WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS TRUE EVEN THOUGH YOU CANNOT PROVE IT?

Every year, John Brockman’s ever-interesting edge.org poses a question to a number of scientists and thinkers.
This year it’s

What do you believe to be true but cannot prove?

Here are a few:

I believe that deceit and self deception play a disproportoinate role in human-generated disasters, including misguided wars, international affairs more generally, the collapse of civilizations, and state affairs, including disastrous social, political and economic policies and miscarriages of justice.

I can’t prove it, but I am pretty sure that people gain a selective advantage from believing in things they can’t prove. I am dead serious about this.

Nature Is Culture. I believe that nature and culture can now be understood as one unified process, not two distinct domains separated by some property of humans such as written or spoken language, consciousness, or ethics.

It’s all good stuff.