一種執着 A kind of grudge
數日前，我因為發現錯過某些Convention而耿耿於懷，徹夜難以入睡，常常想想錯過報名的理由，”If weren’t for this, and weren’t for that”. 亦有時候，我會為一些現實問題而煩勞。請問找不到工作是我的問題還是其他的問題，是我做得不夠的結果嗎？這種無窮無盡的歸因真是令人氣累。
其實世上真的有那麼多的「如果」嗎？時常有時事，政治KOL對未來有十分的把握，一時又話打硬杖，一時又話什麼會一定發生。結果都是成王敗寇，估中就做「預言家」，估錯就做「燈神」。They can always say things as if they are going to be true. I mean, their assumptions and reasoning are correct, it sounds pretty convincing (他們說話時總能擺出一副確信不疑的姿態；平心而論，他們的假設與推論確實無誤，聽起來亦頗具說服力)
其實這種對原因和結果的執着，我認為是非常人性的事。
一種謬誤 A flawed assumption
We don’t sit well uncertainty. And neither can we perceive uncertainty well. For example, winning the lottery and an arbitary “1 in 10000” may as well felt the same. Both are “something that can happen”. As much as a STEM student claimed they took “Probabilities and Statistics” in college, they still felt “something” when they open a lootbox in a gacha game.
The way we cope with uncertainty is we try to make sense of it. With some knowledge and experience, we may able to quantify it, model it, or make use of it. However if we are not careful, we let our judgements and ignorance takes hold and we would try to play god.
The Slippery Slope
Do you know you can extract any plausible sounding conclusion as long as you put the right steps? For anything that has occured, you can always reason back to some source. Like path to a directed graph. But can you predict what would happen in reverse? Assume you have perfect knowledge a month prior from 9/11, 2008 Financial Crisis, can you say with absolute certainty that the crisis would happen? The simple answer is no.
The edges of the graph of reasoning is weighted, and pointed by many things. There is usually no simple correlation to every cause and effect, things doesn’t happen in a vaccum. The more steps you add to your reasoning, the more uncertain it becomes. And even the best predictions can fail. No one thought real estate market can fail because they had never failed. As unprobable and insignficant a black swan can be, its existence has already made its point
With the right expertise and sufficient wisdom, one can make very good predictions, but it is far from an easy task. If someone is no different from a genie, they could have won the financial market and why would they tell anyone about it?
Our Fault?
Is it foolish that we try to make sense of uncertainty? In some sense yes, a gambler felt they can control the odds and your granny would pick mark-six numbers out of 碼報. Both end up as people that would happily and willing succum their life savings. A conspiracy theorists can always cherrypick the right reason to support their crackpot idea. Our reason-seeking minds are leading to our demise