Saturdayread

We want answers so badly that we’ll accept whatever is offered without fully understanding what, in our current case, probability is actually describing: a likelihood of occurrence. Thanks to the proliferation of correct models, conventional wisdom assumes that we could never be wrong about a national election ever again; that the best team in history could never lose three games in a row; and that the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences could never vote for a small budget film about a black man coming to terms with his sexuality and identity.

And so, we’re shocked by the outcome that goes against the probability. However, the data isn’t wrong. The statistics aren’t faulty. The probability isn’t even mistaken. The only blunder being made is the faith we put in the most likely occurrence being the only possible outcome. And as we’ve already established, that’s a very human thing to do.

A book released this past year by Chuck Klosterman called But What If We’re Wrong endeavoured to look at the present as though it were the distant past. In it he asks how certain we are about our basic understanding of the world around us, and then compares the confidence we place in our foundational beliefs to the trust previous generations had in their perspective at the time.

In one of the more fascinating sections, Klosterman discovers two conflicting viewpoints from cosmologist Neil deGrasse Tyson and theoretical physicist Brian Greene on our capacity to be wrong.

Tyson suggests that with the proliferation of the scientific method in the 17th century, we’ll never have a massive paradigm shift like the Copernican Revolution again. From now on, Tyson argues, we’ll only build on the ideas we already have. Meanwhile, Green expresses doubt in the stability of our understanding while also acknowledging that there’s no way of knowing what greater thought is out there while still having our minds trapped in the current system. He argues that the history of ideas is the history of being incorrect. We certainly wouldn’t be, Green emphasizes, the first generation to assume we have everything figured out, only to be dead wrong.

It might be an understatement to suggest that since the Enlightenment, the Western World has come to place an incredible amount of value on reason. Three hundred years after the death of Louis XIV, putting stock in statistical probability seems like the most obvious application to come out of a world founded in logic but overrun by data. However, this type of big-picture thinking tends to overlook the fact that while models may be very accurate, those interpreting them remain highly fallible and subject to all the foibles humans have exhibited for millennia.

Although we may often derive the wrong expectations from the relationship between probability and outcome, at least our faith in likelihood, misplaced or misunderstood as it may be, represents some sort of guiding principle. Ultimately, we’re thinking the best of humanity when we match our capacity for surprise with our understanding of what seems a reasonable outcome.

But there’s a less noble human quality that has also resulted from the increased accessibility that innovation has brought about: our need to be heard at all costs.

Through the opening of so many communicative channels, we’re witnessing and participating in an unprecedented democratization of communication. At no point in history have so many people been able to involve themselves in public discourse on culture, sports, politics or the economy. This seems wonderful, but if we think about it in terms of supply and demand, the multitude of voices – each with its own platform and the same desire to be noticed – has made it increasingly difficult to gain ground in the attention economy that it creates.

As a result, individuals are expressing themselves with a higher degree of certainty in the hope that confidence lends authority to their ideas. And frankly, it works. It’s hard not to think of the social media engagement of the President of the United States as the ultimate example. President Trump tweets in short, definitive statements, making claims that he is the most, the best, the only.

The downside to such hyperbole is the possibility of fragile arguments gaining more traction than they warrant simply because of the manner in which they’re presented. And once again, we’re pushed toward a false sense of certainty that increases our capacity for surprise.

If we think of surprise in terms of a mathematical equation, it could be defined as the difference between expectations and reality. In this scenario, reality, as we’re all too aware, is a constant, which means that the degree to which we’re surprised is directly correlated to our expectations, or the degree to which we’re certain of a particular outcome.

Although it’s difficult to contest the claim that the last few sports championships were among the most dramatic in memory, I don’t think that the unlikely is occurring with any more regularity than it has before. Whether through a misunderstanding of what predictive models offer, or resting too leisurely on the maxims of current thinking, or maybe even being hoodwinked by the attractive confidence of an individual voice, our certainty about uncertain things has increased.

Our current state is reminiscent of a “word of the day” calendar: minutes after learning a new word, you suddenly hear it everywhere. It’s not that the word is suddenly being used more frequently (unless of course your entire social network has the same calendar), it’s that you notice it more because you’re aware of it.

In becoming increasingly aware of the likelihood of things, we’ve become more sensitive to the unlikely occurring. In allowing our commonly held perspective to become more concrete, surprises have a greater impact. In trusting in the confident delivery of others, we set ourselves up for disappointment.

In closing, I ask that if you take away anything from this essay, this onslaught of ideas that you may dismiss as hogwash or embrace as a spark to deliberate further on our capacity for surprise, it’s the following: the Warriors blew a 3–1 lead.

Never forget.