Why We Believe What We Believe
Part One
The Philosophy of Materialism
A note before I begin. I often use the pronoun “you” in my essays. Please understand that I am not addressing you personally but just “you” in general. You, personally, may be an exception to “you” in general. So, when I say “you,” please don’t take it personally.
Another note: The opinions and conclusions expressed in this essay and those that follow are not just wild ideas dreamed up by some smart-ass uneducated in the fields I discuss here. But they mirror, at least in part, the opinions and conclusions of some philosophers and physicists such as Paul Davies, David Albert, and science writer John Horgan. I try to express the findings that other authorities on the subjects have reached in a much shorter and more descriptive manner. That being said, these other authorities are definitely in the minority.
Why you believe what you believe is the title of a book I own by Andrew Newman. I have over half a dozen other books on the same subject. Some of the titles are “Why People Believe Weird Things” by Michael Shermer, “Believing Bullshit” by Stephen Law, and “How We Know What Isn’t So” by Thomas Gilovich. The Newman book is excellent and informative, but the rest are about as dogmatic as your average fundamentalist book on religion. The authors are all dogmatic materialists. They say that if you believe anything other than the material world exists, you believe bullshit. However, they do have some value, as many things people believe are pure bullshit.