uber theorization problem

The world around us is a collection of extremely complex systems with elements that interact and impact one another in extremely convoluted ways. Humans across centuries have tried to make sense of these complexities and identify potential causal links among various elements giving rise to various disciplines of sciences and a multitude of theories to explain various natural phenomenon. These theories have unquestionably helped us organize valuable information and engineer viable solutions to a multitude of problems that the human race has faced.

However, I came across a very interesting perspective on knowledge and theorization while reading former trader (and hardcore empiricist) Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s famous book ‘The Black Swan’. Humans have a natural penchant to identify patterns, connect dots and form theories to explain the causality of events occurring around us and even predict future events. While accumulation of knowledge and their subsequent theorization have been instrumental in fostering economical and technological growth, ‘The Black Swan’ author emphasizes that the constant reliance and need for theorization can be problematic. The problem with theorization arises from unknowledge i.e. we don’t know what we don’t know. The universe has many elements that we are aware of and potentially many more elements that we are not yet aware but possibly contribute or have a causal relation to occurrence of phenomenon or events that we observe and try to theorize. We seek strict determinism and constantly try to find explanations (no matter how shallow) for events based on inherent knowledge that is grossly limited. A strictly deterministic outlook and simplistic explanation of events of the world limits our mental faculties as it grossly overshadows the inherent randomness and complexity that truly characterizes the world. Having a sense of extreme understanding and the tendency of excessive or uber theorization leads to epistemic arrogance which makes our thought processes extremely rigid making us unfortunately more ignorant of what we don’t know. Epistemic arrogance prevents us from exploring the infinite waters of unknowledge and uncovering the abundance of new secrets that the universe has to offer. Our mind is then confined to think of phenomenon only in terms of pre-defined systems and force-fitting their explanation through existing theories, making it very difficult to think about new possibilities and explore new ways of thinking. The rigid and shallow theories formulated from limited knowledge may survive in the short term due to confirmation bias or the illusion of causality but can prove to be fallible when an unexpected event shows up that does not fit into the proposed theory. While there is an unavoidable human need for simplistically theorizing the inherent complexity of the world, leaving an ever-open window for randomness to enter is crucial to acknowledge the unexplainable (and mysterious) intricacies of the universe and the infinite (and ever-existent) unknowledge of humans. An empirical and heuristic approach to viewing the world can be more humbling where we acknowledge potential correlations between various elements and events of the world we observe but we do not fall prey to the trap of formulating shallow theories of causation that strongly disregards the mysterious intricacies of the universe and the abundant ignorance of our knowledge. Freedom from compulsive theorization and true acceptance of the ignorance of our knowledge can help foster free thinking and allow us to explore and discover new avenues of information that can help us get an increasingly better if not complete understanding of the phenomenon and events occurring around us.