How to be me

This is an attempt to construct a map of my beliefs. I know they are inside my brain, some for almost all my lifetime, others more recently formed. Yet, unlike memories, which accumulate with each daily experience, a belief is my mind's attempt to make sense of experience: experiences create memories, reflection upon memories creates beliefs. So, are my beliefs simply an accumulation of reflections upon memories of countless experiences, or do they have a greater coherence? 

It is more accurate to say that each new belief is formed from reflection upon memories of both experiences and memories of previously formed beliefs. For our beliefs are no different from memories in their susceptibility to decay. Just as we can find ourselves asking of a memory "did that really happen? To me, or to someone else?" so too we can find ourselves asking "Why do I believe this?" and falling short of an answer. Over the course of these reflections I will be asking that second question a lot. My hope is that it will reveal which beliefs are still in good working order; how my beliefs interdepend upon each other; and, greatest hope of all, maybe some new beliefs will arise from all of this careful examination. 

I would love to be able to say that this will be a summary of all that I know to be true after a lifetime of reflection upon a lifetime of experiences. The slippery, tricky and ultimately false word in that sentence is the word "true". Though "know" also has its own slipperiness.

People say we live in a post-truth world, yet this is not simply because it is a world full of people who believe that telling lies is a legitimate life strategy. This is also a time when, across the sciences, truths that previously seemed cast iron are being questioned and found to be less than solid. Ironically, scientists are the people best placed to be relaxed about the dismantling of previously held truths, as fundamental to their belief system is the scientific method, whereby all knowledge is held to be an approximation of truth, just waiting for some other scientists to debunk it with a better approximation. 
 
When we tell ourselves "this much I know is true" we are merely itemizing the beliefs that we find most convincing. These reflections are written with the scientist's conviction that any of my beliefs is fair game for demolition.

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