The Illusion of Certainty Book

The Illusion of Certainty

  • Author : Erik Rifkin
  • Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
  • File Size : 6,7 Mb
  • Release Date : 2007-09-14
  • Genre: Health & Fitness
  • Pages : 268
  • ISBN 10 : 0387751653
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This book provides an understanding and appreciation of the risk assessment process and the ability to objectively interpret health risk values. Included is an explanation of the uncertainty inherent in the assessment of risks as well as an explanation of how the communication and characterization of risks can dramatically alter the perception of those risks. Case studies illustrate the strengths and limitations of characterizing certain risks. Using the accepted risk assessment paradigm proposed by the National Research Council, these case studies illustrate which risk values have merit and why other assessments fail to meet basic criteria.

After Certainty Book

After Certainty

  • Author : Robert Pasnau
  • Publisher : Oxford University Press
  • File Size : 14,8 Mb
  • Release Date : 2017-11-10
  • Genre: Philosophy
  • Pages : 400
  • ISBN 10 : 9780192521934
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No part of philosophy is as disconnected from its history as is epistemology. After Certainty offers a reconstruction of that history, understood as a series of changing expectations about the cognitive ideal that beings such as us might hope to achieve in a world such as this. The story begins with Aristotle and then looks at how his epistemic program was developed through later antiquity and into the Middle Ages, before being dramatically reformulated in the seventeenth century. In watching these debates unfold over the centuries, one sees why epistemology has traditionally been embedded within a much larger sphere of concerns about human nature and the reality of the world we live in. It ultimately becomes clear why epistemology today has become a much narrower and specialized field, concerned with the conditions under which it is true to say, that someone knows something. Based on a series of lectures given at Oxford University, Robert Pasnau's book ranges widely over the history of philosophy, and examines in some detail the rise of science as an autonomous discipline. Ultimately Pasnau argues that we may have no good reasons to suppose ourselves capable of achieving even the most minimal standards for knowledge, and the final chapter concludes with a discussion of faith and hope.

After Certainty Book

After Certainty

  • Author : Robert Pasnau
  • Publisher : Oxford University Press
  • File Size : 7,8 Mb
  • Release Date : 2017
  • Genre: Philosophy
  • Pages : 393
  • ISBN 10 : 9780198801788
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Annotation 'After Certainty' offers a reconstruction of the history of epistemology, understood as a series of changing expectations about the cognitive ideal that we might hope to achieve in this world. Pasnau ranges widely over philosophy from Aristotle to the 17th century, and examines in some detail the rise of science as an autonomous discipline.

The End of Certainty Book
Score: 4
From 3 Ratings

The End of Certainty

  • Author : Ilya Prigogine
  • Publisher : Simon and Schuster
  • File Size : 13,6 Mb
  • Release Date : 1997-08-17
  • Genre: Philosophy
  • Pages : 250
  • ISBN 10 : 9780684837055
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Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine discusses the irreversibility of time and his findings impact on the laws of physics.

Risk Savvy Book
Score: 5
From 2 Ratings

Risk Savvy

  • Author : Gerd Gigerenzer
  • Publisher : Penguin
  • File Size : 6,6 Mb
  • Release Date : 2014-04-17
  • Genre: Psychology
  • Pages : 336
  • ISBN 10 : 9780698151437
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An eye-opening look at the ways we misjudge risk every day and a guide to making better decisions with our money, health, and personal lives In the age of Big Data we often believe that our predictions about the future are better than ever before. But as risk expert Gerd Gigerenzer shows, the surprising truth is that in the real world, we often get better results by using simple rules and considering less information. In Risk Savvy, Gigerenzer reveals that most of us, including doctors, lawyers, financial advisers, and elected officials, misunderstand statistics much more often than we think, leaving us not only misinformed, but vulnerable to exploitation. Yet there is hope. Anyone can learn to make better decisions for their health, finances, family, and business without needing to consult an expert or a super computer, and Gigerenzer shows us how. Risk Savvy is an insightful and easy-to-understand remedy to our collective information overload and an essential guide to making smart, confident decisions in the face of uncertainty.

