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Michael Frayn at the Edinburgh Book FestivalDateline: 20th August, 2007Playwright and novelist Michael Frayn was at the Edinburgh Book Festival to promote his latest non-fiction book The Human Touch in a session chaired by Ruth Wishart. Frayn said that there is something odd about the universe. Human beings are only a tiny element of the universe that has only been around for a relatively short time and will not be around for very long. However even to make a statement like this uses numbers and measurements created by humans in order to compare things. According to quantum mechanics—which formed a central core of Frayn's play Copenhagen—a result does not exist in a meaningful way until it is measured, so how can time and distance have existed when humans were not around to measure them? This is the paradox that Frayn investigates in his book. He said that he has spent his life writing novels and plays that look at the same subjects that he covers in this book and so he thought the time has come for him to put his ideas down before he is too old and stupid. He has spent thirty years working up the courage to admit that he doesn't know anything about the universe. Frayn studied philosophy at Cambridge when it was known as 'moral sciences' in a department that had formerly been headed by renowned philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Most of the tutors had been pupils of Wittgenstein and followed his methods, but Frayn was taught by Jonathan Bennett, who did not agree with anything Wittgenstein had said, so, in order to learn about him, Frayn was forced to argue with Bennett. He is still arguing with him in fact; Bennett disagrees with the central tenet of the book and has dismissed it as anthropocentrism, whereas Frayn prefers to think of it as biocentrism. Most physicists also disagree with Frayn's ideas (as did a mathematician in the audience). He was invited to speak at CERN, home of the particle accelerator, which usually invites physicists and mathematicians to speak to them, and appointed a committee of four physicists to analyse his book in order to interrogate him about his ideas. Frayn said that physicists prefer an objective approach to to all areas of physics and disagree profoundly with the necessity of a human observer and the subjectivity that this implies. The Human Touch is already available in hardback, but the paperback is only currently available from the Book Festival shop until it goes on general release on 6th September 2007. When he was signing my book, I asked him about any future plays; he said he has just finished writing a play that will be at the National Theatre next year. David Chadderton
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