Please don't take this in an offensive way, but there are other communities where such a question would be more appropriate.

As a starting point, I can recommend you check out lesswrong.com, you can find their "introductory reading" here: http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences the first item on the list deals exactly with the question you have posed:

http://yudkowsky.net/rational/the-simple-truth

Happy reading!