4. Epsilon-Delta thinking 🔗

The true antithesis of 0 to 1 is not 1 to n; that's a strawman. The true antithesis is ε to δ: the evolutionary adjacent possible...

Ironically 0 to 1 (understood as coin toss) is conceptual atom of statistics/indeterminacy, ε/δ is conceptual atom of calculus/determinacy

Contra Thiel, the key distinction between stats/calculus is not indeterminate/determinate, but discrete/continuous blakemasters.com/post/234357439…

Stats is intuitive in discrete (dice, coins, balls in urns), unintuitive in continuous. Calculus is opposite. This has deep effects.

Calculus being more natural on continuum means discrete realities feel like approximations. You try to go more fine-grained for better truth

Calculus is more fundamentally indeterminate view of the world: zoom in enuf (and you can do so infinitely in continuous), more bits appear

Stats on the other hand, leads naturally to determinacy through finiteness. Like discrete set of futures with countable branching structure

Of course, at limit, this gets to philosophical imponderables like quantum scale, or digital vs. regular physics.

You get misled when you cherry pick example like predictability of space orbits as "proof" of precise predictability of calculus world.

Try Navier-Stokes equations (also calculus!) for predicting turbulent fluid flow. Opposite of predictable.

Equally, stats can lead to highly predictable results, as in dominant game theoretic strategies over long iteration horizons.

Not nerd-quibbling with Thiel's model for no good reason. This has serious implications for mental models on the Thiel 2x2.

The motivation for that 2x2 is to talk about luck and success as constructed by society, but the account is simplistic.

ε/δ thinking gets at a more fundamental question: when do small changes lead to small effects, versus huge, rapid, snowball effects?