| Prologue |
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xvii | |
| On the Plumage of Birds |
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xvii | |
| What you Do Not Know |
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xix | |
| Experts and ``Empty Suits'' |
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xx | |
| Learning to Learn |
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xxi | |
| A New Kind of Ingratitude |
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xxii | |
| Life Is Very Unusual |
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xxiv | |
| Plato and the Nerd |
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xxv | |
| Too Dull to Write About |
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xxvi | |
| The Bottom Line |
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xxvii | |
| Chapters Map |
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xxviii | |
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PART ONE: UMBERTO ECO'S ANTILIBRARY, OR HOW WE SEEK VALIDATION |
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1 | (134) |
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The Apprenticeship of an Empirical Skeptic |
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3 | (20) |
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3 | (5) |
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6 | (1) |
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7 | (1) |
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7 | (1) |
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History and the Triplet of Opacity |
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8 | (7) |
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Nobody Knows What's Going On |
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9 | (1) |
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History Does Not Crawl, It Jumps |
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10 | (2) |
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Dear Diary: On History Running Backward |
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12 | (2) |
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14 | (1) |
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15 | (3) |
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17 | (1) |
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18 | (5) |
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The Four-Letter Word of Independence |
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20 | (1) |
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21 | (2) |
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23 | (3) |
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The Speculator and the Prostitute |
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26 | (12) |
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26 | (2) |
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28 | (3) |
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The Advent of Scalability |
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29 | (2) |
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Scalability and Globalization |
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31 | (1) |
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Travels Inside Mediocristan |
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32 | (6) |
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The Strange Country of Extremistan |
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33 | (1) |
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Extremistan and Knowledge |
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34 | (1) |
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35 | (1) |
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The Tyranny of the Accident |
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35 | (3) |
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One Thousand and One Days, or How Not to Be a Sucker |
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38 | (13) |
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How to Learn from the Turkey |
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40 | (5) |
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43 | (1) |
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A Black Swan Is Relative to Knowledge |
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44 | (1) |
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A Brief History of the Black Swan Problem |
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45 | (6) |
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Sextus the (Alas) Empirical |
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46 | (1) |
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47 | (1) |
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The Skeptic, Friend of Religion |
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48 | (1) |
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I Don't Want to Be a Turkey |
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49 | (1) |
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They Want to Live in Mediocristan |
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49 | (2) |
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Confirmation Shmonfirmation! |
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51 | (11) |
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Zoogles Are Not All Boogles |
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53 | (2) |
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55 | (1) |
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56 | (6) |
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58 | (1) |
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59 | (1) |
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60 | (1) |
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61 | (1) |
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62 | (23) |
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On the Causes of My Rejection of Causes |
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62 | (2) |
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64 | (6) |
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67 | (1) |
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Andrey Nikolayevich's Rule |
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68 | (2) |
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70 | (1) |
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Remembrance of Things Not Quite Past |
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70 | (4) |
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71 | (2) |
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73 | (1) |
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To Be Wrong with Infinite Precision |
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74 | (2) |
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75 | (1) |
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The Sensational and the Black Swan |
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76 | (5) |
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77 | (2) |
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The Pull of the Sensational |
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79 | (2) |
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81 | (4) |
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82 | (1) |
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How to Avert the Narrative Fallac |
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83 | (2) |
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Living in the Antechamber of Hope |
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85 | (15) |
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86 | (8) |
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Where the Relevant Is the Sensational |
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87 | (1) |
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88 | (1) |
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89 | (2) |
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Human Nature, Happiness, and Lumpy Rewards |
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91 | (1) |
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92 | (1) |
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92 | (1) |
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The Sweet Trap of Anticipation |
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93 | (1) |
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When You Need the Bastiani Fortress |
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94 | (1) |
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El desierto de los tartaros |
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94 | (6) |
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96 | (4) |
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Giacomo Casanova's Unfailing Luck: The Problem of Silent Evidence |
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100 | (22) |
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The Story of the Drowned Worshippers |
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100 | (2) |
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102 | (5) |
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How to Become a Millionaire in Ten Steps |
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105 | (2) |
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107 | (3) |
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108 | (1) |
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108 | (1) |
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The Evolution of the Swimmer's Body |
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109 | (1) |
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What You See and What You Don't See |
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110 | (2) |
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112 | (1) |
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The Teflon-style Protection of Giacomo Casanova |
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112 | (5) |
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115 | (2) |
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I Am a Black Swan: The Anthropic Bias |
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117 | (5) |
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119 | (3) |
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The Ludic Fallacy, or The Uncertainty of the Nerd |
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122 | (13) |
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122 | (3) |
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123 | (2) |
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125 | (6) |
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The Uncertainly of the Nerd |
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127 | (2) |
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Gambling with the Wrong Dice |
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129 | (2) |
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131 | (4) |
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The Cosmetic Rises to the Surface |
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131 | (1) |
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132 | (3) |
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PART TWO: WE JUST CAN'T PREDICT |
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135 | (78) |
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From Yogi Berra to Henri Poincare |
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136 | (1) |
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The Scandal of Prediction |
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137 | (28) |
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On the Vagueness of Catherine's Lover Count |
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138 | (3) |
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Black Swan Blindness Redux |
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141 | (1) |
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142 | (1) |
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Information Is Bad for Knowledge |
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142 | (3) |
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The Expert Problem, or the Tragedy of the Empty Suit |
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145 | (11) |
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What Moves and What Does Not Move |
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145 | (3) |
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How to Have the Last Laugh |
