In this chapter, Taleb speaks about his reason of being an “Empirical Skeptic”. He recounts his personal experiences encountered by him in Lebanon and explains how he focuses more on empirical evidence rather than drawing conclusions based on anecdotal observations. He also explains three missteps a human mind taken when they are approaching history
In this chapter, Taleb speaks about “Yevgenia’s Black swan”. Yevgenia is a girl who wanted to publish a book written by her. In order to publish her book, she met several writers but to utter disappointment no writer agreed to publish her book except one Russian writer who thought that he had nothing to lose if he publishes her book. It was completely unexpected, Yevgenia proceeded to become a literary
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• Mediocristan for the most part is the world regular people live in. Here, things are predictable, linear. Most events can be explained with a bell curve. • On the other hand is the world of authors, sports stars, celebrities where unexpectedness and unfairness reigns, the unexpected happens. This world is known as “Extremistan”. For instance, our weight is a Mediocristan and no matter how much yo u eat on one single day, it won’t have a huge impact on the amount of calories you consumed the entire year. Other examples include physical attributes like height, and scalable professions where there isn’t a huge amount of difference in in come every year. Examples of Extremistan are inflation rates, death rates due to terro rist incidents, financial markets, wealth and so …show more content…
From the turkey’s point of view, the 1001th day is unexpected and is therefore a Black Swan, but for the butcher, it’s nothing because it isn’t something unexpected for him
In this chapter, Taleb talks about “Round Trip Fallacy” which means that humans have a tendency to combine two similar things that may be very different. For instance, the statement “almost all terrorists are Muslims” can e asily be confused with “almost all Muslims are terrorists”, but if you look cl osely, you will find that the two statements are completely different. Hence, people look for collaborations they tend to miss important information.
Taleb says that Human being often assign the title of Causalities to thing that occur randomly without finding any logical reason behind the happening. However, Taleb says that this results in a loss where we ignore data that do esn’t support the narrative we have. We do this by tricking ourselves into be lieving something that might not be true. Primarily, we, as humans, tend to assume things about the future by relying on anecdotal information instead of empirical
Rudd’s (2009) essay evaluates Enid Blyton’s work offering a different perspective to account for the appeal and popularity of the author. This essay looks at the aspects raised by Rudd. How Blyton, Pullman and Ransom illustrate the different aspects of a good or a bad book. The way critics confer prestige on a book or author and the arising criticism. How the agenda of the committees affects the selection of prize-winners. Finally, looking at the factors involved in success.
A determinist’s reply would state that humans are ignorant of the forces around them that are actually controlling their behavior in this sense; man becomes a puppet to irresistible forces acting upon him. Neither the free will nor the determinism theories can be proven to be wholly causal of human behavior. Alternate theories are formulated that incorporate main points of free will and determinism that appear...
The birthplace of Aesop’s Fables originated in ancient Greece and is widely speculated to have been written by a slave named Aesop. Many critics over time have questioned the true original author of this book, however, they seem to agree that Greece is the actual geographical location of its birth. The specific version of Aesop’s Fables discussed in this essay started with a man named George Fyler Townsend, who began the process of recreating the book by translating it into English and publishing it in 1870. Townsend’s Aesop’s Fables represents a collection of translated stories that highlight morals above anything else, and these morals reflect the values that Townsend considered to be the most important to transmit from Aesop’s original version in Greek to the English-speaking people of his time.
Causality has been a pivotal concept in the history of philosophy since the time of the Ancient Greeks. After David Hume, however, many have questioned whether there is (or can be) any metaphysical meaning of causality, or valid inferences based upon it. Xavier Zubiri (1898-1983) has rethought and reformulated the question of causality in light of its historical roles, well-known criticisms, and relevant contemporary knowledge. In doing so, he has achieved a unique perspective on the subject which should be of great interest to those concerned with causality and any of its applications.
The false cause logic exists when individuals mistakenly confuses the relationship between two or more elements with causation (Woodard et al., 2014, p. 94). This logic takes for granted a relationship between cause and effect exists without any solid proof or evidence to support the reasoning (Woodard et al., 2014, p. 95). Forbes published an article estimated that...
