To hold your own knowledge to be suspect: Someone heavily introspective, tortured by the awareness of his own ignorance. She lacks the courage of the idiot, yet has the rare guts to say, “I don’t know.”
Montagine was one of these types. He accepted human weakness and the limitations of our rationality — as the flaws that make us human.
If you believe in free will – you can’t truly believe in social science.
Daniel Dennett: Philosopher: Most potent use of our brain is the ability to project conjectures into the future and play the counterfactual game — we think before we act – “anticipation machines”
Trevor’s Theory of self-deception – supposed to orient us favorably toward the future.
Deterministic chaos – masquerades as randomness but chaotic systems have entirely predictable properties; they are just hard to know.
Learn to read history but do not draw casual links – try not to reverse engineer too much.
Kristen Buckley 