Connections - Intertwingled: Information Changes Everything - page 64

The ripples made by this pebble were fascinating. A modest change to the information architec-
ture brought strategy and culture into question. I'm pleased by the introspection it led to, but I
can't take credit as it wasn't my goal. Surprises in life are more common than most of us care to
admit.
One reason we make mistakes is known as the problem of induction. We spend our lives trying
to see the future using our knowledge of the past. We draw general conclusions by observing
specific events. Induction is the root of how we know what we know, and it works surprisingly
well, until as Nassim Taleb explains, we find we're the turkey, not the swan.
Consider a turkey that is fed every day. Every single feeding will firm up the bird's belief that it is the
general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race “looking out for its best in-
terests,” as a politician would say. On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, something
unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief. l xxiii
This reminds me of the J. C. Penney link spamming scandal. The retailer hired a search market-
ing firm to improve its ranking in Google; and they got great results. Month after month JCP
was the top search result for such queries as “samsonite carry on luggage” and “little black
dress.” Executives were happy and well fed until the New York Times exposed the black hat cam-
paign behind their results, Google banished them, and they discovered they were the turkeys.
Years later, JCP still fails to make Google's first page except by paying for ads. Relying on results
from a black box is foolish. Don't trust that it works. Ask why. When we understand, we in-
crease our ability to manage events. We can change tactics or plan a response. But we can never
fully escape the limits of induction. That's the moral of the story of the lucky farmer.
One day the farmer's horse ran away. His neighbors cried “such bad luck” to which he replied “maybe.”
His horse returned the next day with three wild horses. His neighbors shouted “that's wonderful” and
the old farmer replied “maybe.” The next day his son rode one of the wild horses, fell off, and broke his
leg. The neighbors called it a “terrible misfortune.” The old man replied “maybe.” The day after, the
army came to the village to draft young men, but the son was spared thanks to his broken leg. The neigh-
bors said the farmer was lucky how things turned out, and the old man answered “maybe.”
It's impossible to predict the future, yet we do it all the time. We nod at the wisdom of the Zen
farmer, then proceed with business as usual. We make plans, take steps, and get angry when
things go awry. Awareness isn't ambivalence. We care about outcomes, and to some degree we
are in control. Prediction helps us to see the future in more ways than one.
Prediction is so pervasive that what we “perceive” - that is, how the world appears to us - does not come
solely from our senses. What we perceive is a combination of what we sense and our brains' memory-de-
rived predictions . lxxiv
As Jeff Hawkins explains, the simple act of opening a door is built on prediction. Memory en-
ables us to open our front door without thinking. We predict what will occur when we turn the
knob and push. If the door is stuck and our prediction proves wrong, then our attention turns
on, and we start asking questions. Much of what we “see” is based on what we expect. As the
neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran explains:
There are at least as many fibers (actually many more!) coming back from each stage of processing to an
earlier stage as there are fibers going forward…The classical notion of vision as a stage-by-stage sequen-