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PRIMITIVE_BIOLOGY

                                             Feb 14, 2008
                                             March   2008
                                             May  9, 2008

                                             BLACK_SWAN

One of the first things I noted about
Taleb is that he frames everything
in terms of biological determinism.          (And yet, he appears
                                             to take "free
This bugs the hell                           will" as a fundamental...)
out of me, because:

(1) I'm by no means convinced that the
present fad for biological explanations        NATURE_OF_THE_WALLS
has any rigorous underlying basis

(2) I have my doubts that it
matters worth a damn as far
as his main thesis goes.  Who               To Taleb's credit, he
cares if we have cognitive                  understands that "biology
biases because of our nature                is not destiny":
or nurture?
                                               "Our minds are like inmates,
If it's one, it will take some                 captive to our biology,
extreme mental effort to                       unless we manage a cunning
overcome the problem, and if                   escape." -- p. 67
it's the other...  well then it
will take some extreme mental
effort to overcome the problem.

Training and practice are the
answers in either case...



He associates his Mediocrestan
with "primitive environments"
(hence explaining the
intuitive appeal), but in his
favorite example of human
weight the key thing is not
that there's something                So what he's talking
primitive about it but that           about is the physical
there are underlying physical         world, as opposed to
factors that constrain it to a        virtual?
normal distribution.
                                        He makes the presumption
                                        that our "instincts" have
                                        evolved to deal with the
                                        physical.

                                             But information is not
                                             beyond physical law,
                                             and there may very well
                                             be virtual cases that fit
                                             gaussian distributions.

                                         The informational can be physical,
                                         it has physical aspects -- e.g.
                                         the connection between "order" and
                                         thermodynamics (via "entropy")

                                             And there are cases where
                                             the physical "scales"
                                             explosively ala nuclear
                                             weapons.

                                                EXTREME_TRIGGER



          "... there is an element of the surviving
          Casanovas in us, that of the risk-taking
          genes, which encourages us to take blind
          risks, unaware of the variability in the
          possible outcomes.  We inherited the
          taste for uncalculated risk taking."
                    -- p. 115.

               If we have truly inherited this
               behavior then it would seem
               that it must have some survival
               value.

                     "... indeed, we humans are an
                     extremely lucky species, and that we
                     got the genes of the risk takers.
                     The foolish risk takers, that is.         This is just
                     In fact, the Casanovas who survived."     amazingly
                        --p. 116.                              sloppy thinking;
                                                               it displays
                                                               an extreme lack
                                                               of any grasp
                                                               of evolution.




         Taleb cautions against
         narratives (p. 64) and the
         seductive quality of the too
         neat explanation -- and yet
         what else is his continual
         explanation of everything in
         terms of "instinct"?












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