from his broad audience. In this new volume, Faggin shares many of these Q&A sessions, carefully edited and addressing subjects ranging from science to philosophy and spirituality, always in a very accessible manner that presupposes no technical background. Prompted by some of the more astute questions, he further develops his conceptual framework to coherently explain aspects of human interiority rarely studied scientifically, leading toward an understanding of reality in which information, meaning, and the incessant drive toward self-knowing are irreducible aspects of existence. Most significantly, by beginning with the postulates that free will and consciousness must be fundamental and play a role since the beginning of the universe, he manages to derive and therefore account for—in a natural and almost self-evident manner—the strange properties of quantum physics that scientists have had to accept without full comprehension. As such, this book offers what is perhaps the first compelling and accessible account of why quantum physics must be as strange as it is.