The Black Swan的读后感10篇
2017-12-01 22:20:24
来源:文章吧
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《The Black Swan》是一本由Nassim Nicholas Taleb著作,Random House出版的Hardcover图书,本书定价:USD 30.00,页数:366,文章吧小编精心整理的一些读者的读后感,希望对大家能有帮助。
《The Black Swan》读后感(一):The Black Swan is a beautiful creature
The Black Swan, in my view, illustrates exactly the beauty of the nature.There are ample opportunities and tremendous risks, the only questions to everyone are:
1. Do you know what you are risking?
2. Are you in control of your own decision?
The book is a mind refresher to me, it not only resembles a lot of existing ideas I have had yet failed to theorize, but also brings new thinking into the picture. It gives me hours and hours to think philosophically. Do nothing, but only think in peace. This is exactly the definition of free time. For this, I have to thank Taleb and The Black Swan.
Now come to share a few of my thoughts after reading The Black Swan.
Three critical learning:
1.Attitude of life
Life is about: Be in the game to play and Do not burst.
We are given the opportunity to live once, as long as we are not going to burst (eventually means death), the rest of time is all about trying. Time is the only limit. Anything that makes us burst, predominately in health and safety, secondarily in finance, may not worth trying. However we should be open to the remaining opportunities. Who knows when and where is your positive black swan? That does make our life sound extremely positive as long as you are still motivated to keep trying.
2.Way of decision making
The key is: Look at the consequence and do not look at the probability.
Once something has happened, it happened. Prior to each event, the most important task is to look at the consequences. A positive decision making is all about appreciating the final consequences, but not the probability of its happening. The best gambler should always try to win huge but place a pre-defined bet which he is prepared to lose.
3.Control of our own destiny
Control of our own destiny is: understand what we cannot control and accept all the limits of our knowledge.
Think of what is the most uncertain thing as a human. My answer will be how much time you have. No one can predict the productive life length (means mentally and physically fit) except that we might choose when to die (means suicide but a hard option). One thing we have to accept first is that we are not sure what the remaining time is, yet we can control how we are going about it.
This is an extremely powerful idea, otherwise you might argue that one may never take an air flight because of plane crash and death is the probable consequence (refer to point 2). Death should be left out of the equation for a ‘controllable’ destiny. Because death is the end and controllable destiny here is about how to reach that end.
An ordinary people’s life progresses a bit erratically like walking forward with eye blinded. Most people (include myself most of time), do not know what one is risking and do not know why we have embarked on certain journey. We are trying or waiting, and often excited by the random success and saddened by unexpected failure. We feel as if life is uncontrollable and fouled by it. This is somehow the origin of many pains. We place bet but do not know how big it is and are unprepared for the losses. We are being pushed forward. We may still experience huge success, but we are often puzzled by the failures or bursts.
With the ‘philosophic’ learning discussed above, I genuinely feel that there are probably two logic ways of living. One being mediocrity, the other being extremity. In mediocrity life, one chooses to mind every single step and live a life trying to avoid the extremes: i.e. doing a non-scalable job and hoping to gain no big success or failure. In extremity life, one chooses continually to place defined bet and aim to explore extremes, live a life to the unknown horizons: i.e. doing a scalable job and prepared to live with many ups and downs.
Live in mediocrity life, you will be 90% more successful or safer than those who choose to live in extreme in an ordinary people’s view who are fouled always by randomness. But you know yourself that you are not going to be a winner who get all or a loser who get none. In this way, you should no longer try to compare but will enjoy living in peace and serenity.
Live in extremity life, you will be prepared to be laughed during failure while admired during success by common people. Started sailing, while telling the rest of world that you are trying to find a new route to India, you are actually happy of finding an unknown rock on the sea or even nothing (or America! instead). You know what you want to do is to explore, ship is what you are risking, what to get is beyond control. In extremity, you need to have a strong gut to survive the critics.
In both ways, you can live happily. You have at least lived your way and are not fouled by randomness (i.e. searching backwards for explanation).
I slowly get to know my way.
《The Black Swan》读后感(二):作为一个丝袜控来一定要来评论这本书
《这不烂的丝袜》,看书名就知道,这是一本描写女人而且是美腿女人们生活的书。用一只黑色的,显眼且突兀的鸵鸟作为封面,寓意深刻,且看这鸵鸟细脚伶仃的双腿,暗示着,这是一双属于女子的,纤细的,可以在夏天自豪的露出来的,美腿。
至于中间那厚厚重重的一堆黑色堆砌成的鸵鸟的身子,则意味着有这样的美腿的女孩子,夏天要消耗掉多少的黑色丝袜。为什么要消耗掉这么多?因为,丝袜很容易就会被刮花!!!所以,这本书叫做《这不烂的丝袜》从封面就开始切题了!!!
至于鸵鸟伸长弯曲的脖子,给惹一种压抑,愤懑的感觉,当然了,作为一个美腿的女孩子,一夏天消耗掉这么多黑丝袜!!你能不愤懑如此嘛?
书中的女主角,是一位民族舞演员,从小跳恰恰,最后成名于大秧歌,最熟练的是踢踏舞,曾经入选过国家现代舞标杆人物50人的名单。
她有一双令人每当回想就会流口水而且伴随短暂性神经麻痹的美腿,啊,美腿,麻痹,美腿,麻痹。这样的美腿,你麻痹了吗?
而这本书,则深刻而细腻的描写了这位美腿女孩的成长历程,美腿养成法,丝袜保养法等等内容。
每一个美腿的女孩,每一个丝袜控的男孩儿,都要来看看。
必杀推荐的《这不烂的丝袜》,当然,如果你法语学的不错,然后韩语过了S-TOPIK,还在日本留过学,有个印度的亲戚的话,我还是推荐你看原英文版的《the black swan》!!!
