Taleb’s argument will please many Unitarians. There is a severe limit on what we can learn from observation and experience. Indeed, one single observation can invalidate a general belief, one perhaps that has been held for thousands of years. Hence the Black Swan in the title.
Until Europeans discovered Australia, people were convinced that all swans were white. Whiteness and being a swan were synonymous. The Black Swan revelation demolished this common belief.
A Black Swan incident, Taleb says, lies outside our regular expectation, “because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility”. It also has an extreme impact. And, as we now know in the current financial doom, human nature makes us concoct explanations for an occurrence after the fact. We are unable, or do not want to think of uncertainty: “go ask your portfolio manager for his definition of ‘risk’ and odds are that he will supply you with a measure that excludes the possibility of the Black Swan”.
Black Swan logic, Taleb says, makes what you don’t know far more relevant than what you do know. Yet we don’t learn that we don’t learn. We try to cut reality into crisp shapes, to fit in with the accepted narrative, as British journalists cooped up in Belfast’s Europa Hotel were oft to do. While humans need to categorise, we move into dangerous territory, perhaps untruth, when categories are seen as definitive. We also make a critical mistake by seeking corroboration to support a hypothesis, rather than looking for weaknesses, as chess masters do.

Paul Murray
Dublin Unitarian Church