William James' "Varieties of Religious Experience" was derived from the Gifford Lecture series he delivered around 1900-1902. The first thing to bear in mind, then, is that James' definition of religion was intended as a working definition in order that his audience could follow his exposition. As a founding father of the field of modern psychology and a proponent of pragmatic philosophy, dogmatism wasn't at all a part of James' style.

Secondly, brilliant and amiable as he may have been in person, James referred to himself as a "sick soul," given to bouts of psychic entropy (i.e, depression). His emphasis on the experiential quality of spirituality had nothing to do with supporting dogma or hewing to community supersition. Rather, James saw positive spiritual experience as psychic uplift, eudaemonia--experienced idiosyncratically at the individual level, and sought to examine and cultivate such experiences. Seen from another vantage point, James was in fact exploring a world view based on seeking out the sacred in the mundane.

"It really makes you wonder how the hell they got that far while still believing that the wrong answer could turn you into a fox."

In the autobiography of Master Hakuin, people considered to be possesed by the spirit of a wild fox were thought to exhibit irrational, even erratic behavior, or vice versa. So this seems like a metaphor, but one at odds with standard western interpretations.

Robin wrote: "Martial arts can be a good training to ensure your personal security, if you assume the worst about your tools and environment." But this does not mean that martial arts cannot also be good training if you assume a more benign environment. Environments are known to be unpredictable.

One of the most important insights a person gains from martial arts training is to understand one's limits--which relates directly to the bias of overconfidence. If martial arts training enables a person to project an honestly greater degree of self confidence, then the signaling benefit alone may merit the effort. Does rationality training confer analogous signaling benefits?

Query: Need the quest for the truth necessarily be quixotic? Tilting at windmills would be an example of delusional activity. Isn't the quixotic then the opposite of the rational?

I hazily recall that in the introduction to Benjamin Grahams "Intelligent Investor, "Buffett credits his former mentor with educating a group of stellar-performing security analysts and investors, among whom he counts himself.

Buffett has advised to read Graham, Fisher (Phil), and take it from there, so to speak. Easier said than done. Graham and Dodd's 1934 classic, "Security Analysis," for example, is comprised of 726 pages including its index. There is nothing seductively narrative, personal or hyperbolic about the book's content. Rather, it states plainly that the function of security analysis is can be placed under the headings: descriptive, selective, and critical. Anyone who was serious about learning Buffett's techniques, it seems obvious, should at least peruse books authored by his mentor while trying to internalize some of their lessons. Failure to do so constitutes a curious and telling omission.

Much of the run of management books fall into the groove of presenting engaging narratives based on ex post facto selection of protagonists. Buffett undoubtedly understands that while success is not random, it is fleeting. That understanding may be what motivates the perpetual search for talent.

Two other books of general interest on this topic include "The Halo Effect" by Phil Rosenzweig (on the specific delusions propagated in much excellence literature); and "Winning the Loser's Game" by Charles Ellis (on the long-term futility of chasing outsize investment returns through a strategy based on active trading). Yes, it is possible to win by not losing when you are playing a loser's game. But apparently for many, it's simply easier to buy excellence porn and indulge in wishful thinking.

The most frequently useful thing I have learned from OB is to update assumptions based on new information on an ongoing basis. I think this idea ties in nicely with that of standing against maturity, if maturity is taken to mean a certain rigidity, an inflexibility of purpose and outlook.