The Geometry of Nature
Taleb uses irregular natural forms to criticize the habit he calls Platonifying: mistaking a simplified model for the thing it describes. He connects this habit with treating casino games as representative of randomness in the wider world.
THE IDEA
The Geometry of Nature
Triangles, squares, circles, and the other geometric concepts that made many of us yawn in the classroom may be beautiful and pure notions, but they seem more present in the minds of architects, design artists, modern art buildings, and schoolteachers than in nature itself. That’s fine, except that most of us aren’t aware of this. Mountains are not triangles or pyramids; trees are not circles; straight lines are almost never seen anywhere. Mother Nature did not attend high school geometry courses or read the books of Euclid of Alexandria. Her geometry is jagged, but with a logic of its own and one that is easy to understand.
I have said that we seem naturally inclined to Platonify, and to think exclusively in terms of studied material: nobody, whether a bricklayer or a natural philosopher, can easily escape the enslavement of such conditioning. Consider that the great Galileo, otherwise a debunker of falsehoods, wrote the following:
The great book of Nature lies ever open before our eyes and the true philosophy is written in it. … But we cannot read it unless we have first learned the language and the characters in which it is written. … It is written in mathematical language and the characters are triangles, circles and other geometric figures.
Was Galileo legally blind? Even the great Galileo, with all his alleged independence of mind, was not capable of taking a clean look at Mother Nature. I am confident that he had windows in his house and that he ventured outside from time to time: he should have known that triangles are not easily found in nature. We are so easily brainwashed.
We are either blind, or illiterate, or both. That nature’s geometry is not Euclid’s was so obvious, and nobody, almost nobody, saw it.
This (physical) blindness is identical to the ludic fallacy that makes us think casinos represent randomness.
When to use it
When designing data visualizations, resist the temptation to force data into simple geometric shapes or distributions.
In scientific modeling, remain aware that simplifying assumptions (like perfect circles or straight lines) may hide important natural variation.
In product design, test mental models against real user behavior rather than assuming neat, geometric decision paths.
When studying ecosystems or geology, look for fractal or complex patterns instead of expecting Euclidean forms.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Mountains are not triangles
A mountain may have an approximately triangular outline while its slopes and surface remain irregular. The simplified shape leaves out features that may matter for the question being studied.
Galileo's blind spot
Taleb challenges Galileo’s description of nature through triangles and circles. He uses the passage to argue that familiar mathematical forms can direct attention away from irregular natural detail.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
Think of a natural object you see regularly—a tree, a rock, a coastline. How does your mind automatically simplify its shape?
In what situations do you catch yourself Platonifying, and what might you be missing as a result?
How does the bias illustrated here apply to the way we interpret data or random events?
Often confused with
References
- The Assayer — Galileo Galilei (1623)
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- The Black Swan The Impact of the Highly Improbable With a new section On Robustness and Fragility (Nassim Nicholas Taleb)