forceOfHabit
Aug 22, 2017 · 2 min read

What an incoherent mess this article is (not at all what I expect from Taleb)!

Rationality … is only what aids survival, avoids ruin.”

By this very curious definition, arguably religious superstition is more “rational” than science. After all, crusades and inquisitions are less of an existential threat to the human race than nuclear bombs and knowing how to find, extract, and burn Earth’s hydrocarbons leading to global warming. Ignorance is bliss anyone?

I’m all for people realizing the irrationality of trying to make rationality the basis of their philosophy (and instead embracing the arational), but maybe Taleb would be better off coining a new phrase for beliefs that enhance survival instead of trying to redefine the existing (and very useful) term “rationality”.

In addition, there is the question of how to measure, evaluate, or (rationally?) discuss beliefs if we accept Taleb’s definition of “rationality”. And, of course, there is a simple argument to be made that beliefs enhance survival value exactly insofar as they correspond to reality. After all, a superstition about not sleeping under dead trees enhances survival precisely because in reality this is dangerous.

On further reflection, I suppose Taleb does not really dispute this. It sort of seems like he is advocating for more than one way of arriving at survival enhancing beliefs:

When confronted with something like the Black Death, we can try out a whole bunch of superstitious means of avoiding/curing/stopping the spread of the disease and let trial and error (evolution) suggest which ones work and which ones don’t; or, we could use (traditional) rational or scientific approaches, discovering germs, antibiotics, disease vectors etc. to obtain a better (more reliable, more easily generalised) match between our Plague defenses and the underlying reality.

If this is indeed his point, he still needs to coin a new term for “survival enhancing beliefs” instead of trying to redefine the word “rational” (which is a distinct concept that remains useful even in this worldview).

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    forceOfHabit

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    In time of flood, the well is never deep enough.