Why We Believe

This book is the culmination of fifty-six years of learning. Yet it has become possible only now, with the advent of artificial intelligence. AI has helped me gather the many ideas, experiences, questions, and lessons accumulated across those years, and it has helped me collect and organise my own thoughts. I have no doubt that this volume would never have come into being without it.

Many have described artificial intelligence as the next step in human evolution. I do not know whether history will judge that description to be accurate, but I have personally embraced the technology. It has become an extension of my otherwise rather tiny, but persistently enquiring, mind: not a substitute for judgment, curiosity, or responsibility, but a means of bringing together what I have learned and asking what it might mean.

In preparing this book, AI assisted with research organisation, synthesis, drafting, citation checking, copyediting, and document preparation. I directed the questions and arguments. AI was not treated as an authority; the book's claims are grounded in the published sources listed in the references. I accept responsibility for its conclusions and any remaining errors.

Throughout my life, creative teachers have taught me to ask one essential question: “Why?” I have tried to pass that habit to those I have had the privilege of teaching and mentoring, including my own three ever-enquiring children. They have been born into a time of extraordinary change. By the time they reach their late fifties, as I have now, their world will be exponentially different from the one I inherited.

Whether that difference becomes liberating or destructive will depend not only on what humanity can invent, but also on whether we learn how beliefs shape our minds, bodies, identities, loyalties, and conflicts. It will depend on whether we can question our own certainties, understand the worlds inhabited by others, and live together beautifully. This book is offered as one contribution to that task.