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148 | (1) |
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149 | (1) |
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150 | (1) |
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151 | (3) |
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154 | (2) |
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``Other Than That,'' It Was Okay |
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156 | (4) |
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The Beauty of Technology: Excel Spreadsheets |
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158 | (1) |
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The Character of Prediction Errors |
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159 | (1) |
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Don't Cross a River if It Is (on Average) Four Feet Deep |
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160 | (5) |
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163 | (1) |
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163 | (2) |
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How to Look for Bird Poop |
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165 | (25) |
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How to Look for Bird Poop |
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165 | (6) |
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166 | (3) |
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A Solution Waiting for a Problem |
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169 | (1) |
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170 | (1) |
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How to Predict Your Predictions! |
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171 | (3) |
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174 | (11) |
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Third Republic-Style Decorum |
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174 | (2) |
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176 | (3) |
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179 | (2) |
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181 | (2) |
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183 | (1) |
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183 | (2) |
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185 | (4) |
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That Great Anticipation Machine |
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189 | (1) |
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190 | (11) |
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Monsieur de Montaigne, Epistemocrat |
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191 | (1) |
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192 | (1) |
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The Past's Past, and the Past's Future |
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193 | (8) |
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Prediction, Misprediction, and Happiness |
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194 | (1) |
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Helenus and the Reverse Prophecies |
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195 | (1) |
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196 | (1) |
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Once Again, Incomplete Information |
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197 | (1) |
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198 | (3) |
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Appelles the Painter, or What Do You Do if You Cannot Predict? |
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201 | (12) |
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Advice Is Cheap, Very Cheap |
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201 | (2) |
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Being a Fool in the Right Places |
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203 | (1) |
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203 | (1) |
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The Idea of Positive Accident |
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203 | (10) |
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Volatility and Risk of Black Swan |
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204 | (1) |
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205 | (1) |
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``Nobody Knows Anything'' |
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206 | (4) |
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210 | (3) |
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PART THREE: THOSE GRAY SWANS OF EXTREMISTAN |
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213 | (80) |
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From Mediocristan to Extremistan, and Back |
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215 | (14) |
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215 | (1) |
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216 | (2) |
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218 | (2) |
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220 | (1) |
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Nobody Is Safe in Extremistan |
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220 | (7) |
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221 | (2) |
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223 | (2) |
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225 | (2) |
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Reversals Away from Extremistan |
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227 | (2) |
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The Bell Curve, That Great Intellectual Fraud |
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229 | (24) |
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The Gaussian and the Mandelbrotian |
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229 | (11) |
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The Increase in the Decrease |
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231 | (1) |
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232 | (2) |
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234 | (1) |
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234 | (1) |
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Extremistan and the 80/20 Rule |
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235 | (1) |
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236 | (1) |
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How Coffee Drinking Can Be Safe |
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237 | (2) |
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239 | (1) |
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How to Cause Catastrophes |
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240 | (1) |
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Quetelet's Average Monster |
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240 | (5) |
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241 | (1) |
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242 | (1) |
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243 | (1) |
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Eliminating Unfair Influence |
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243 | (1) |
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``The Greeks Would Have Deified It'' |
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244 | (1) |
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244 | (1) |
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A (Literary) Thought Experiment on Where the Bell Curve Comes From |
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245 | (8) |
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Those Comforting Assumptions |
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250 | (1) |
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``The Ubiquity of the Gaussian'' |
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251 | (2) |
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The Aesthetics of Randomness |
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253 | (21) |
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253 | (3) |
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The Platonicity of Triangles |
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256 | (6) |
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256 | (1) |
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257 | (2) |
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A Visual Approach to Extremistan/Mediocristan |
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259 | (1) |
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260 | (2) |
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The Logic of Fractal Randomness (with a Warning) |
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262 | (8) |
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The Problem of the Upper Bound |
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266 | (1) |
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266 | (1) |
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The Water Puddle Revisited |
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267 | (1) |
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From Representation to Reality |
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268 | (2) |
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Once Again, Beware the Forecasters |
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270 | (2) |
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Once Again, a Happy Solution |
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270 | (2) |
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272 | (2) |
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Locke's Madmen, or Bell Curves in the Wrong Places |
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274 | (12) |
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275 | (1) |
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275 | (2) |
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Anyone Can Become President |
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277 | (1) |
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278 | (3) |
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281 | (1) |
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281 | (5) |
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282 | (4) |
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The Uncertainty of the Phony |
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286 | (7) |
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286 | (3) |
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287 | (1) |
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Can Philosophers Be Dangerous to Society? |
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288 | (1) |
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289 | (1) |
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How Many Wittgensteins Can Dance on the Head of a Pin? |
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289 | (4) |
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Where Is Popper When You Need Him? |
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290 | (1) |
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The Bishop and the Analyst |
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291 | (1) |
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Easier Than You Think: The Problem of Decision Under Skepticism |
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292 | (1) |
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293 | (6) |
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Half and Half, or How to Get Even with the Black Swan |
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295 | (4) |
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When Missing a Train Is Painless |
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297 | (1) |
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297 | (2) |
| Epilogue: Yevgenia's White Swans |
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299 | (2) |
| Acknowledgments |
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301 | (6) |
| Glossary |
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307 | (4) |
| Notes |
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311 | (20) |
| Bibliography |
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331 | (28) |
| Index |
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359 | |
