Friday, August 8, 2008

The Apprenticeship of the Empirical Skeptic

Perhaps it IS interesting to note that as knowledge becomes more pervasive and easily obtainable, one's measure of intellectual capacity, and perhaps even their subsequent standing to offer solutions, theories and even predictions are very much sometimes more of a standardised commonality of opinions, rather than one that will really hit the spot! Seriously, the very antithesis of having too much knowledge, or sometimes information, is in fact stupidy! No...not of the idiotic kind, but more so of the fact that as the sum total of human intelligence and knowledge bank grows exponentially over time, Man, and very much the intellectual elitist, will become very much aware only of what THEY know, to make available their theories, without an afterthought to what that they DON'T know.

This enlightening conclusion is definitely something to ponder on, and I pay homage to the book entitled 'The Black Swan' by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a book that I am currently reading. I happen to pick the title of the first chapter of the book as my post today.

Nassim definitely made me sit up and think more deeply even right from the word 'GO', as he peels off some of his analysis of what are in his opinion, the 'impact of the highy improbable'. Definitely something that is worth reading, especially for those who often, out of sheer folly, or just plain quasily uninformed, have the tendency to make overgeneralisations, especially when one considers himself or herself as a self- or publicly-appointed 'generalised statement maker.' Hmmm...

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