(fooled by randomness, Nassim Taleb)
Some claims that medical journalists do not understand andything about medicine and biology, often making mistakes. I am often surprised by what some "professional" financial spokesman comments, and utterly could not stand those information providers that easily attributes certain events to the most obvious cause. Tomorrow morning, when you see the financial news headlines, you will see something similar to "market rallies..." or "market down...", quickly cover the following words in the sentence and make your own guess "due to....". Most of the time, a financially untrained reader will get it right. Just fill in the most current news, for now, its subprime. People attribute everything possible, to 'fill in the blanks' or to find a reason, where two things have no proven causal relationship.
Maybe you find a person you so called trust, that recommends you to something, say, a real-estate proposition, or more commonly for us, a financial-plan (what a gloss, just means sell insurance la - basically i sell you a insurance, whether life/term/investment-linked, then if you are younger, i put more money into equity, if you are older, i put more money into bonds/money-market. what risk-profile, nice-words that means little, do they truly understand the risk associated with bond/equity? ask your insurance agent next time you meet him/her what is the method one quantify the risk of a bond/equity). Have you ever, ever wondered whether these trusted acquaintances of yours really know what they are recommending? As much as i trust a sony salesman to sell me only sony products, i would trust an "expert" of one company to only recommend me the product of his own company, right?
The question is, do you even bother to do your own research to protect yourself? Well, most of us are trusting, unlike me, opinionated, cynical and critical, right?
We often claim that we are an agent of a greater governing value or cause, may it be what you believe in or may it be a greater divine purpose, purports to truth and depth; but most of the time, we are just forwarding our egoism in self governing ideas (everybody has their OWN RIGHT to express their own views/this is MY interpretation/this is MY life). Emotions are often used as an excuse for certain behavior, or i-am-mere-human claims. Time, equated to a factor directly contributing of healing and reconciliation. Priorities, a reason for things undone; incompetency, a resort of unwillingness.
How much a person claims that we have different profiles or personality and we can live or not live with uncertainty, all of us need a reason. Those that say they can live without a reason is pure bollocks. That is why a need for news, a need for gossip, love of tabloid, need of "sharing" and "unloading". Having this need for us to find a reason, makes us arrive at conclusion swiftly without consideration; makes us associate and lay down causal relationship to events that are possibly non-related.
Then there comes this thing called "belief" or "faith", and faith is not suppose to be blind. (or was it love?)
So if we cannot just put faith in things then how are we to live? No we can't because "faith" gives us certainty in life! With faith, we then can push anything we do not want to face or solve to, "ok i trust in a greater power or vision", or oh anything i cannot solve or lazy to put effort is, "by faith"; well or even more refined way is, to use "by faith" to move forward things we already planned in mind to achieve, blame it on the greater purpose, anyway the greater purpose won't bite you back right, might as well.
Merovingian: But do you? You think you do but you do not. You are here because you were sent here, you were told to come here and you obeyed. [Laughs] It is, of course, the way of all things. You see, there is only one constant, one universal, it is the only real truth: causality. Action. Reaction. Cause and effect.
Morpheus: Everything begins with choice.
Merovingian: No. Wrong. Choice is an illusion, created between those with power, and those without. Look there, at that woman. My God, just look at her. Affecting everyone around her, so obvious, so bourgeois, so boring. But wait... Watch - you see, I have sent her dessert, a very special dessert. I wrote it myself. It starts so simply, each line of the program creating a new effect, just like poetry. First, a rush... heat... her heart flutters. You can see it, Neo, yes? She does not understand why - is it the wine? No. What is it then, what is the reason? And soon it does not matter, soon the why and the reason are gone, and all that matters is the feeling itself. This is the nature of the universe. We struggle against it, we fight to deny it, but it is of course pretense, it is a lie. Beneath our poised appearance, the truth is we are completely out of control. Causality. There is no escape from it, we are forever slaves to it. Our only hope, our only peace is to understand it, to understand the "why". "Why" is what separates us from them, you from me. `Why' is the only real social power, without it you are powerless. And this is how you come to me, without `why,' without power. Another link in the chain. But fear not, since I have seen how good you are at following orders, I will tell you what to do next. Run back, and give the fortune teller this message: Her time is almost up. Now I have some real business to do, I will say adieu and goodbye.
No comments:
Post a Comment