Re-reading: Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk
I was going over the table of contents of Peter Bernstein's Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk (1996). Something about a program I am developing made me want to recall what can be known about chance and decision-making. [I had, at some point, tucked into the book an article dunning Bernstein for his optimism about derivatives.]
The contents of the book is organized as a history:
To 1200: Beginnings
1200-1700: A thousand outstanding facts
1700-1900: Measurement Unlimited
1900-1960: Clouds of vagueness and the demand for Precision
and, finally:
Degrees of Belief: Exploring Uncertainty
Bernstein makes the point that without probability, great bridges ... power companies ... polio vaccine ... airplanes ... space travel would not happen. Also, "... the free economy, with choice at its center, has brought humanity unparalleled access to the good things in life. The ability to define what may happen ... and to choose among alternatives lies at the heart of contemporary societies." It had not hit me before the absolute importance of mathematical understanding to the growth of civilization.
What struck me was that to a large extent, the story is about examining what we are uncertain of, and trying to find ways in which we can know something about these things. [My last examination of cognitive uncertainty concerned, among other things, uncertainty about the rightness of decisions that had already passed as well as uncertainty in cases where an experience does not necessarily become an accrual of personal skill.]
Bernstein points out that the ancient Greeks were inclined to make singular mathematical proofs of things, but did not throw dice repeatedly to make a determination about "tendencies." In other cases as well, he writes that a fatalistic mindset might have kept some peoples from drawing rational conclusions about probabilities for which they had already figured out the math.
The contents of the book is organized as a history:
To 1200: Beginnings
1200-1700: A thousand outstanding facts
1700-1900: Measurement Unlimited
1900-1960: Clouds of vagueness and the demand for Precision
and, finally:
Degrees of Belief: Exploring Uncertainty
Bernstein makes the point that without probability, great bridges ... power companies ... polio vaccine ... airplanes ... space travel would not happen. Also, "... the free economy, with choice at its center, has brought humanity unparalleled access to the good things in life. The ability to define what may happen ... and to choose among alternatives lies at the heart of contemporary societies." It had not hit me before the absolute importance of mathematical understanding to the growth of civilization.
What struck me was that to a large extent, the story is about examining what we are uncertain of, and trying to find ways in which we can know something about these things. [My last examination of cognitive uncertainty concerned, among other things, uncertainty about the rightness of decisions that had already passed as well as uncertainty in cases where an experience does not necessarily become an accrual of personal skill.]
Bernstein points out that the ancient Greeks were inclined to make singular mathematical proofs of things, but did not throw dice repeatedly to make a determination about "tendencies." In other cases as well, he writes that a fatalistic mindset might have kept some peoples from drawing rational conclusions about probabilities for which they had already figured out the math.
posted by Constance X at 12:00 PM
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