The Triplet of Opacity

I thought I would share one of the cornerstones of my research summed up perfectly by Nassim Taleb in his book, The Black Swan. 

The human mind suffers from three ailments as it comes into contact with history, what I call the triplet of opacity.

They are:

1. the illusion of understanding, or how everyone thinks he knows what is going on in a world that is more complicated (or random) than they realize;
2. the retrospective distortion, or how we can assess matters only after the fact, as if they were in a rearview mirror (history seems clearer and more organized in history books than in empirical reality);
3.and the overvaluation of factual information and the handicapauthoritative and learned people, particularly when they create categories—when they “Platonify.”


Taleb, Nassim Nicholas (2010-05-04). The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility" (p. 8). Random House Trade Paperbacks. Kindle Edition.