"If we begin with certainty, we will end with doubt. If we begin with doubt, and patiently solve the doubt, we will end with certainty." Bacon's famous saying helps us accept the reality of the world. Complexity, and the limitations of human capabilities, are well illustrated. Under traditional wisdom, both science and the world are certain. However, in the past few decades, many disciplines in the world have completely overturned this traditional wisdom: the certainties of science and the world have disappeared. The problem is that outside of these top scientists, we ordinary people still regard certainty as a god in the fields they come into contact with. The author of this book is a geophysicist. He uses popular writing to describe the "uncertainty" of many specific issues such as climate, transportation, elections, earth temperature, stock markets, forest ecology, etc., using ideas from multiple disciplines. sex". In the field of economics, especially in the field of investment, most economists, analysts and investors still have not accepted the concept of "uncertainty". Especially among ordinary investors, we can see many pursuits of "certainty", and it is this pursuit that causes them to lose their original wealth. Back to Bacon's famous saying: If investors start with certainty, they will end up with doubts and lose wealth; if they start with uncertainty and admit that the market is unpredictable, the future will be full of uncertainty. sex, and then based on this, like the power theory, tracking changes in various market factors and looking for the best investment opportunities, I think we will be able to have certainty and wealth in the end. 1. Overall perspective on adapting to uncertainty “◎Uncertainty is always with us, and it can never be completely eliminated from our lives (either individually or as a society as a whole). Due to the existence of uncertainty, we Understanding the past and predicting the future are always vague. “Because uncertainty never disappears, decisions about the future, no matter how big or small, are always made in the absence of certainty. Waiting until uncertainty is completely eliminated before making a decision is an implicit endorsement of the status quo and is often an excuse to maintain it. "◎Predicting the long-term future is a dangerous thing, and predictions that are very close to reality are rarely made. As the future gradually unfolds, 'mid-term course corrections' will need to be made to take into account new information and developments. "◎ Uncertainty, far from being an obstacle to progress, is actually a strong positive and important component of creativity. ” (P3) 2. Scientific uncertainty “Will science be weakened by uncertainty? On the contrary, many scientific successes occur precisely because scientists have learned to exploit uncertainty in the pursuit of knowledge. Uncertainty is not only an obstacle to the progress of science, but also a driving force for scientific progress. Science thrives on uncertainty. “…In fact, the uncertainties faced by scientists are not that different from the uncertainties we encounter in our daily lives. In many cultures, risk-taking is celebrated as a quality that successful people should possess. But risk It arises precisely because of uncertainty. The willingness and ability to articulate risks, take steps and accept risks in the face of uncertainty is considered a special strength, although there are some risks that later prove to be unwise, but there are none. Risk-taking is the implicit acceptance of the status quo. The unwillingness to be motivated by uncertainty is the real obstacle to progress.” (P6) “In comparison, true scientific practitioners readily admit uncertainty and Working in an environment of uncertainty feels like a duck to water. In real science, few concepts are considered absolutely true or accepted with absolute certainty. “Indeed, genuine science is based on assumptions. The concept in this assumption may be wrong. Falsification occurs when a concept is shown to be logically inconsistent or contrary to direct observation. Lynton Caldwell, in his review of Michael Zimmerman's Science, Nonscience, and Fallacy, describes science as 'separating demonstrable error from possible truth' process. Only fallacies can be proven, but truth cannot be proven. This is the fundamental basis of science. Truth is simply the uncut survivor of many efforts. In fact, science advances in part by exploring the weakest points of concepts that are partially successful in explaining certain natural phenomena. This endless search for weaknesses may reveal subtle inconsistencies in the theory, ultimately leading to modification or abandonment of the original concept. ” (P11) 3. The complexity of the world and the uncertainty of the “model” “Scientists, in fact every one of us, always work through simplified concepts of how things work. We call these simplified representations ‘models’, and they come in many forms: conceptual models, physical models, numerical models. In models built from the real world, we are guided imperfectly through incomplete, sometimes inaccurate, and occasionally conflicting measurements or observations of the phenomenon or system we are trying to understand. There is a continuous interaction between model and observation, and one undergoes adjustment in the presence of the other.
New observations lead to a modification of a concept, which in turn leads to a new concept, implying the need for new experiments or observations in order to be tested again. It is often this interplay of successive iterations that improves understanding of the system and, in some circumstances, reduces the uncertainty associated with system behavior. But when this fluidity disappears, such as when a scientist supports or insists on a concept in the face of considerable evidence to the contrary or puts too much faith in inaccurate or irrelevant observations, the process stops. "(P100-101) "Most of nature has incredible complexity in its structure and organization. … Because of this complexity, it is extremely difficult for even the most capable ecologists to study forest ecosystems in all their detail. They therefore developed a simplified concept of how ecosystems work, focusing on a few components considered to be particularly important and the interactions of these components. The conceptualization of this interacting ecological network is called a model. Naturally, different ecologists have different understandings of interactions, and their weighing of the participation of different components is also different, thus developing different models. It is precisely because of the above-mentioned complexity that people's understanding of ecosystems is incomplete, and uncertainty about how ecosystems are integrated has arisen. "(P101) "Economic behavior, as a whole, is considered to be the result of some quantitative relationships deified by economists, which are linked to the balance of trade, consumer price index, consumer confidence index and other aggregation indexes. With. The number of aggregated components and the relationship between the components constitute an economic model. The reason why different economic models are produced is because different economists make different assumptions about the correlation and interaction groups of economic components. ” (P102) “Perhaps the simplest model is the conceptual model. A conceptual model is an intellectual picture of a system and its components and their interactions. It is the basis for more refined models, such as physical or numerical models. A conceptual model provides a framework within which to think about the operation of a system or the problem that is typically being solved. "...However, if a conceptual model is too restrictive in its imagination, or incorporates incorrect assumptions, then its ability to predict a system's behavior will be limited and/or misleading. "... in science , a model can be good or bad, depending on how well the scientist conceptualizes the system: how insightful he or she has in understanding the workings of a complex system. "(P102, 103, 104) 4. Reconstructing the past and predicting the future "In fact, history is distorted not only from an incomplete record, but also when historians apply a selective filter. . Science also suffers distortions when it is forced through an ideological filter. If biology teachers must adhere to creator ideology, as happened in the famous Scopes case in Tennessee, the understanding of biological evolution will surely suffer. "The past is always fused with the future. Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. For processes that continue to cross the boundaries of the present, an understanding of the past is the key to predicting the future. But the past is only when processes and circumstances do not change over time. A reliable key to the future. However, geology and history tell us that the static world is an illusion. The future is related to the past, it is based on the past, but it is rarely an exact repeat of the past.
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