Learning from Nassim Taleb: Knowledge and Ignorance

This last week I have been sorting through 30 years of accumulated books and papers. I've also been reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb's The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Taleb provides catch-all 'boxes' that easily house most of my "stuff." Loosely the boxes might be labeled: a) Stuff we think we know, but we don't based on faulty reasoning, b) Stuff that 'historians' have force-fit into a false or too-narrow historical molds, and c) Stuff that 'experts' force-fit into too narrowly constructed categories, and we too easily accept as our own.

To Taleb:

… History is opaque. You see what comes out, not the script that produces events, the generator of history. There is a fundamental incompleteness in your grasp of such events, since you do not see what's inside the box, how the mechanisms work. What I call the generator of historical events is different from the events themselves, much as the minds of the gods cannot be read just by witnessing their deeds. You are very likely to be fooled about their intentions. …

The human mind suffers from three ailments as it comes into contact with history, what I call the triplet of opacity. They are:

1. the illusion of understanding, or how everyone thinks he knows what is going on in a world that is more complicated (or random) than they realize;
2. the retrospective distortion, or how we can assess matters only after the fact, as if they were in a rearview mirror (history seems clearer and more organized in history book than in empirical reality); and
3. the overvaluation of factual information and the handicap of authoritative and learned people, particularly when they create categories—when they "Platonify" [that is, when they mistake "the map for the territory, to focus on pure and well-defined 'forms,' whether objects, like triangles, or social notions, like utopias …. When these ideas and crisp constructs inhabit our minds, we privilege them over other less elegant objects, those with messier and less tractable structures …."]

So now I've got more than 20 boxes (file drawers) of papers and several hundred books to deal with. We will have to see how frequently the boxes of papers are visited as time goes by. As for the books, I'll again take my lead from Taleb, as he stresses the importance of books you've not read yet and those you disagree with (i.e. the odd notion that you tend to learn more from those you disagree with than from those you agree with). No doubt there will be more books in the library as time goes by, particularly if I heed:

[Taleb's] … simple step to a higher form of life…. [S]hut down the television set, minimize time spent reading newspapers, ignore the blogs. Train your reasoning abilities to control your decisions…. Train yourself to spot the difference between the sensational and the empirical. … Also bear in mind how shallow we are with probability, the mother of all abstract notions. … Above all learn ot avoid "tunneling."

To be able to foucus is a great virtue if you are a watch repairman, a brain surgeon, or a chess player. But the last thing you need to do when you deal with uncertainty is to "focus"…. This "focus" makes you a sucker….

Comments

[David Garen]

Dave,

I guess at this point of life, one's thoughts turn to the philosophical. If only people could grasp these fundamental ideas early in life. Why couldn't they? Shouldn't our schools teach such things? Or does one come to such understandings only after many years of life experience?

Seems like if more people had this perspective, we would have fewer ideologues who base their beliefs on flimsy foundations and oversimplifications of the world. And if more people would turn off the bloody television, read some good books, and think about things, maybe we could achieve a collective "higher form of life".

Ah, one can wish and dream and hope ...

BTW ... I will be facing going through a career's worth of books and papers too in a few years ... not looking forward to it ...

David

[Dave Iverson]

David G: "f more people would turn off the bloody television, read some good books, and think about things, maybe we could achieve a collective 'higher form of life'."

Today, I have been dreaming of doing what a botanist friend did some years back -- since I've reached the hard decisions part of my clutter-organizing. Here is what he did: After 25 years of teaching, wandering the conference circuit, etc., my friend threw ALL of his office materials out. Didn't even keep the books. He replaced all the clutter with plants. He told me later that the last five years of his teaching career were the best -- freed of the weight of all the paper, teaching in simple attire, and assuming the posture of plant-guru. Another educator-friend, at the same university thought more dimly of the "stunt".

As for me, I plan to move much paper-stuff, boxed to my office at home (to be built next year). Papers will be behind closed doors, just in case I feel inclined to drag a box or two out to rumage through for historical referent.

The books will be displayed on open shelves, as much as anything to serve as a backdrop for the pool table. But also because I like to stare at them when trying to think through problems. I even drag one off the shelf occasionally.

I'll have a computer cluster in a corner with much bigger monitor than here at the office and a laptop, maybe even an Apple I-phone. I'll have a day-bed and simple wicker chairs in another corner, closely assoeciated with a wood-stove, micro-wave, refrigerator, etc. And I'll likely have a great mountain view (assuming I cut out a shed dormer in the second story of my barn where the office is to be) that will be quite unimpaired until they build the projected-to-be-built elementary school in the hayfield next door. There, once settled, I can play on my computer to my heart's delight on any given day or night.

[Tristan]

If everyone realised just how complicated and random the world is, they would go insane and lose all hope :P. I think this is part of the reason we tend to group things, create rules etc. Trying to create order in a seemingly orderless world. That is why religion is such a tempting and powerful thing, it offers people an explanation for people and the world.

On the issue of reading that which you disagree with, I've been reading some anti-evolution books lately. Most of them focus on the gaps in fossil evidence to support evolution of humans from apes. Anyway, I only skimmed through them but I can say that they have not much changed my view of creationism, however do offer valid problems with evolution. I mean, one of them claimed that the creation of the earth in 6 days is valid based on general relativity and gravitational time dilation.

[David Garen]

DAVE: Your planned home office setup sounds really nice. I could never throw away my books because I love books and like to see them on my shelves. I like to glance at them and remember what I've read and where these books have taken me intellectually and spiritually.

TRISTAN: It's sometimes hard for me to read stuff that I disagree with -- it often just makes me angry. While I want to remain open minded, I also wonder how much attention we should pay to nutty ideas and extreme ideologies. Seems to me that we can legitimately ignore some of this stuff. I do find, however, that much of the conflict between differing viewpoints is, at root, due to differing assumptions and worldviews rather than being actually about the topic. The evolution debate is disguised as a scientific controversy by the anti-evolution people (e.g., Intelligent Design) in order to give it legitimacy, but the real issue is not science. The real issue is about worldviews and about concepts of god. And these issues perhaps have an even deeper significance, which you refer to -- "trying to create order in a seemingly orderless world", or, put another way, trying to find meaning and purpose in life. Religion is one solution to this very legitimate need, but it, too, is full of assumptions that need to be examined.

I am convinced that more genuine, deep thought about things coupled with more humility would lead us to a much more peaceful world.

David G.

[Dave Iverson]

I'm with you David: "more genuine, deep thought about things coupled with more humility would lead us to a much more peaceful world."