It is a great honor and great happiness to be in Armenia, where he is for the first time. World-famous Lebanese American philosopher, writer, and scientist Nassim Taleb said this during the press conference held Thursday within the framework of the Science and Business Days 2023 conference in Yerevan.

Taleb said he came to Armenia on a plane that arrived from Beirut, there were many Armenians on the plane, the Armenian community in Lebanon is quite large, and he believes that he had contact with Armenians in his past life.

Nassim Taleb noted that recently, he was reading a study related to genetics, where it was mentioned that the first population of Lebanon also consisted of Armenians, it is a double joy for him  that he is in Armenia at the Science and Business Days, he considers himself a businessman; and as a businessman, he took the path of science, and that path was a non-standard path.

To a reporter's question as to how he evaluates the development of science in Armenia, Taleb stated that he can only give a general answer to that question, as he does not have detailed information.

Nassim Taleb said that he is a person by profession who deals with the ideas of uncertainty and implements this in the real world, which is full of chaos. He added that when we talk about possibilities and probabilities, we have to consider that uncertainty is really very important.

Taleb noted that he would like to talk about a very important phenomenon, which is technical knowledge. According to him, sometimes science is viewed as an abstract phenomenon that is cut off from reality, but it is not because we live in a physical world, and therefore we should focus on knowledge that we can put into practice rather than knowledge that is textbook and theoretical in nature—and various developing countries often make this mistake.

The fact that, for example, they open one university instead of schools and colleges, Nassim Taleb said, adding that he talked about it with the prime minister of India; and exactly one year after that, he said in his speech that it is better to open 1,000 schools rather than one university; and this made Taleb very happy, as, in his view, it is necessary to focus on technical knowledge, which will be important for Armenia.