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Excerpt from a new post from our friend David Lemus.

And so I spoke concerning the tension between the Rationalist and the Empiricist. As the evening winds down, I pick up my copy of Taleb’s ” The Bed of Procrustes” and slowly read at loud the aphorism: “The rationalist imagines an imbecile-free society; the empiricist an imbecile-proof one, or, even better, a rationalist-proof one” (pg 71)

Two minds come to my mind, the Rationalist who conjures theories and provides proofs based on assumptions, who draw maps and builds models, and the Empiricist who wants to walk on the city streets and see the aesthetic architecture; smell the smooth air of the surroundings; taste the delicacies, and watch the girls; and see and be with nature and the people who prove the Rationalist wrong over and over again.

The Rationalist, thinking himself very astute, builds the models of how the world should work. I trenchantly enter the chambers of his mind and he gives me an amiable tour.–Look–he smirks–I have maps of Japan, of England, of America, of the whole world, there is not one single terrain which I haven’t drawn a map. –But–I respond–Have you been there? Have you stroll through the dark street in Tokyo? Have you walk at night through London’s poet corner trying to find the burial ground of some long gone author? Have you been lost in Manhattan on East 42nd and 3th attempting to talk to strangers, lots of strangers, to find your way to a decent room?