Nassim Nicholas Taleb Quote
A Solution Waiting for a Problem Engineers tend to develop tools for the pleasure of developing tools, not to induce nature to yield its secrets. It so happens that some of these tools bring us more knowledge; because of the silent evidence effect, we forget to consider tools that accomplished nothing but keeping engineers off the streets. Tools lead to unexpected discoveries, which themselves lead to other unexpected discoveries. But rarely do our tools seem to work as intended; it is only the engineer’s gusto and love for the building of toys and machines that contribute to the augmentation of our knowledge. Knowledge does not progress from tools designed to verify or help theories, but rather the opposite. The computer was not built to allow us to develop new, visual, geometric mathematics, but for some other purpose. It happened to allow us to discover mathematical objects that few cared to look for. Nor was the computer invented to let you chat with your friends in Siberia, but it has caused some long-distance relationships to bloom. As an essayist, I can attest that the Internet has helped me to spread my ideas by bypassing journalists. But this was not the stated purpose of its military designer. The laser is a prime illustration of a tool made for a given purpose (actually no real purpose) that then found applications that were not even dreamed of at the time. It was a typical solution looking for a problem. Among the early applications was the surgical stitching of detached retinas. Half a century later, The Economist asked Charles Townes, the alleged inventor of the laser, if he had had retinas on his mind. He had not. He was satisfying his desire to split light beams, and that was that. In fact, Townes’s colleagues teased him quite a bit about the irrelevance of his discovery. Yet just consider the effects of the laser in the world around you: compact disks, eyesight corrections, microsurgery, data storage and retrieval—all unforeseen applications of the technology.* We build toys. Some of those toys change the world. Keep
A Solution Waiting for a Problem Engineers tend to develop tools for the pleasure of developing tools, not to induce nature to yield its secrets. It so happens that some of these tools bring us more knowledge; because of the silent evidence effect, we forget to consider tools that accomplished nothing but keeping engineers off the streets. Tools lead to unexpected discoveries, which themselves lead to other unexpected discoveries. But rarely do our tools seem to work as intended; it is only the engineer’s gusto and love for the building of toys and machines that contribute to the augmentation of our knowledge. Knowledge does not progress from tools designed to verify or help theories, but rather the opposite. The computer was not built to allow us to develop new, visual, geometric mathematics, but for some other purpose. It happened to allow us to discover mathematical objects that few cared to look for. Nor was the computer invented to let you chat with your friends in Siberia, but it has caused some long-distance relationships to bloom. As an essayist, I can attest that the Internet has helped me to spread my ideas by bypassing journalists. But this was not the stated purpose of its military designer. The laser is a prime illustration of a tool made for a given purpose (actually no real purpose) that then found applications that were not even dreamed of at the time. It was a typical solution looking for a problem. Among the early applications was the surgical stitching of detached retinas. Half a century later, The Economist asked Charles Townes, the alleged inventor of the laser, if he had had retinas on his mind. He had not. He was satisfying his desire to split light beams, and that was that. In fact, Townes’s colleagues teased him quite a bit about the irrelevance of his discovery. Yet just consider the effects of the laser in the world around you: compact disks, eyesight corrections, microsurgery, data storage and retrieval—all unforeseen applications of the technology.* We build toys. Some of those toys change the world. Keep
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About Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Taleb is the author of the Incerto, a five-volume work on the nature of uncertainty published between 2001 and 2018 (notably, The Black Swan and Antifragile). He has taught at several universities, serving as a Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering since September 2008. He has also been a practitioner of mathematical finance and is currently an adviser at Universa Investments. The Sunday Times described his 2007 book The Black Swan as one of the 12 most influential books since World War II.
Taleb criticized risk management methods used by the finance industry and warned about financial crises, subsequently profiting from the Black Monday (1987) and the 2008 financial crisis. He advocates what he calls a "black swan robust" society, meaning a society that can withstand difficult-to-predict events. He proposes what he has termed "antifragility" in systems; that is, an ability to benefit and grow from a certain class of random events, errors, and volatility, as well as "convex tinkering" as a method of scientific discovery, by which he means that decentralized experimentation outperforms directed research.