A great article on Probability in The Stanford Enc of Philosophy that draws from Franklin’s book.
A great article on Probability in The Stanford Enc of Philosophy
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Monthly Archives: February 2015
Those who are attempting to turn Jihadi John into “a victim” are, simply, his collaborators…
Those who are attempting to turn Jihadi John into “a victim” are, simply, his collaborators/promoters and need to be treated as such.
The absolute best best best noBS book on hist of probability is Franklin’s
NNT tweeted: “The absolute best best best noBS book on hist of probability is Franklin’s” and linked to his Amazon review.
5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensable, August 31, 2013By N N Taleb
This review is from: The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability before Pascal (Paperback)
As a practitioner of probability, I’ve read many book on the subject. Most are linear combinations of other books and ideas rehashed without real understanding that the idea of probability harks back the Greek pisteuo (credibility) [and pithanon that led to probabile in latin] and pervaded classical thought. Almost all of these writers made the mistake to think that the ancients were not into probability. And most books such “Against the Gods” are not even wrong about the notion of probability: odds on coin flips are a mere footnote. If the ancients were not into computable probabilities, it was not because of theology, but because they were not into games. They dealt with complex decisions, not merely probability. And they were very sophisticated at it.
This book stands above, way above the rest: I’ve never seen a deeper exposition of the subject, as this text covers, in addition to the mathematical bases, the true philosophical origin of the notion of probability. In addition Franklin covers matters related to ethics and contract law, such as the works of the medieval thinker Pierre de Jean Olivi, that very few people discuss today.
Just gave students an exam. “Ask a deep & important question”
Just gave students an exam. “Ask a deep & important question” (related to the course). They will be judged by the quality of the question. In real life it is very hard to ask the right question.
via Just gave students an exam. “Ask a deep &… – Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
Tomorrow morning starts the grueling Orthodox lent…
Tomorrow morning starts the grueling Orthodox lent. No animal product for 40 days. Note that both Ancient Greeks and Levantine Semites never ate meat without some kind of sacrifice to the God(s), something that persists in Kosher-Halal rituals. Meat was limited to festivals (“carnival”).
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I initially thought that the intermittent protein deprivation followed by overcompensation was meant to draw benefits from Jensen’s inequality/antifragility (whether the process is kidney-rest, anti-inflammatory or authophagy for cancer control/hormonal as held by Valter Longo, it doesn’t matter because we know the statistical structure of natural life gave hunters intermittent meat and steady vegetables and we are not supposed to have steady red meat).
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But it can’t be just that. It just hit me that I missed a central point. This relief was also to help … THE ANIMALS, the ecology. Animals too need a break from milk/egg production, etc. And because of nonlinearity their population may need some kind of natural surge (hint: look at Lotka-Volterra predator-prey models).
via Tomorrow morning starts the grueling Orthodox… – Nassim Nicholas Taleb.