[lit-ideas] Re: Black Swans Anyone?
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2007 08:33:21 +0900
On 4/27/07, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
--- John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Just posted the following on Savage Minds. Thought some here might
> find it interesting.
Include me in (of course).
But this does not seem at all new stuff if you know Popper's work. Does he
for example discuss the 'Wason test' - a test, and series of tests,
devised
by the late Peter Wason. Wason believed that Popper was right on logic and
scientific method but was curious that Popper's ideas (which are generally
very appealing and intuitive to most scientists) meet fierce resistance
from
(and are counter-intuitive to), for example, many philosophers.
He may. If so, I haven't got there yet. To me what makes Taleb fascinating
is not that the ideas he offers are original. He himself makes no such claim
and is candid about his sources. The fascination lies in the range of
erudition, with Popper bracketed by Solon and Sextus Empiricus on the one
hand and George Soros and Mandelbrot on the other, and the practical
relevance and application illustrated by roman a clef stories taken from
Taleb's experience as a Lebanese exile who has seen the delightful, peaceful
country in which he spent his childhood descend into chaos and the
securities trading business in which he makes his apparently very good
living. His approach to trading is, by the way, contrary to all sorts of
currently popular approaches, depending as it does on accepting continuing
small losses to place bets on remote contingencies with very large payoffs,
and keeping your winnings in treasury bonds to maximize security.
John
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
Other related posts:
