Sapiens?
Homo Sapiens means ‘wise man’ in Latin, but our species is not always behaving wisely in the face of current challenges. This post introduces the web site insearchofwisdom.online.
Read More
Issue: Science and understanding
Radical Uncertainty: Decision-making for an unknowable future
This major, critically acclaimed work asks a vitally important question for today: when uncertainty is all around us, and the facts are not clear, how can we make good decisions?
We do not know what the future will hold, particularly in the midst of a crisis, but we must make decisions anyway. We regularly crave certainties which cannot exist and invent knowledge we cannot have, forgetting that humans are successful because we have adapted to an environment that we understand only imperfectly. Throughout history we have developed a variety of ways of coping with the radical uncertainty that defines our lives.
Read More
Origins: How the Earth Shaped Human History
Human evolution in East Africa was driven by geological forces. Ancient Greece developed democracy because of its mountainous terrain. Voting behaviour in the United States today follows the bed of an ancient sea.
Read More
The Sciences of the Artificial
Continuing his exploration of the organization of complexity and the science of design, this new edition of Herbert Simon’s classic work on artificial intelligence adds a chapter that sorts out the current themes and tools—chaos, adaptive systems, genetic algorithms—for analyzing complexity and complex systems. There are updates throughout the book as well. These take into account important advances in cognitive psychology and the science of design while confirming and extending the book’s basic thesis: that a physical symbol system has the necessary and sufficient means for intelligent action. The chapter “Economic Reality” has also been revised to reflect a change in emphasis in Simon’s thinking about the respective roles of organizations and markets in economic systems.
Read More