Eventually, as my topics of interest
have spread wider, I started to look for randomness and Murphy law
texts, looking for statements for a possible, yet not probable book
I’ll write as I’ve been told to place some of the odds ramblings
on paper.
I ended with Nassim Taleb topics...
Black Swan events.
I’ve just started reading the book;
however, I have to say this thing has started to make me have
flashbacks,
Back on college (electrical engineering
program) one of my dear professors, Martin Issac Donderis (RIP) was trying to
make us think out of the box and have a deeper understanding of
stuff. I’ll never forget his following statement (translated from
Spanish so may not make much sense and sound funny):
I am awarethat I know;I am aware that you don’t know.You have no idea that you don’t know... even if you think you know.at the end of this course, you’ll be fully aware that you don’t know and at least you’ll be able to see that nobody knows shit.
Funny enough, this guy was a Civil
engineer and he were teaching us statics... go figure!
Anyway, randomness, uncertainty and
Murphy have always called my attention; and the funny thing is that
there is somehow no documentation that gather enough knowledge about
all tree.... specially on a practical matter (think about uncertainty
on project management for example).
This “Black Swan” thing is
interesting because as far as I’m understanding, Taleb point is
that “whatever you don’t know” is in fact far more relevant of
what you do know. We learned (engineers, scientist etc.) about the
“central limit theorem” where the mean of a sufficiently large
number of independent
random
variables, each with finite mean and variance, will be normally
distributed....
… and since it works (think about
quality control procedures) we have been conditioned to ignore the
long tail of the gaussian curve and focus on the mean and standard
deviation... the apex.
Theoretical Physicist have change the
concept of causality with quantum mechanics some years ago; and there
has been enough debate about how these dynamics doesn’t explain our
world until recently with M theory, which stick with the wild
randomness of quantum mechanics on all levels of existence (M theory
defines 11 dimensions for reality). So, the structured world where
the cause-effect that the “common homo sapiens” claim to
understand is just a small little piece of a much more complicated
reality where randomness and uncertainty define alternate universes
and endless possibilities and chaotic dynamics.
The problem of uncertainty:
I’ve learn thru my education that the
human mind have a structured procedure to learn and deal with
knowledge and conclusions. Let’s ilustrate that with an example:
All germans are blackAll black are ugly...conclusion: all germans are ugly.
This is the basic formal structure of
our thinking. The premises I’m using as initial statements are, by
any standard absurd. However, what if you know nothing about ugliness
or germans¿?
It is the knowledge or the judgment
elements that make us able to determine that it is just bullshit;
however, the conclusion is correct. In other words, if you where dumb
enough to believe that all germans are black you’ll end “knowing”
that all germans are ugly.
The evolution of the human mind have
follow a path of not appreciating introspective thinking; and also,
not questioning everything.
On a biological level, thinking need
huge energy resources and is in fact, time consuming. We as a species
started to think on an eyelash in terms of evolutionary time, and
back on those days, I am sure we used our brain on subjects too
peripheral to matter; like avoiding to be eaten.
Evidence shows that we do much less
thinking than we believe we do; except of course, when we think about
it.
So we have learn to focus our thinking
resources on a very narrow field of what matter to us; and every time
we found a problem that seem impossible to understand, we attribute
it to god will and lived happy with that dumb ass explanation.
