Review of The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

I just finished listening to an audiobook by Leonard Mlodinow titled "The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives". It is an interesting book on how our lives is rule by chance. If one thinks about how the random events happen in their lives, for example, my parents were both from rural towns in the South, NC and VA but met in New York at the Savoy Ballroom and I am here writing about it. As for whoever wrote Ecclesiastes(if you agree with Bart Ehrman's Forged:Why the Author's of the Bible Are not who we think they are:) he states, Ecclesiastes was not written by Solomon, but a forgery, however the alleged forger got one thought right when he wrote in Ecclesiastes 9:11 "I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all." (NIV) This is probably the best one sentence summary of a book. I think the best part of the book was his advise for overcoming confirmation bias in Chapter 9 in which he states: 1. Understand that random events too produces patterns 2. Question your perceptions and theories 3. Look for evidence that we are wrong, as we spend time looking for evidence we are right. He states in his conclusion "What I've learned, above all, is to keep marching forward because the best news is that since chance does play a role, one important factor in success is under our control: the number of at bats, the number of chances taken, the number of opportunities seized. For even a coin weighted toward failure will sometimes land on success. Or as the IBM pioneer Thomas Watson said, "If you want to succeed, double your failure rate."The anonymous author of Ecclesiastes 9:10 states something similar "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom. " This book made me ask the questions, does randomness rules or are things determined? Or Is determinism an illusion and randomness reality? or Do things start off random and then determinism kicks in? Think about it.

Faith , Suicide Bombers, and Doubt

Most believers I know don't believe what they profess to believe, they are the first to go to the doctor, they take advantage of the medicine and technology of a modern secular society while they bash secularism and science. They do all this while claiming to believe in Divine protection and healing. It would seem that of all people on earth who should not be afraid of harm or death it would be some one who believes in an afterlife. You have to admit that suicide bombers seem to believe in what they profess. The suicide bomber wants certainty or to be in control and so they take a leap of blind faith into the most uncertain or uncontrolled event there is, death, and what happens after death. In their leap of faith in trying to prove they are certain they do the most intolerable act there is, they kill and maim others; all in the name of their god. It is ironic that suicide is as Schopenhauer wrote "Suicide may also be looked upon as an experiment, as a question which man puts to Nature and compels her to answer. It asks, what change a man's existence and knowledge of things experience through death? It is an awkward experiment to make; for it destroys the very consciousness that awaits the answer." I think a suicide bomber shows us what a leap of faith is(it is the desire for certainty in an uncertain world), it is a conclusion that the individual has made about the value of their life and its worth to them, and based on the results it is not much. Like I wrote in my certainty in uncertainty blog. Our greatest fear is death because 1. we cannot control it and 2. of what may or may not happen after death, these two things are uncertain variables in our existence. I like all people want certainty but I will settle for reasonableness. I think reasonableness is the balance between certainty and uncertainty, it is the give or take or tolerance that is innate in the universe itself, at least according to the Principle of Uncertainty, which essentially means we cannot know everything just some things, you can know either the momentum of something or its location but not both. As I stated earlier, I like other people want certainty or to be in control, but I am skeptical that I am. Did I determine the day I was born, my gender, sex, name, or ethnicity? I think I can be aware that I am not in control or that there is a place for doubt, especially in a time where everyone are so damn certain. Think about it...

Existentialism

I have been researching a philosophical idea called existentialism. Existentialism is a philosophical theory emphasizing the existence of the individual as a free and self-determining agent. (The Oxford Pocket Dictionary and Thesaurus) I like some features of existentialism but it is counter-intuitive to the theory of human evolution. Most evolutionist agree that we evolved in gregarious social groups in which if we did not cooperate we could have become extinct because we were not always top dog on this planet. Primates live in communities and it took cooperation and co-dependence for us to survive. Also I have been told that no man is an island we depend on others one way or another. The existentialism I agree with is I am responsible for my on life, my own happiness, and I cannot expect someone else or something else (I.e. a god(ess) to be responsible for me. Yet I live with other people and if I did my own thing; couldn't my action directly or indirectly effect others? However before I throw the baby out with the bath, I want to research this philosophical movement more. Think about it.

Black Socrates