I think there are universal principles that we should want to understand, but that are not necessarily good for us. We could recognise universal propensities which current cultures can't fully eradicate, which we would want to eradicate if we could. Let's say, a tendency for tribal violence. Or racism.

How can we be “free” as conscious agents if everything that we consciously intend is caused by events in our brain that we do not intend and of which we are entirely unaware? We can’t.

It's not so much religion per se, it's false certainty that worries me, and religion just has more than its fair share of false certainty or dogmatism. I'm really concerned when I see people pretending to know things they clearly cannot know.

The only thing that guarantees an open-ended collaboration among human beings, the only thing that guarantees that this project is truly open-ended, is a willingness to have our beliefs and behaviors modified by the power of conversation.

It is utterly astonishing how ordinary a book can be and still be thought the product of omniscience.

False encouragement is a kind of theft: it steals time, energy, and motivation a person could put toward some other purpose.

I'm the Ted Bundy of string theory.