A Minutiae of Experience

"Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired."

Jonathan Swift

1721, A Letter to a Young Gentleman, Lately Enter’d Into Holy Orders by a Person of Quality

When I was young I used to have more energy in my inane deliberations over pointless matters. One of the matters over which I've fruitlessly pondered over often, was the importance of experience in the current society. Of course, speaking strictly in professional sense; what I've found that there is this remarkable universality on the importance of experience, even where the situation does not strictly demand it. Nevertheless, even if one assumes that this premise is true, the next question was: "Can it be compensated (or even surpassed) by Mathematics?"

What is experience? Is it the fluency and familiarity, in the sum total of all possible responses to all possible situation which are likely to arise in the professional life of a designated job description? Or is it the connections which one builds over a long professional life? Or is it the innate aptitude, reinforced by professional time-span and its variations which one encounters in its professional life; which usually gets described as "things-not-to-do" or "ways-in-which-it-is-not-to-be-done". Indeed, as I've seen, most of the advice for the newcomers, in almost every professional field, is full of negations. Whereas almost every professional course, which one takes, is full of assertions. Though it seems contradictory and it is; nevertheless it does make sense. Since, the negation part is often culture-bound and varies corporation from corporation; thus almost impossible to inculcate in pedagogy. Hence, only the assertions are often get taught. But this logic is not self-sufficient, as it immediately gives rise to the question that if the so-called experience is culture bound then what is the point of demanding this from a candidate who doesn't have any idea of culture of another corporation? The answer to this, like most of things in life, is a deliberate fallacy; such that it can be said the once an entity is supposed to become proficient in a culture (i.e. the demonstrated malleability of mind-set) it wouldn't take long before it becomes proficient in another. All of this, I must admit, sounds awfully bogus. But there does exit the premise which could be followed universally. And in this age of free-money-by-FED, corporations usually recruit for pleasure (as in the employment of state-governors in the republic of India) and statutory numbers; and since they usually buy-out their potential genuine competition in its budding stage rendering the market practically void of viable competition; making their reign and current practices, safe and sound, for the foreseeable future. 

Indeed, the universality of dollar, and more so, the indispensable belief in its dominance, by the EMEA countries (via various secondary and tertiary organizations, though the onus is more on their own fiscal behaviour as it being the true-copy of fiscal behaviour of US, in the intrinsic sense) is more responsible for this to sustain. Nevertheless, it is, what is.

Coming back to second question, is it possible to supplant such an experience by Mathematics? First of all, this is not a trivial question. If yes, then it would mean that there exist a possibility to construct AI/ML system which could take management decisions by considering all possible outcomes and their possible ramifications. It would mean that such system would be able to do qualitative assessment of a given situation, along with all manoeuvrable/non-manoeuvrable parameters. However, in my (flawed) view, the current AI is in nascent stage. Though the language recognition programs are quite good, it is solely due to the vast computing power satiated by equally vast library of language. The point is, it is not due to some inherent ability to learn on its own (in the sense deriving all the knowledge from the given assumptions, though there are some remarkable research and demonstrations in this direction). How long the parallel-processing ability of human-mind would be able to keep up with evolving machines? I really don't have any idea. And it is very scary to think about such a future. But it doesn't have to be in this way. 

Long ago, I've read about a peculiar experiment in the game of chess. When a grandmaster plays against a chess-engine, whose rating is higher than number one human chess champion, of course there is certain defeat. However, when a chess grandmaster, aided by another engine, plays against an engine; it has been seen that in most of the cases grandmasters have won the match. Which leads to a symbiotic relations between man and machine; the so-called harmonic stratopause. 

Now, suppose we drop machines from the discussion; would the aforementioned question still be answered in affirmative? Indeed, I suppose so, for a well-aware cognizant mind, in my (flawed) view, should not take long. Once all the variables are known, a modulated response could be evoked for a given situation, which could easily encompass all the possible ramification and their probable relations (causal/acausal) with variables involved. This does not mean such a mind would be agnostic to emotional-intelligence. On the contrary, this requires a very sensitive entity. Otherwise, the memos containing phrases of so-called "due-to-unforeseen-circumstances", begin to propagate. 

However, do we need such an entity? Or do we have the capacity to recognize such an entity? Or, more importantly, do we have a system, to build and groom such an entity? At this point of discussion, I would like to detach myself this. Since, as a proven academic idiot, I've neither the capacity nor the eligibility to entertain such questions. This is for the people who are in-charge, and who are looking. And especially for those, who see this intrinsic reason, on their own; to look for. 

Why? As you can not convince those who have already made up their mind.