Static Thinkers in a Dynamic World

Jim O'Shaughnessy has a phrase, “We are deterministic thinkers in a probabilistic world.” Meaning that despite the randomness in the world, we behave as though we know what consequences will come from our actions.

This explains a lot of human behavior.

I think there’s a related idea - We are static thinkers in a dynamic world. We think the world won’t change in response to our actions. We treat the world like a turn-based game where we have infinite moves before the next player can move.

Failing to recognize or realize the dynamism of life is one of the reasons we fear uncertainty.