The Human Mind Hates Randomness

". . .and if it seems too hard to understand, it is because we are brainwashed by notions of causality and we think that it is smarter to accept because than to accept randomness." -Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan

Perhaps it isn't as much that we think it is smarter to accept causality, but rather it is easier for our brains to process and deal with a causal link than just to say, "there was no damn reason for this horrific event that happened--it just happened."

We as humans want to think that there is a grand narrative, or that at the least, if we act in a certain way, that other things will necessarily happen in response.

Randomness is a tough pill to swallow.

I still am not 100% sure what I believe in this respect--if chaos reigns, or if the order and narrative is just so complex that our human minds can't process or make sense of it, or we just don't have the temporal perspective necessary to make sense of the world.

An even more difficult position to hold would be that there is a grand narrative at work, but acknowledging that perhaps some things are seemingly random. Try piecing those two viewpoints together in your head.