Mathematical Psychology in Progress Book

Mathematical Psychology in Progress

  • Author : Edward E. Roskam
  • Publisher : Springer
  • File Size : 19,9 Mb
  • Release Date : 1989-10-11
  • Genre: Psychology
  • Pages : 408
  • ISBN 10 : 3540516867
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This volume is the third volume of papers originating from the European Mathematical Psychology Group. Earlier volumes were: E. Degreef & J. van Buggenhaut (Eds.), Trends In Mathematical Psychology, Amsterdam, North-Holland Publ. Cy., 1984, and E.E. Roskam & R. Suck (Eds.), Progress in Mathematical Psychology, Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publ. As the title indicates, this volume presents work in progress, which was reported in one of the recent annual meetings of the European Mathematical Psychology Group. The Group finds it worthwhile to disseminate this work, using a review process which is somewhat less strict, and a publication lag which is shorter, than would be the case for standard international journals. The editor is happy that the meetings of the European Mathematical Psychology Group are regularly attended by colleagues from overseas. Their contributions also appear in this volume, as was the case in earlier volumes. Despite apparent heterogeneity, the reader will observe that European mathemati cal psychologists have a keen interest in basic issues of mathematical modeling and measurement theory, and that also substantive topics, such as decision making, per ception, and performance are studied in the context of formal modeling. Also, and per haps of more than casual importance for future developments, is the fact that theory, experiment, and data analysis go closely together. It should therefore not surprise that psychometric topics, and topics in scaling are represented in this volume, alongside with topics of a more 'purely' mathematical nature.

Certainty Book

Certainty

  • Author : Paul F. Kisak
  • Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
  • File Size : 16,5 Mb
  • Release Date : 2016-02-01
  • Genre: Uncategoriezed
  • Pages : 294
  • ISBN 10 : 1523809868
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Certainty is perfect knowledge that has total security from error, or the mental state of being without doubt. Objectively defined, certainty is total continuity and validity of all foundational inquiry, to the highest degree of precision. Something is certain only if no skepticism can occur. Philosophy (at least, historical Cartesian philosophy) seeks this state. It is widely held that certainty about the real world is a failed historical enterprise (that is, beyond deductive truths, tautology, etc.). This is in large part due to the power of David Hume's problem of induction. Physicist Carlo Rovelli adds that certainty, in real life, is useless or often damaging (the idea is that "total security from error" is impossible in practice, and a complete "lack of doubt" is undesirable). This book discusses the issues that surround claims of certainty and the illusion of absolute truth and perfection.

The Certainty Illusion Book

The Certainty Illusion

  • Author : Paul Slovic
  • Publisher : Unknown
  • File Size : 7,8 Mb
  • Release Date : 1976
  • Genre: Uncategoriezed
  • Pages : 38
  • ISBN 10 : OCLC:227439585
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When we feel certain about our factual knowledge, all too often we are wrong. This phenomenon, labeled 'the certainty illusion', is demonstrated in four experiments in which subjects (1) answered questions about a variety of topics and (2) indicated their degree of certainty about each answer. Subjects were wrong frequently on answers judged certain to be correct. Careful tutoring of subjects in the subtleties of expressing their certainty in terms of probabilities and odds did little to reduce the illusion. Feelings of certainty were so strong that subjects were willing to bet on the correctness of their knowledge. Because of the illusion, the bets they accepted were quite disadvantageous to them. The psychological basis for unwarranted certainty is discussed in terms of the inferential processes whereby knowledge is reconstructed from fragments of perceptions and memories. (Author).

In Search of Certainty Book

In Search of Certainty

  • Author : Mark Burgess
  • Publisher : "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
  • File Size : 19,7 Mb
  • Release Date : 2015-04-09
  • Genre: Computers
  • Pages : 472
  • ISBN 10 : 9781491923368
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Quite soon, the world’s information infrastructure is going to reach a level of scale and complexity that will force scientists and engineers to approach it in an entirely new way. The familiar notions of command and control are being thwarted by realities of a faster, denser world of communication where choice, variety, and indeterminism rule. The myth of the machine that does exactly what we tell it has come to an end. What makes us think we can rely on all this technology? What keeps it together today, and how might it work tomorrow? Will we know how to build the next generation—or will we be lulled into a stupor of dependence brought about by its conveniences? In this book, Mark Burgess focuses on the impact of computers and information on our modern infrastructure by taking you from the roots of science to the principles behind system operation and design. To shape the future of technology, we need to understand how it works—or else what we don’t understand will end up shaping us. This book explores this subject in three parts: Part I, Stability: describes the fundamentals of predictability, and why we have to give up the idea of control in its classical meaning Part II, Certainty: describes the science of what we can know, when we don’t control everything, and how we make the best of life with only imperfect information Part III, Promises: explains how the concepts of stability and certainty may be combined to approach information infrastructure as a new kind of virtual material, restoring a continuity to human-computer systems so that society can rely on them.

