Our limited ability to look at sequences of facts without weaving an explanation into them
We like stories, we like to summarize, and we like to simplify, that is to reduce the dimension of things.
In Taleb’s words, “the fallacy is associated with our vulnerability to overinterpretation and our predilection for compact stories over raw truths.”
We store patterns in our memory because that way we no longer need to memorize all the information we come across. Our heads afford us limited storage space, we are limited by time and most importantly, we have limited attention spans. The more we summarize, the more order we put in, the less randomness. So the same condition that makes us simplify pushes us to think that the world is less random than it actually is.
There is another interesting angle: causality. Because causality possesses chronological dimension, it can give us a sense of time. Causality makes time flow in a single direction, and so does narrative. They are both symptoms of the same reduction of dimension.
In hindsight it may be much easier to explain what happened than it actually was to live through it. Memory is more of a self-serving dynamic revision machine: you remember the last time you remembered the event and, without realizing it, you change the story at every subsequent remembrance. I will add that while you renarrate and rearrange events, you also attach an emotional response to your past
- Valeria Maltoni
Related
Collect anecdotes as issues occur to find patterns
The black swan (Nassim Taleb) p 63-69
“narrative fallacy addresses our limited ability to look at sequences of facts without weaving an explanation into them, or…forcing a logical link…explanations bind facts together. They make them more easily remembered; they help them make more sense. Where this propensity can go wrong is when it increases our impression of understanding”(Source: conversationagent.com)
