THE CORE ESSAYS

Rumors of Order is packed with essays, excerpts and quotes, but the key ideas are expressed in just a handful of entries.

1. Short Biography | Project Rationale

“I don't deny the existence of truth and facts. I simply believe the complexities of human psychology drastically limit our ability to know when we have a solid grip on them. You see, there's always the problem of knowing something thoroughly; then comes more complicated issue of knowing that you know ... for how do we verify the mind to itself?”

2. Vanity and Judgment

“Belief is not based on facts, truths or events; it is not even based on personal ideas or spiritual experiences; it is, in the final result, based solely on our judgments about those things.”

3. Certainty R.I.P.

“Trying to guarantee the validity of judgment always requires more judgment, a never-ending series of tentative evaluations that help fine-tune your sense of life; to imagine that some final judgment will end the judging process altogether is the hope of all absolutists, who want to believe, not think.”

4. “Doubt: A History” — Jennifer Michael Hecht

“Doubt is older than most faiths, includes many categories, schools and practices, and has a pantheon of heroes, who still to speak to us across the ages.”

5. The Failure of Judgment

“When people talk about eternal truth they are talking about an idea that popped up at a certain time and place with all sorts of cultural and historical baggage, an idea, theory or event that was discussed, debated and negotiated into importance by some learned council — only then did it become ‘truth.’ Under such conditions, how could skepticism be anything less than perfectly understandable?”

6. The Colorful Art of Rereading

“Until we realize and appreciate the supreme irony — that ‘absolutism itself is conditional’ — we will never progress very far in our thinking.”

7. Calling all Einsteins

What we need is a Theory of Relativity for belief..

8. Seeing red — feeling blue

A view on ideas and belief in November 2004