Certainty: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|If there was certainty, ninety-five percent of you wouldn’t ''have'' any goddamn work. | {{quote|If there was certainty, ninety-five percent of you wouldn’t ''have'' any goddamn work. | ||
:—Also the Jolly Contrarian}} | :—Also the Jolly Contrarian}} | ||
Be careful what you wish for. A world of certainty is a world of no [[doubt]], no mystery, no ''je ne sais pas''; no contingency, no [[disclaimer]]s that [[past performance is no indicator of future results]], not because it suddenly is an indicator, but because that accursed inductive mode of reasoning is at long last obsolete, all data is at hand and the future can be arrived at ''de''ductively, from first principles, the same way that rice pudding and income tax can be deduced from “[[cogito, ergo sum]]”.<ref>{{hhgg}}, [[as any fule kno]].</ref> | Be careful what you wish for. A world of certainty is a world of no [[doubt]], no mystery, no ''je ne sais pas''; no contingency, no [[disclaimer]]s that [[past performance is no indicator of future results]], not because it suddenly ''is'' an indicator, but because that accursed inductive mode of reasoning is at long last obsolete, all data is at hand and the future can be arrived at ''de''ductively, from first principles, the same way that rice pudding and income tax can be deduced from “[[cogito, ergo sum]]”.<ref>{{hhgg}}, [[as any fule kno]].</ref> | ||
A certain universe is a ''determined'' universe, where each stem in the great branching bush of causal chains is fully taxonomised, catalogued, worked out — if not in theory, then in principle — down to the individual particle in a Saharan dust storm, where the trajectory of each crisp packet that blows across St Mark’s square can be calculated, anticipated and predicted, as can all the trajectories if crisp packets that didn't, but might have tumbled across that palazzo, had the circumstances been different, even through, by immovable presumption of your philosophy, they cannot have been. | |||
===It’s relative=== | |||
If only you knew. “Oh, JC, you silly old duffer,” you say and punch me on the arm. “I know certainty is an impossible state — everyone knows see that — but, like a prisoner shackled to a cave seeing shadows on the wall, it is an idea we can ''apprehend'' and aspire to; our advantage is pressed not by finding certainty but getting nearer to it than the competition. Isn't that the definition of a competitive advantage? | |||
{{Sa}} | {{Sa}} | ||
*[[Doubt]] | *[[Doubt]] | ||
Revision as of 23:22, 9 December 2020
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If there was certainty, ninety-five percent of you wouldn’t show up for work.
- —The Jolly Contrarian
If there was certainty, ninety-five percent of you wouldn’t have any goddamn work.
- —Also the Jolly Contrarian
Be careful what you wish for. A world of certainty is a world of no doubt, no mystery, no je ne sais pas; no contingency, no disclaimers that past performance is no indicator of future results, not because it suddenly is an indicator, but because that accursed inductive mode of reasoning is at long last obsolete, all data is at hand and the future can be arrived at deductively, from first principles, the same way that rice pudding and income tax can be deduced from “cogito, ergo sum”.[1]
A certain universe is a determined universe, where each stem in the great branching bush of causal chains is fully taxonomised, catalogued, worked out — if not in theory, then in principle — down to the individual particle in a Saharan dust storm, where the trajectory of each crisp packet that blows across St Mark’s square can be calculated, anticipated and predicted, as can all the trajectories if crisp packets that didn't, but might have tumbled across that palazzo, had the circumstances been different, even through, by immovable presumption of your philosophy, they cannot have been.
It’s relative
If only you knew. “Oh, JC, you silly old duffer,” you say and punch me on the arm. “I know certainty is an impossible state — everyone knows see that — but, like a prisoner shackled to a cave seeing shadows on the wall, it is an idea we can apprehend and aspire to; our advantage is pressed not by finding certainty but getting nearer to it than the competition. Isn't that the definition of a competitive advantage?