Deschutes Public Library

The black swan, the impact of the highly improbable, Nassim Nicholas Taleb

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 401-429) and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

The black swan

bibliography

213400968

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

the impact of the highly improbable

"A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don’t know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the impossible. For years, Taleb has studied how we fool ourselves into thinking we know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world."--, Amazon

Prologue -- Part 1: Umberto Eco's antilibrary, or how we seek validation. The apprenticeship of an empirical skeptic ; Yevgenia's black swan ; The speculator and the prostitute ; One thousand and one days, or how not to be a sucker ; Confirmation shmonfirmation! ; The narrative fallacy ; Living in the antechamber of hope ; Giacomo Casanova's unfailing luck : the problem of silent evidence ; The Ludic fallacy, or the uncertainty of the nerd -- Part 2: We just can't predict. The scandal of prediction ; How to look for bird poop ; Epistemocracy, a dream ; Appelles the Painter, or what do you do if you cannot predict? -- Part 3: Those gray swans of Extremistan. From Mediocristan to Extremistan and back ; The bell curve, that great intellectual fraud ; The aesthetics of randomness ; Locke's madmen, or bell curves in the wrong places ; The uncertainty of the phony -- Part 4: The end. Half and half, or how to get even with the black swan -- Epilogue: Yevgenia's white swans -- Glossary -- Postscript essay: On robustness an fragility, deeper philosophical and empirical reflections. I. Learning from mother nature, the oldest and the wisest ; II. Why I do all this walking, or how systems become fragile ; III. Margaritas ante porcos ; IV. Asperger and the ontological black swan ; V. (Perhaps) the most useful problem in the history of modern philosophy ; VI. The fourth quadrant, the solution to that most useful of problems ; VII. What to do with the fourth quadrant ; VIII. Ten principles for a black-swan-robust society ; IX: Amor fati : how to become indestructible

Impact of the highly improbable