How my thoughts developed
The opening chapter of the book is used to explain to the reader, a little about how I came to hold the views I do. It is a little about me but not in any structured way. It contains a few memorable anecdotes which may or may not have happened exactly as I remember them. If you have read about human memory you will know why I don't claim that everything I remember happened exactly the way I think it did.
As a flavour for this chapter, here is a short paragraph from it:
"There are things which I feel, seem to stand out from my route along the path of knowledge. A four year apprenticeship that contained as much social experience as work experience allowed the growth in knowledge to be accompanied by growth in life. In an apprenticeship the teachers, critics and protectors are work colleagues. The learning material is work that has got to last, it is not dismantled later for the next student. Above all, the memories are mistakes, how stupid you were to make them, how you were criticised, how small you felt and often how grateful you were that someone came to the rescue. If classroom learning could be likened to stirring a glass of water with a straw then a good apprenticeship is scuba diving, or at least, it was for me."
This chapter contains a few stroies from my life and some comment on them. It is there mainly to let others see what sort of a person has written the book. This I hope, will help you to put the rest of what you read into some sort of context and allow you to gain more from the writing by understanding a little about why it was written.