The Delusions of Certainty Book

The Delusions of Certainty

  • Author : Siri Hustvedt
  • Publisher : Simon and Schuster
  • File Size : 8,8 Mb
  • Release Date : 2017-10-17
  • Genre: Philosophy
  • Pages : 275
  • ISBN 10 : 9781501183607
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“The Delusions of Certainty is a unique book by an extraordinary author. Siri Hustvedt is a notable novelist, art scholar, and a philosopher of science. In this memorable and immensely enjoyable volume, Hustvedt rises above the exhausted debate over the two cultures, to demonstrate not just the possibility but also the advantages of combining the approaches of the arts, humanities, and sciences to illuminate a key aspect of the human condition: the mind-body problem.” —Antonio Damasio, bestselling author of Descartes’ Error and Self Comes to Mind “Siri Hustvedt proves her membership in the highest rank of neuroscientists and philosophers who probe the nature of thought and the workings of consciousness. A novelist and a student of psychoanalysis and neuroscience, Hustvedt can ask questions others cannot ask about imagination, identity, epistemology, gendered power, and mortality. Her authoritative knowledge and her courage to challenge the status quo guide the reader to fresh epiphanies about what counts as human nature. The work is, in the end, a work of freedom.” —Rita Charon, Columbia University “The Delusions of Certainty is the best book on the mind-body problem I have ever read. Perhaps only a great novelist and essayist can address what neuroscientists and philosophers fail to question. Siri Hustvedt takes the reader on an inspiring journey into highly relevant and often unanswered questions about what it means to be human.” —Vittorio Gallese, University of Parma Prizewinning novelist, feminist, and scholar Siri Hustvedt turns her brilliant and critical eye toward the metaphysical issues of neuropsychology in this lauded, standalone volume. Originally published in her “canonical” (Publishers Weekly) and “absorbing” (Kirkus Reviews) collection A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women, The Delusions of Certainty exposes how the age-old, unresolved mind-body problem has shaped—and often distorted and confused—contemporary thought i

The Illusion of Certainty Book

The Illusion of Certainty

  • Author : James T. Houk
  • Publisher : Prometheus Books
  • File Size : 7,5 Mb
  • Release Date : 2017-12-05
  • Genre: Religion
  • Pages : 386
  • ISBN 10 : 9781633883246
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In this examination of religion's influence on society, an anthropologist critiques fundamentalism and all mindsets based on rigid cultural certainties. The author argues that the future can only be safeguarded by a global humanistic outlook that recognizes and respects differing cultural perspectives and endorses the use of critical reason and empiricism. Houk coins the term "culturalism" to describe dogmatic viewpoints governed by culture-specific values and preconceived notions. Culturalism gives rise not only to fundamentalism in religion but also stereotypes about race, gender, and sexual orientation. Turning specifically to Christian fundamentalism, the author analyzes the many weaknesses of what he calls a faith-based epistemology, particularly as such thinking is displayed in young-earth creationism, the reliance on revelation and subjective experiences as a source of religious knowledge, and the reverence accorded the Bible despite its obvious flaws. As he points out, the problem with such cultural knowledge generally is that it is non-falsifiable and ultimately has no lasting value in contrast to the data-based and falsifiable knowledge produced by science, which continues to prove its worth as a reliable source of accurate information. Concluding that there is no future to the fundamentalist mindset in a diverse world where religion often exacerbates conflicts, he makes a strong case for reason and mutual tolerance.

