What is progress?

Progress is good. As Steven Pinker has argued, most things are getting better over time. We are richer, healthier, safer, and better-educated than our ancestors. Although redistribution and social changes can make things better or worse around the edges, most of our current fortunate position comes from simple economic growth.

Must progress come to an end – either in catastrophe or in some sort of completion – or is it unbounded? The answer is the latter. That unboundedness is the ‘infinity’ referred to in the title of this book. Explaining it, and the conditions under which progress can and cannot happen, entails a journey through virtually every fundamental field of sc... See more