Volgar, Christopher. The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. Studio City: Michael Wiese Productions, 2007.
There are many arguments for and against the freedom of will. The distant causation argument seems to show that the freedom of will is a deception. Since, it states that our actions are all the product of causes that happened outside of our own control. In the essay I will be discussing how effective this argument is in showing that our freedom of will is actually an illusion.
Determinism and free will are incompatible. The events in people’s lives are already chosen for us, or determined. The expected behaviors of people are explained by natural laws and by experiences that they were exposed to. But this viewpoint does not explain people’s intuition. Although, there is a chain of physical causes that lead into people’s intuition.
One of the great themes of the modern Western literary tradition is that of the artist's independence. Writers throughout history have struggled with this problem in their own lives. Often coming from the upper classes, they may decide to give up a life of relative comfort and financial security in order to explore the wilds of the human spirit through literature. They must choose between financial and emotional satisfaction. This is the decision made by the protagonists of both Hermann Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund and Kate Chopin's The Awakening. In both of these novels, the protagonist leaves mainstream society behind in order to become an artist, perhaps mirroring the lives of the authors themselves. But it is not the mere physical departure from mainstream society that is the most important factor in these novels. What is most important is the emotional and mental distance that Goldmund and Edna place between themselves and their respective cultures. In both of these novels, the artist is portrayed as a renegade spirit, leaving behind the strictures of their cultures of birth in order to pursue art.
...out being ever able to comprehend any thing like connexion between them” (46). He expresses that this conjunction through similar experience is what allows us to relate cause and effect relatively accurately.
Gwendolyn Brooks once said “I felt that I had to write. Even if I had never been published, I knew that I would go on writing, enjoying it, and experiencing the challenge”. For some, writing may not be enjoyable or easy, but for Brooks writing was her life. Gwendolyn Brooks not only won countless awards, but also influenced the lives of several African Americans.
Causal determinism is a proposition which states that every event is the necessary result of a particular cause. Evidence of causal determinism can be found in most natural world sciences and essentially conceptualizes the way in which we think about our world during our daily lives (Hoefer).With causal determinism, however, comes the problem of free will. This arises from the consequence derived from causal determinism being universally true that essentially appears to deny that free will is something that we possess. However, with causal determinism, there comes different positions one can take which all have consequences attached to them. These positions are hard determinism, in indeterminism, and compatibilism, each with accompanying consequences
Tchaikovsky is one of the most popular of all composers. The reasons are several and understandable. His music is extremely tuneful, opulently and colourfully scored, and filled with emotional passion. Undoubtedly the emotional temperature of the music reflected the composer's nature. He was afflicted by both repressed homosexuality and by the tendency to extreme fluctuations between ecstasy and depression. Tchaikovsky was neurotic and deeply sensitive, and his life was often painful, but through the agony shone a genius that created some of the most beautiful of all romantic melodies. With his rich gifts for melody and special flair for writing memorable dance tunes, with his ready response to the atmosphere of a theatrical situation and his masterly orchestration, Tchaikovsky was ideally equipped as a ballet composer. His delightful fairy-tale ballets, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker are performed more than any other ballets. Swan Lake, Tchaikovsky's first ballet, was commissioned by the Imperial Theatres in Moscow in 1875. He used some music from a little domestic ballet of the same title, composed for his sister Alexandra's children in 1871.
The "Causal Determinism" Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University, 23 Jan 2003. Web. The Web. The Web. 1 Mar. 2011.
... in all of Yeats poems of, “When you are Old” “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” “The Wild Swans at Coole” “The Second Coming” and “Sailing to Byzantium” in which Yeats uses these symbols to convey his message to the reader or listener. Symbolism is a big part of the lives of all of us, and Yeats understood that concept and put it into all of his poetry. Whether it was Yeats using the symbol of a sailing ship to represent death coming, or his use of the swan bird to also represent pending death. Yeats also uses a book to describe his love life and a falcon and his falconer to represent the lost faith in the society we lived in. However, we may not know it, but we too use symbols throughout our lives. Whether it be a cross necklace we wear, or a certain brand of shoe or shirt or sock we wear, symbolism plays a large part in our lives, and Yeats captured that in his poems.