Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas TalebMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Have you ever heard of Buridan’s ass? It refers to a paradoxical situation wherein a donkey that is equally thirsty and hungry is placed precisely midway between a stack of hay and a pail of water. Since the assumption is that the ass will head towards the item that is the closest, it will inevitably die of either thirst or hunger. Such situation is a thought experiment and will never happen in real life. This is because there is an element of randomness in the thought process of the ass, pushing it in one way or another that will eventually dictate the cascade of events that will lead to water then food or the other way around. If you were able to ask the ass why it opted for one item over the other despite being equally thirsty and hungry, it will give you a rational reason to support its decision.
You see the problem is that we are wired to think in such a way that everything makes sense to us. This means that we are incessantly conjuring causal connections between our thoughts, it is as if we are incapable of seeing objects independent of each other. I think this is because such way of storing information is highly efficient and requires less effort. Meaning, we are almost always fooled by randomness.
I think the book is great. It was fun, funny, useful, insightful and especially relevant in the information age we currently live in.
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