After reading Nassim Taleb’s other excellent books, The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness, I was excited to learn Taleb was coming out with a new book. However, the topic Aphorisms, did not appeal to me a great deal. I decided to look at some other book reviews to see if it was worth the time reading. Reviews of “The Bed of Procrustes”, ranged from, it” was a magnificent work of philosophy”, all the way down to “an already short and watered down collection of reoccurring and repetitive messages.” Overall, the book got very high reviews, and I decided to pick to get a copy of the book.
Anyone who is familiar with Taleb’s previous works already knows of the insights that he can provide, and regardless of your thoughts on the book itself, he followed through yet again. While presenting more of a philosophical viewpoint on common day society and how it ties into the financial realm, Taleb takes a look at how the current players in the market would rather try to categorize and classify as much as they can without actually knowing all of the information.
The Bed of Procrustes itself is a story from Greek mythology, which tells of a smith who would stretch or shrink individuals to make them fit inside of his iron bed. The tale itself is about forcing individuals into a specific and exact category. Taleb compares our current culture of investors to Procustes himself by more or less stating that we do not take the data as much for what it truly is then we should.
By cutting out the outliers as Procrustes lopped off his guests’ legs or by relying on only a small string of data as he would try to stretch his victim’s body, we are not truthfully able to tell exactly what is going on. Rather than seeing the picture for what it really is, we try to fit it into our own sense of understanding. Part of that comes from the fact that no individual, be it investor or analyst, really wants to say they have no idea how to project certain information. Rather than giving a cop out answer, individuals will try to manipulate the data into results that they can understand.
Despite Taleb’s focus on economics and finance (to a certain extent) in his earlier books, in this book, Taleb address more of the philosophy of why humanity makes the decisions to ignore the unknown and make things fit the way that we would like them to. For as much information as this book packs, it is also a very short read; you could probably read this book in an hour. It could be seen more as an overview than anything else; as he tries to touch the surface of his topics without actually delving into the details (he leaves that for you and I to figure out ourselves).
Overall this book was of pretty good, and I appreciate the way that Taleb is able it get his points across rather quickly without having to ramble on for pages listing countless examples. So while Taleb has publicly stated that he is becoming a philosopher rather than an analyst, his book shows that can tie the two together quite well. You will only appreciate this book if you enjoy behavioral finance and philosophy, if not you will find it really boring. However, if you appreciate understand the reasons behind our decisions you will not be disappointed.
To purchase the book on Amazon.com click here- The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
Disclosure: I receive free books from book publishers and authors asking me to review them. In addition I sometimes request specific books that look interesting. I try to review the books that I think will be the most interesting. I have a material connection because I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. In addition I receive a small commission if you click on the above link and buy the book (or anything else) from Amazon.com It does not cost you a penny more.
http://www.valuewalk.com/
Anyone who is familiar with Taleb’s previous works already knows of the insights that he can provide, and regardless of your thoughts on the book itself, he followed through yet again. While presenting more of a philosophical viewpoint on common day society and how it ties into the financial realm, Taleb takes a look at how the current players in the market would rather try to categorize and classify as much as they can without actually knowing all of the information.
The Bed of Procrustes itself is a story from Greek mythology, which tells of a smith who would stretch or shrink individuals to make them fit inside of his iron bed. The tale itself is about forcing individuals into a specific and exact category. Taleb compares our current culture of investors to Procustes himself by more or less stating that we do not take the data as much for what it truly is then we should.
By cutting out the outliers as Procrustes lopped off his guests’ legs or by relying on only a small string of data as he would try to stretch his victim’s body, we are not truthfully able to tell exactly what is going on. Rather than seeing the picture for what it really is, we try to fit it into our own sense of understanding. Part of that comes from the fact that no individual, be it investor or analyst, really wants to say they have no idea how to project certain information. Rather than giving a cop out answer, individuals will try to manipulate the data into results that they can understand.
Despite Taleb’s focus on economics and finance (to a certain extent) in his earlier books, in this book, Taleb address more of the philosophy of why humanity makes the decisions to ignore the unknown and make things fit the way that we would like them to. For as much information as this book packs, it is also a very short read; you could probably read this book in an hour. It could be seen more as an overview than anything else; as he tries to touch the surface of his topics without actually delving into the details (he leaves that for you and I to figure out ourselves).
Overall this book was of pretty good, and I appreciate the way that Taleb is able it get his points across rather quickly without having to ramble on for pages listing countless examples. So while Taleb has publicly stated that he is becoming a philosopher rather than an analyst, his book shows that can tie the two together quite well. You will only appreciate this book if you enjoy behavioral finance and philosophy, if not you will find it really boring. However, if you appreciate understand the reasons behind our decisions you will not be disappointed.
To purchase the book on Amazon.com click here- The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
Disclosure: I receive free books from book publishers and authors asking me to review them. In addition I sometimes request specific books that look interesting. I try to review the books that I think will be the most interesting. I have a material connection because I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. In addition I receive a small commission if you click on the above link and buy the book (or anything else) from Amazon.com It does not cost you a penny more.
http://www.valuewalk.com/
