Headline May 5th, 2012 / The UNKNOWN 'unknowns'

Part-3

"The Known 'Unknowns'" 
Respectful dedication to the fear of the unknown

Alfred P Sloan/GM

Prof John Galbraith/Harvard

Dr Stephen Hawking

It was Donald Rumsfeld who spoke these crimson nuggets!! And they stir Nassim Taleb into utter brilliance : ''I tell you one thing. You tend to think that the current crises is in the middle or toward the end. I think we may be in the very beginning!!!'' True, Sir, point taken. But then Prof Taleb always had the leisure and the means to write his first Philosophical work: 'Fooled by Randomness', a survey of the ways in which our minds are poorly structured to deal with the agency of luck in human affairs. 

He then had the book put on the Web. In due course it was taken up by a small publishing house, placed between hardcovers, and in the ensuing years it snowballed into a bestseller. So far, so business book; for, while quirkily different, there was a still sense that Taleb was a writer read by the sort of MBA suits who thought they were mavericks, even as they carefully knotted their ties and prepared their next powerpoint presentations. 

What lifted the Taleb out of the airport bookstand and drew his philosophy into the vortex of Zeitgeist was a genuine black swan. The Twin Tower attacks. Back in early 2002, Secretary Donald Rumsfeld uttered the following immortal lines: ''There are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say that there are things we now know that we don't know.

This may read like symbolist poetry--has come to be perceived as expressing a vital truth about the nature of the unforeseen. It was along this context that Prof Taleb began his abstract writing work that fused recondite philosophical speculation, fictional vignettes, personal musings and pure and hard nosed mathematics into something truly rare and unique. And behind his wisdom and his work, stood his message. 

Not of doom, but deference to the awesome unpredictability of life!!! Concealed in all that was the brilliant Professor himself: impish, wry and impassioned!!! This Polar Express of a Post continues! So don't miss the Sunday edition for more startling work from !WOW! Thank you all for your soaring support!! 

Good Night & God Bless

SAM Daily Times - The Voice Of The Voiceless

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