How the entire universe works, including us, and our place within it.
This book makes an extraordinary claim: one simple mechanism explains everything. But why should we take it seriously? Because the mechanism is disarmingly simple, and the results track reality.
Everything is built from parts that relate to each other through connection, belonging, and meaning. These parts are made from more parts, which again relate to one another through the same simple mechanism. Reality is a stack of these repeating relationships, one on top of another: simple in nature, infinitely complex in outcome. The only difference between a particle and a person is where they are found within this stack.
Once we grasp this, the buzzing confusion of existence melts away, leaving us in contact with the serene construction that lies at the heart of all things. Then, impenetrable puzzles become resolved. Language, love, consciousness, and freedom—just as much as causation, evolution, and the strangeness of the atomic world—all find their explanation in the simplicity of the Reality Stack.
The author is not a philosopher or physicist but a biochemist turned portrait photographer, who pulled on a loose thread and this is where it led.
