David Cycleback

This concise exploration of group psychology examines how human thinking is deeply shaped by social influence, shared identity, and cultural environments. Although people experience their beliefs as personal and objective, much of what they think and value is formed within groups. Drawing on psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, sociology, and real-world experiences, this text explores the limits of individual thinking, the power of social conformity, and the ways groups reinforce shared assumptions while discouraging dissent. From politics and religion to everyday social life, it reveals how group dynamics shape human belief and behavior in ways most people rarely recognize.

This book examines recent illiberal trends in traditionally liberal American institutions. It focuses on Unitarian Universalism, a historically liberal church whose national leadership has adopted an extreme, authoritarian version of anti-racism as a "theological mandate," causing strife and division. Inequalities, unfairness, and prejudices are problems in all societies throughout human history. Stereotyping, unconscious biases, and tribalism are innate in human psychology and society. There is no single or objectively correct answer to addressing disparities. There is also no single or objectively correct way to organize societies, communities, and organizations. While the various racial justice models offer important insights into race and society, the author believes in classical liberalism, freedom of speech, and the free exchange of ideas, things that many extreme social justice movements and activists oppose. Freedom of speech and expression and the respectful exchange of ideas inherently support diversity and multiculturalism. Illiberalism, dogmatism, censorship, and authoritarianism are oppressive of all groups, minority and majority, and should be rejected wherever they appear. As there are no simple or objective answers, this book encourages discussion. The most intolerable aspect of recent illiberal trends, and a key reason for the author writing this book, are the attempts to suppress the open exchange of ideas.

Tribalism is one of humanity's oldest instincts, rooted in the survival needs of small groups and still shaping modern life. This paper explores the evolutionary and neuroscientific bases of tribalism, showing how brain systems promoted ingroup loyalty while diminishing empathy toward outsiders. It examines how cognitive biases, political identity, and online echo chambers amplify tribal divisions and distort reasoning. The paper concludes by emphasizing that while belonging is essential, overcoming tribalism requires questioning group narratives, engaging across divides, and recognizing shared humanity.

At first, the question “What is thinking?” may seem too obvious to ask. Thinking is as normal a part of everyday life as breathing and hearing. We plan, solve problems, imagine, and remember with little thought about the process itself. However, when we stop to examine it, thinking turns out to be extremely complex and in many ways mysterious. Is thinking just brain activity, or is it something more? Do machines and animals think? What are the limits of our thinking? Is there a correct or best type of thinking? Does thinking differ fundamentally between people? This short book looks at thinking from many perspectives, including neuroscience, biology, psychology, philosophy, evolution, culture, and art. It does not offer final answers, instead offering food for further thought and discussion.

From religion to philosophy to science, all human systems of definition are formed by human brains. The nature and limits of the human brain are the nature and limits of those systems. This essay shows how the human brain works normally then unusually, and what this reveals about the limits of human knowledge. There are many conditions and instances where the brain processes information unusually, including mental disorders, physical events, and drug use. This essay focuses on the neurological events called mystical experiences.

This essay has two parts, each that was published earlier in different forms. The first, titled “How Critical Race Theory Can Be Antisemitic,” discusses how the current UUA’s dogmatic application of critical race theory as the only lens to view society is antisemitic. The second, titled “How Intolerance, Censorship, and Dogmatism Make Unitarian Universalism Increasingly Unwelcoming to Jews,” explains how Judaism and Jewish culture are about questioning, diversity of views, dissent, and debate—all things traditionally associated with UU—and how any space that is dogmatic and illiberal will be unwelcoming to most Jews.

This text examines recent illiberal trends in traditionally liberal institutions. Specifically, it critiques radical “anti-racism” approaches based on critical race theory (CRT) and the ideas of academics such as Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. It also focuses on Unitarian Universalism, a historically liberal church whose national leadership has adopted an extreme version of critical race theory. Racial and other inequities are problems in all societies and all of human history, and there are no simple, easy or objectively correct solutions. While critical race theory (CRT) offers important insights on racism and racial disparities, I believe in liberalism, freedom of speech and the free exchange of ideas, things that extreme CRT adherents, Kendi and DiAngelo oppose. Freedom of speech and expression and the free exchange of ideas support diversity, multiculturalism and marginalized groups. Illiberalism, dogmatism and authoritarianism are oppressive of all groups, minority and majority, and should be rejected wherever they appear.

This book is an introduction to how minds work, including how they make judgments and perceptions, and processes sensory information. It looks at the physiological and psychological methods humans use to function and survive as a species, but that put limits on their knowledge and understanding of the universe, their immediate environment and themselves. Topics include information processing, cognitive biases, visual and audio illusions, perception and misperception of moving and still objects, art perception, limits of symbolic language, and social and evolutionary psychology.

This peer-reviewed book is a concise introduction to key philosophical questions in artificial intelligence that have long been debated by many of the great minds in computer science, cognitive science and philosophy, from Gottfried Leibniz to Alan Turing to Hubert Dreyfus. Topics include the limits of and problems in trying to create artificial general intelligence, if a computer can really think and have human-like sentience, how to identify intelligence in a computer, ethical and danger issues, and if human-like consciousness and sentience are required to create artificial general intelligence.

This peer-reviewed text offers several perspectives on the diversity of brain function, including ways pathologized as disorders, and its relationship to religious beliefs. Topics include what mystical experiences tell us about human knowledge, cognitive influences behind human beliefs in God, the relationship between mental disorders and religious visions, spiritual experiences of children and non-human animals, and the potential influence of artificial intelligence and transhumanism on religion... 2022 Montaigne Medal Finalist and 2022 Eric Hoffer Award Finalist.

Time is one of humankind’s unanswerable mysteries. Aristotle called time “the most unknown of unknown things.” What time is and even if it objectively exists are unanswerable questions. Time is intangible. There have been and will be countless theories about time. Many, including in science, are simply useful definitions or conventions, and each is looking at time in a particular way and for a particular purpose. This paper looks at a variety of significant perspectives from physics, philosophy and psychology. A key is to demonstrate that there are many different incomplete and subjective ways of looking at what ultimately is beyond our mental grasp.