"Belief is the natural attitude of a thwarted mind"

"Belief is the natural attitude of a thwarted mind" This quotation is from a rather outspoken mathematician named Scott Buchanan, who has studied the style of human thought right along with its mathematical accomplishments. It is meant to describe our style of thinking when approaching mathematics. Yet it seems to me that it has a larger meaning: that it applies to the human style of thought when approaching any problem. Buchanan is telling us that …

…us eliminate what is not true. Perhaps all that I will ever accomplish is to eliminate a few more choices. Perhaps I will find the answer, and the answer will be that we are no more than automatons following a course laid out from the beginning of the universe by the laws of interactions of forces. As eventually anti-climactic as this pursuit may be, I cannot be satisfied with any other existence without having tried.