Adonis Diaries

Is it we want to know so we learn to predict? What is prediction

Note:  Paragraphs in parenthesis are mine.

In a post by Seth, titled ” Are you a scientist?” I read:

“Scientists make predictions, and predicting the future is far more valuable than explaining the past.

Ask a physicist what will happen if you fire a projectile like this in that direction, and she’ll know. Ask a chemist what happens if you mix x and y, and you’ll get the right answer. Even quantum mechanics mechanics can give you probabilities that work out in the long run” End of quote.

(Seth is confusing prediction and deterministic models.  What natural scientists, in the previous examples, are doing is not predicting, but stating a determined behavior by inanimate objects that do not change with time and can be studied with few variabilities.  The model plainly describes “how the system functions” using natural laws, in mathematical equations, which have been discovered by studying trends that don’t change much.

For example, the interactions among the few variables in the natural inanimate world are restricted and the mind can visualize the picture of “how the system or model functions”.  In complex systems, such those involving animate subjects, such as mankind or even animals, the variability is huge among the various factors affecting the system behavior, either the internal variability of the subjects, or the external factors influencing the system behavior. 

Consequently, the fluctuations in the system have to be studied differently:  A kind of “prediction” of the next stage or phase of the system is required, according to our leraning habit of viewing the universe in linear thinking.)

Seth goes on: “Analysts who come up with plausible explanations for what just happened don’t help us as much, because it’s not always easy to turn those explanations into useful action.

Take the layout of Craigslist. Just about any competent online designer would have predicted that it would fail. Too clunky, undesigned, too many links, not slick or trustworthy… Or consider a new r&b artist, or a brand new beverage.

After the fact, it’s so easy to say, “of course it worked…” and then make up a reason for whatever it is that just succeeded.

The practice, then, is to start making predictions. In writing. You don’t have to share them in public, but the habit will push you to understand your instincts and to sharpen your ability to see what works (and what doesn’t) without the easy out of having to explain what already happened.

Look at startups or political campaigns or new products or ad campaigns… plenty of places to practice your predicting skills.

I predict you’ll learn two things:

1. It’s really difficult to make predictions, because success often appears to be random
2. Based on #1, it’s probably smart for you to initiate more projects that aren’t guaranteed winners, because most winners aren’t guaranteed.

And a bonus… the more you practice your predictions, the better you’ll get at discerning where the science is”. (End of quote)

I usually copy Seth posts before reading the content:  I know that I will invariably find more holes in the short article than in a square-meter chunck of swiss cheese.  I know that almost any post of Seth is ground for a critic article.

I categorize Seth posts as “inspirational” and lacking foundation:  They are of the type “In the final analysis… bla…bla…” and I wonder how Seth pulled it off to skip all the necessary previous “analysis”.

I figured that Seth judiciously use up-to-date terminologies and attach them to key words such as “Action”, “profit”, “get on with it”,  “don’t linger on testing”…And these posts sounds credible and valid to the youth.  Those who consider Seth as their Guru, for advancing their business, usually fail to taking a wretched minute to critisize the article:  To them, the post is a call for action and not for serious reflections.

Even multinational financial institutions “do not predict”:  Their models are pretty much deterministic in nature. Multinational financial institutions win every transaction: They have more pieces of intelligence than all advanced States combined, and they have the manpower, equipments, and the latest software to instantly process data, and take split-second decisions to buy or sell.  Multinational financial institutions do not play in the stock market:  They are the Stock Markets, they are the casino, they designed the system, and the rules of the game!

For example, we are very familiar with the catchy words of planning, organizing, predicting…They are smokescreen concepts to excuse the plundering and exploitation of the western mind.  Manking has survived in spite of planning, organizing, predicting…

The discoverers who are exhibited in the forefront are those who regurgitated the key words of planning, organizing, predicting in their vocabulary or interviews.  There are far more scientists and discoveres who practically didn’t consciously plan, predict, or organize their life.

It is the daydreaming expectations that set off split-second decisions that have carried the survival of mankind:  It is the huge ego and stubborness of mankind to proceed with their split-second decisions, against all odds, that is the real story. 

Those who explained, shared, and disseminated their daydreaming expectations have always found followers to picking up the relay baton and advance the dream a step further.

Mankind progressed in periods of free thinking, expressions, and gathering of the free minds, rather than in periods of “peace” where the mind was constrained to abide by specific ideological dogma (whether religious, scientific, or political). 

That is the real adventure of mankind.

Is it “we want to know so we learn to predict?” Sounds convincing at first reading.  We want to know because we need to survive in this changing and fluctuating universe of matter and man.  We want to know because it is our right to have healthy vanity to know what is going around us.