Arbitrary Coherence

I just read Predictably Irrational, and true to the reviews I had been given, it’s an interesting read. Its use of rather ordinary events and occurrences to reveal observations that are surprising and often bordering on alarming is what makes it tick. And what further makes the book engaging is how the author extrapolates these observations to show the impact they can have on our lives.

One of the concepts the book introduces is ‘Arbitrary coherence’. While talking about how we decide what would be a fair price for a particular commodity, it says that we always compare any given price to the first price that was registered in our minds, but the first price that got registered is itself arbitrary, and is not necessarily dependant on the actual inherent value of the commodity. So even though our definition of a fair price is coherent about an anchor, the anchor itself is arbitrary.

This reminded me of another discussion I had a few days ago, the often repeated debate about whether there is something called destiny? Whether man decides what to do with his life or is it all pre-decided? Can one carve his own destiny? The way I think of destiny is that we all get some signposts, some guiding milestones. What we do with these milestones may depend on us but the milestones itself can’t be explained. They are quite arbitrary. There may be a coherent explanation of how one reached where they got, but going back you’ll always come to one point that is quite arbitrary.