Exactitude (Exact + Attitude)
In his 1946 story ‘On Exactitude in Science’, Jorge Luis Borges described an ancient empire obsessed with creating the perfect map. Their ambition led them to create a map so detailed it matched the empire on a one-to-one scale. Fields were covered with fields, cities with cities, until the entire landscape lay beneath a colossal map.
But this pursuit of precision came at a cost. Its citizens realized that such a map offered no insight. It merely duplicated reality what they already know. Resources were diverted from vital needs to maintain the map, infrastructure crumbled, and the empire eventually collapsed. Over time, the map itself began to disintegrate. The empire’s obsession with complete accuracy of the map — eventually vanished.
This story isn’t just a philosophical metaphor; it’s a cautionary tale. This is a subtle point that we often fall into the delusion that more information guarantees to better decisions
Many of us scroll endlessly through Maps, rotate streets, zoom into neighborhoods, and still feel unsure. We shortlist a hotel online instinctively like one option, yet spend hours reading reviews and watching videos, only to finally choose the same hotel we liked in the first place. The additional information rarely changes the decision, it only consumes time and confidence.
Daniel J. Boorstin, an American historian has put it right in his book perfectly, “The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge.”
If you want to punish your enemy, Give Him Information
In investing, gathering information, and considering it as research can be costly. Endless data, research reports, bombarding by news data, and market noise often distract more than they guide. Merely zooming in and out of past performance data is not research, it is an illusion of knowledge, which is worthless.
At Shalibhadra, we believe successful investing is not about immersing into colorful charts, but handholding investor with advance concepts of behavioral investing.
Nishit Siddharth Shah