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Black swans and the unexpected.


Black swans and the unexpected
Audio file:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WeXb-plO0jHKzv1uix9hfPhQS-8fqkti/view?usp=drivesdk

I’ve just had an old friend stay for a few days who was giving a paper at a large scientific conference in Glasgow.  .His passion for science remains undiminished from his early days as a Phd student 25 years ago when we first each other and many of our conversations this last week have come back again and again to the commitment, challenges and breakthroughs of scientific research.   What struck me more than anything though was the openness to new evidence to be found in the relentless pursuit of more knowledge even if this overturns or modifies existing theories.   On the one hand the researcher builds on the knowledge accumulated over many generations which allows them to launch into the unknown.  On the other hand what they discover may lead to changes, sometimes profound, in the body of knowledge they have used to get them to where they are today.   There is a trust in what they have discovered so far and yet an openness to new things.   I find this a very healthy relationship with reality!

Up until the late eighteenth century it would have been an accepted fact in the northern hemisphere that all swans are white.   That is until the black swans of western Australia were discovered.   This black swan metaphor has been used in theories in philosophy and financial analysis which I don’t particularly want to go into right now except to say that it illustrates the power of compelling evidence to the contrary to reset definitions and working models based on generalised observation and behaviour.   “Almost all consequential events in history come from the unexpected” claims Naseem Taleb and yet we are bound by powerful psychological biases that blind us to uncertainty and to these rare events.  

If we look back at our personal histories the ripple effects of the unexpected can be very significant indeed: people we meet, incidents out of our control, changes in circumstances, social and cultural shifts etc etc.  The key though would seem to be in our response to these.   Can we learn from our science friends who will follow the evidence wherever it leads them, who will allow the unexpected to shed more light on the great mystery that is life and truth.   Our psychological bias that tries to interpret all that happens in terms of our accepted knowledge and beliefs, can mean that we miss the good stuff that could be hidden in black swan moments.   It took some time (1790) before the black swans of western Australia were officially classified as swans and this reflects the way that we too need time to actually understand what was going on when that unexpected (and perhaps unwelcome) moments happened in our past.

Sometimes it is simply the case that ‘sh_t happens’, but it also may not be too late for us to excavate some of the stuff that happened to us and perhaps realise a nugget of wisdom, a deeper empathy,  a new relationship, a richer and more nuanced spiritual insight.   As someone once said, God never wastes any of the material that he is working with, which echoes Paul’s words in Romans “For all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose”(8:28).  This is certainly NOT meaning that bad stuff does not happen to good people, but that the bad does not need to have the final word.  

It’s also the case that many wonderful and good things can bring profound change to us in their unexpected and unlooked for advent in our lives.  And that’s a thought isn’t it that the first Advent is the black swan event of all black swan events.  We thought God’s were almighty and powerful,holy and majestic, and yet we find a baby born to an unwed mother who ends up crucified.  And we’ve been trying to work out the implications of this ever since as the ripple effects just go on and on and on.

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