Uncertainty Book

Uncertainty

  • Author : Kostas Kampourakis
  • Publisher : Oxford University Press
  • File Size : 13,7 Mb
  • Release Date : 2019-10-07
  • Genre: Science
  • Pages : 152
  • ISBN 10 : 9780190871673
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Scientific knowledge is the most solid and robust kind of knowledge that humans have because of the self-correcting character inherent in its own processes. Nevertheless, anti-evolutionists, climate denialists, and anti-vaxxers, among others, question some of the best-established scientific findings, making claims that are unsupported by empirical evidence. A common aspect of these claims is the reference to the uncertainties in these areas of research, which leads to the conclusion that science is uncertain about evolution, climate change, and vaccination, among others. The truth of the matter is that while the broad picture is clear, there exist--and will always exist--uncertainties about the details of the respective phenomena. In this book Kampourakis and McCain show that uncertainty is an inherent feature of science that does not devalue it. In contrast, uncertainty actually makes science advance because it motivates further research. The first book of its kind, Uncertainty draws on philosophy of science to explain what uncertainty in science is and how it makes science advance. It contrasts evolution, climate change, and vaccination, where the uncertainties are exaggerated, to genetic testing and forensic science where the uncertainties are usually overlooked. Kampourakis and McCain discuss the scientific, psychological, and philosophical aspects of uncertainty in order to explain what it is really about, what kind of problems it actually poses, and why it ultimately makes science advance. Contrary to the public representations of scientific findings and conclusions that produce an intuitive but distorted view of science as certain, we need to understand and learn to live with uncertainty in science.

The Illusion of Certainty Book

The Illusion of Certainty

  • Author : Greg Messel
  • Publisher : Unknown
  • File Size : 9,5 Mb
  • Release Date : 2011-07-01
  • Genre: Fiction
  • Pages : 452
  • ISBN 10 : 193675052X
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"The Illusion of Certainty" follows two parallel storylines. Marc is a successful businessman who seems to have everything-a great job, a beautiful wife, a house in an upscale neighborhood of Portland, Oregon and two great kids who are preparing for college. But something is not right. Marc is unsettled by the sudden change in his wife, Aimee, who seems distant and unhappy. What is going on with her? The second storyline involves a successful young attorney Alexandra Mattson. Alex, as she is called by her friends, meets a handsome young cop, Sean, during an unexpected crisis in her neighborhood. Sean and Alex seem made for each other and begin to merge their futures in a world of uncertainty. The only certainty in life is that we will face uncertainty. Despite all of the technology and controls available in the modern world, sometimes the only comfort comes from the human touch.

Illusions of Certainty Thoughts about Thinking Book

Illusions of Certainty Thoughts about Thinking

  • Author : Bernard John Warnick
  • Publisher : Unknown
  • File Size : 9,7 Mb
  • Release Date : 2022-01-28
  • Genre: Education
  • Pages : 234
  • ISBN 10 : 0645370509
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This book condemns the certainties which pervade Western societies, whether about innate rights, ethics or socially acceptable behavior, because a close examination of our powers of reasoning shows all such certainties to be illusory; and because illusions, like mirages, lead us astray. It asks what constitutes the acts of thinking and reasoning and examines the neurobiology involved, subjectivity - its origins and unavoidability - objectivity and its limited achievability - and the pervasive ambiguity of the language of ideas. It highlights flaws in the concept of truth; shows how deductive logic itself contains the seeds of failure to produce certainty, how inductive logic yields only probabilities and that neither pattern of logic is how we generally reason. The book demonstrates that undue certainty spawns evils which threaten social stability. A new list of what constitutes logical thought emerges. We consider approaches, of which logic is part, but not the entirety - common sense, pragmatism, judgment and wisdom. We ask, to whom might we listen - philosophers, the wise, or ourselves. Finally, the survival instinct is identified as the biological basis of our ideas about morality, political systems and the like. How a secular morality might be constructed and what an ideology-free society might be like, are considered.

Simply Rational Book

Simply Rational

  • Author : Gerd Gigerenzer
  • Publisher : Evolution and Cognition
  • File Size : 14,7 Mb
  • Release Date : 2015
  • Genre: Psychology
  • Pages : 329
  • ISBN 10 : 9780199390076
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Statistical illiteracy can have an enormously negative impact on decision making. This volume of collected papers brings together applied and theoretical research on risks and decision making across the fields of medicine, psychology, and economics. Collectively, the essays demonstrate why the frame in which statistics are communicated is essential for broader understanding and sound decision making, and that understanding risks and uncertainty has wide-reaching implications for daily life. Gerd Gigerenzer provides a lucid review and catalog of concrete instances of heuristics, or rules of thumb, that people and animals rely on to make decisions under uncertainty, explaining why these are very often more rational than probability models. After a critical look at behavioral theories that do not model actual psychological processes, the book concludes with a call for a heuristic revolution that will enable us to understand the ecological rationality of both statistics and heuristics, and bring a dose of sanity to the study of rationality.