A recurring theme in these articles on betting psychology has been that, as evolutionary flawed thinkers, we tend to see outcomes as binarily predetermined; they will either happen, or they won’t. We struggle to recognise that the outcome of future events – until they happen – are undecided, and that the future, rather than being fixed, is, in fact, an ever-shifting complex and chaotic web of possible outcomes, each of which has a probability attached to it, a probability that moves in reaction to other outcomes.
Even writing that last sentence about the multiplicity of the future caused my brain to overheat, so it’s little wonder we find it hard to engage with non-binary uncertainty in our everyday lives. Much easier – and perhaps more secure, too – is to believe that the future already exists, and that our role is simply to move towards it with as little fuss as possible.