I. I like to be generally personally correct. This tendency of mine is nothing special. Probably most people like to be correct. Or at least we think we like to be correct. Often, I notice my opinions changing according to circumstance—according to who I’m talking to. And like, what’s up with that? Obviously the state
[Note: This is an updated and lightly edited version of an essay that I wrote in 2017. I still believe most of what is written here, but my confidence levels have changed, and if I were to write on this topic again, I would emphasize different aspects of the ideas.] I am he as you
1 In a 2015 private email conversation, published on Sam Harris’s website, he (neuroscientist and popular atheist philosopher) and Noam Chomsky (linguist and prominent critic of US foreign policy) exchange thousands of words in an attempt to reach a common understanding, and get nowhere. (I don’t particularly recommend reading this conversation. Throughout, Chomsky comes across
