Introduction: Where Did It Go?
Wherein we meet our three protagonists and are introduced to the problem that unites them
 
PART I. STANDING ON A SLIVER OF TIME
1. Unforgettable
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
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!
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
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
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
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)
As his country flirts with fascism, Borges organizes the shelves of a municipal library he imagines to be without borders
8. Gravitas
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
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
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
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
Heisenberg defends his decisions during the war, as we consider what his discovery meant for questions of free will and determinism
Postscript
Wherein we see how Borges, Kant, and Heisenberg, each in his own way, worked to undermine the e_ects of metaphysical prejudice

Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

"An account of how a poet, a physicist, and a philosopher pursued truth to the very limits of human apprehension and revealed the fundamental nature of our place in the universe. Spiraling in the wreckage of a failed love affair, Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges channeled his devastation into his work, reassessing the slippery nature of our own identities and the way we perceive reality, ultimately securing his place in the literary pantheon. Doggedly fighting against the scientific establishment for his controversial interpretation of quantum mechanics, German physicist Werner Heisenberg dared to accept the experimental evidence at face value, leading him to a principle that has been a guiding light for physicists ever since. Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant, horrified by the possibility that all knowledge might rest on uncertain grounds, undertook to test the limits of reason, placing human understanding on a firmer footing than ever before. What these three thinkers shared, in addition to their uncommon intellect, was their skepticism-not only of the accepted wisdom of their culture, but also of their own reasoning. What set them apart was their willingness to submit their ideas to the same rigor they would bring to someone else's. In so doing, they made extraordinary leaps in answering some of the most enduring questions about the nature of reality-about the flow of time in human consciousness, about the origins and nature of the universe, but most importantly, about the possibility of coming to know reality as it is itself. In an era like ours, in which dogma of all kinds seems to rule the day, the story of these thinkers serves as a crucial reminder that maverick thinking demands submitting our intuitions and even our own deeply held beliefs to the cold light of reason. In their lives and work we recognize that the mysteries of our place in the world may always loom over us, not as a threat, but as a reminder of our humble humanity"--

WILLIAM EGGINTON is the Decker Professor in the Humanities, chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, and Director of the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of multiple books, including How the World Became a Stage (2003), Perversity and Ethics (2006), A Wrinkle in History (2007), The Philosopher’s Desire (2007), The Theater of Truth (2010), In Defense of Religious Moderation (2011), The Man Who Invented Fiction: How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World (2016), The Splintering of the American Mind (2018), and The Rigor of Angels (2023), which explores the respective conceptions of reality in the thought of Borges, Kant, and Heisenberg. He is co-author with David Castillo of Medialogies: Reading Reality in the Age of Inflationary Media (2017) and What Would Cervantes Do? Navigating Post-Truth with Spanish Baroque Literature (2022). His next book, on the philosophical, psychoanalytic, and surrealist dimensions of the work of Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky, will be published in 2024.