The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Book Report/Review Example

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable- Book Review Introduction The book, “The Black Swan-The Impact of the Highly Improbable” by Taleb, Nassim Nicholas is an informative, entertaining and relevant piece of work I feel like reading over and over again. I have chosen this book because it explains the realities of life, their impacts, and how we react to them. It focuses on three fundamental issues; the outlier, which lies outside the realm of our regular expectations, the extreme impact of the outlier event upon its occurrence and finally, the tendency of humans to concoct explanations for the occurrence of such outlier events. Simply put, black swan denotes a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics of unpredictability, possession of the massive impact and the tendency of concocting explanations when such events occur, so as make them appear rather less random. Review The Black Swan idea is comprehensively reflected upon in the book. From the Latin origin of the phrase, black swan to the great philosophical works, including those of Aristotle and Plato, Taleb brings the idea of the ‘Black Swan’ sweetly alive to the readers of this masterpiece. Basically, the black swan has been used in the book largely to argue the cases of the unknown, abstract occurrences and events that humans do not factor in their expectations, and the so called body of knowledge. In this regard, the book explores the unpredictability of ‘black swan’ events and advises on the need to build the robustness to the negatives that occur, and to enhance the ability to exploit the positives. The idea explored by Taleb suggests that these black swan events must not necessarily be negative occurrences, but also unexpected positive events, which in a way startle humans in their daily life. The mention of the vulnerability of the banks and other trading institutions to hazardous black swan events, as well as instant success by the Google firm reinforces the understanding of the book even to the first time reader. In addition, from the historical perspective of the turkey story through to the modern day narration of the case of neuroscientist Yevgenia Krasnova and her story of recursion, Taleb interestingly creates the understanding of his meaning of ‘Triplets of Opacity’ to the audience (Taleb 68). In this connection and concerning what we do not know, the black swan logic has been employed by Taleb to make what we do not know appear far more relevant than what we know or think to know. To affirm this point, creativity has been employed by the author to sight relevant examples with consistent explanations, which only leaves the readers more baffled and later on reinvented. Sad, but interesting and workable example of the September 11 terrorist attack, bearing in mind what humans were able to predict, the impact of it and the reactions by the very people is an inspiring section of this book, among other relevant and systematically explained examples. Another captivating idea that Taleb expounds on is the tendency of humans to focus increasingly on what they know, rather than what they do not know (Taleb 36). The book gives an elaborate explanations and examples on how what we do not know by far influence the life around us. This, the book elaborates how this has been the case since time immemorial, during the formation of religions to the modern day human life. Quality The author refers to great philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato to expound on his claims, which validates the conclusions he draws in the book. In addition, the book uses mathematical and scientific concepts to help validate the author’s arguments. Such cases include the scientific examples concerning the black swan events. An example includes the neuroscientist, Yevgenia Krsnova and the small publishing company case as expounded to expose and emphasize on the black swan case. I find the scientific explanations and examples valuable since they are based on reality. The use of reality rather fictions in his examples inspires me on the reason why I should not overlook certain occurrences in life. The example of the neuroscientist particularly informs me why opportunities lie idle in many environments and just how I may fail to tap them on the assumption of my ability to forecast and predict the future with certainty. It informs me why such assumptions may only work against me. This example also reveals how I can take advantage of the unplanned and unthought-of occurrences to achieve success in life. He introduces and explains the concepts of mediocristan and extremistan in relation to how predictable an environment one studies is. He explains about the Gaussian distribution, which is applicable in mediocristan environment, but never in the extrimistan environment. The book delves into yet another issue of the use of earlier Turkey narrative to reflect on the philosophical problem of induction (Taleb 162). From this section, I get to understand how my reasoning; whether deductive or inductive affects my approach to issues and circumstances in life. It also elaborates how the past performances cannot be the indicators for the future performances, which he illustrates using the skepticism story. The engagement of the philosophical mind on how to employ methodic skepticism in order to establish the truth is helpful in terms of handling future events in life. The author’s intention to help discard the notion that humans can predict the future with certainty is accomplished successfully by the book. Anyone who reads this book will surely have to reassess himself or herself concerning the approach to the events yet to happen in life. The author The author himself, Taleb, through this work has proven an entertaining writer. This is exhibited in the manner he has presented his arguments about the black swan logic. The work is artistically punctuated with a series of comical sections, especially where he focuses on how humans tend to react and concoct explanations to the occurrences of the black swan events. The author in his work has also proven independent minded. Generally, one would expect, and indeed, it is the case with most of the contemporary authors, to get in accord with past writers and their established body of knowledge. At times, they only build on the past knowledge with minimal deviations. As evident in this book, Taleb sounds so independent in his mind that he manages to dispute some of the long held body of information emanating from such prominent thinkers and authors as Aristotle. Another outstanding feature with Taleb, especially in this book, is the command of a varied number of subjects. To enhance the flow of the work and understanding of the concept handled in the book, Taleb has employed knowledge from a range of subjects. These various discipline areas that he has used include cognitive science and business probability theory among others. This is an indication of the polymathic command of a range of subjects; since he has even gone further to provide relevant examples to the effect. In this connection, the author has been able to provide startling account of the various concerns using unusual stories, which captivate, rejuvenate, and invites interest in the readers, thereby enhancing understanding of the book. Personal reflection and recommendation Personally, I would really concur with the content of this book by Nicholas Taleb. This agreement come in relation to the three main issues addressed by the author; unpredictability, the massive impact caused by the black swan occurrence, and the reaction thereafter. It is true that, upon the occurrence of an unexpected event, I have always justified their occurrence, and in the process, concocts reasons and the explanations for such. Such also prevent me from putting into consideration some other aspects of real life, which I am unable to predict. Conversely, and because of some knowledge I have obtained in a given academic field, I believe that I can predict almost every aspect, which has a bearing on a given event. Finally, and as mentioned by the author, I too rely heavily on what I know or claim to know that what I do not know, and as such do not know that I do not know. My personal point of view is that as much as the future events are concerned, humans need an approach to the future. For the life to have meaning and order, we have to construct an approach somehow to the life issues, including those that are yet to happen. This calls for some insights into the future nonetheless. What I see as important is the extent of reliance on our own ability to predict the future. I must not act as though I have the full knowledge of the future, but have a provision for the things turning out as I least expected. Careful study of circumstances, which look less beneficial or less harmful, is a consideration I would take seriously. I would use this approach in my future. It remains a wonderful book written under the guidance of wits and profound knowledge. It contains great issue of reality concerning human life in almost all the spheres of life. Thus, I would highly commend it to other people because of its informative and inspirational nature. Work Cited Taleb, N.Nassim. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Random House, 2007. Print. Read More