《The Black Swan》读后感(三):我就喜欢静静地看你装逼
相当枯燥的一本书。宣扬怀疑主义和不可知论。对从小接受“科学”训练的我们来说第一反应是serious nonsense,观点新颖但很难接受(不能否认这个观点不对,人类历史上有过很多荒谬的预测,比如十九世纪末二十世纪初不少物理学家都认为物理学的大厦已经建成,剩下的只是缝缝补补的工作。接着相对论和量子力学横空出世。还有个反例是一句著名的话:如果一位有名望的科学家告诉你某件事情是可能的,那么他很可能是对的;如果他说某件事情是不可能的,那么他极有可能是错的)。而且引喻甚多,不了解卡尔波普尔和维特根斯坦的话很难读懂。所以谨慎地怀疑豆瓣上的高分是水军刷出来的。中信的中译本翻译很烂,如第三章的标题:The Speculator and the Prostitute (投机者和妓女)被译成了“极端斯坦与平均斯坦”,连基本的“信”都达不到。直译就这么有伤风化吗?还有很多地方做了有中国特色的忽略和漏译。本书的逻辑问题严重,很多例子举得莫名其妙。比如德国马克上的高斯曲线,这能说明什么问题呢?就算高斯分布在经济学上不能适用,凭高斯在其他领域的贡献难道就不能出现在货币上?
摘录一下书中还比较有建设性的段落:
your strategy is to be as hyberconservative and hyberaggressive as you can be instead of being mildly aggressive or conserative. Instead of putting your money in "medium risk" investments, you need to put a portion, say 85 to 90 percent, in extremely safe instruments, like Treasury bills--as safe a class of instruments as you can manage to find on this planet. The remaining 10 to 15 percent you put in extremely speculative bets, as leveraged as possible(like options), preferably venture captical-style portfolios...Instead of having medium risk, you have high risk but constitutes a positive exposure to the Black Swan.
你的策略应该是极度保守或极度冒险,而不是一般保守或一般冒险。不要把钱投入“中等风险”的投资,而应该把一定比例的钱,比如80%~90%,投入极为安全的投资工具,比如国债,总之投入你能找到的最安全的投资工具。余下的10%~15%投入极具投机性的赌博中,用尽可能多的财务杠杆(比如期权),最好是类似风险资本的投资组合...你不是承担中等风险,而是一边承担高风险,一边不承担风险。二者的平均值是中等风险。
(我太世俗了。但问题是,这些观点不也是作者鄙视的那些经济学家支持的吗?)
a. first, make a distinction between positive contingencies and negative ones...When you have a very limited loss you need to get as aggressive, as speculative, and sometimes as "unreasonable" as you can be.
区分正面意外和负面意外...在你只有非常有限的损失的时候,你必须尽可能主动出击,大胆投机,甚至“失去理智”
b. Don't look for the precise and the local. Simply, do not be narrow-minded...you do not look for something particular every morning but work hard to let contingency enter your working life...invest in preparedness, not in prediction
不要寻找精确和局部的东西。简而言之,不要狭隘...不要在每天早上寻找某种特定的东西,而要努力工作,并让意外进入你的生活...把精力放在作准备而不是预测上。
c. Seize any opportunity, or anything that looks like opportunity. They are rare, much rarer than you think...If a big publisher suggests an appointment, cancel anything you have planned: you may never see such a window open up again...casual chance discussions at cocktail parties usually lead to big breakthroughs--not dry correspondence or telephone conversations.
抓住一切机会,或者任何像机会的东西。机会很少,比你想象的少得多...如果一个大出版商向你发出邀请,你一定要取消自己原来的全部计划:这扇门可能永远不会再为你开启...鸡尾酒会上的随意聊天通常能够导致大的突破,而不是枯燥的通信或电话谈话
d. Beware of precise plans by governments...the interest of these civil servants is to survive and self-perpetuatee--not to get the truth
当心政府的精确计划...这些公仆的利益在于生存和自保,而不是接近真理。
e. Do not waste your time trying to fight forecasters, stock analysts, economists, and social scientists, except to play planks on them.
不要浪费时间与预测者,证券分析师,经济学家和社会学家争论,除非是拿他们取笑
The twentieth century...brought something new: the beginning of the Extremistan warfare--a small probability of a conflict degenerating into total decimation of the human race, a conflict from which nobody is safe anywhere...Globalization is here, but it is not all for the good: it creates interlocking fragility, while reducing volatility and giving the appearance of stability. In other words it creates devastating Black Swans. We have never lived before under the threat of a global collaps...we will have fewer but more severe crises. The rarer the event, the less we know about its odds. It means that we know less and less about the possibility of a crisis.
20世纪...带来了新东西:极端斯坦战争的降临--小概率冲突变为对整个人类的威胁,变为一种任何人在任何地方都不安全的冲突...全球化发生了,但并不是指带来了好处。它还导致全球在互相牵制状态下的脆弱性,同时降低了波动性并制造稳定的假象。换句话说,它创造了毁灭性的黑天鹅事件。我们此前从未面临全球性崩塌的威胁...我们将面临更少但更严重的危机。事件越稀有,我们越不了解它发生的可能性。
(赞同。越来越觉得城市都是一个样的。趋同和同质化减少了世界的多样性,抵御风险和灾难的能力在降低)
最后,写导读,专家推荐的那些人马屁拍得也太不要脸了吧?“全世界只有一个人提前预测到911恐怖袭击事件的发生......他在书中提到一架飞机撞进他所在的办公楼的可能性”。拜托,这就叫“预测”?我小时候做梦都梦到过好几回了这事怎么说?写这句话的人看过这本书吗?知道作者所谓的“黑天鹅现象”是怎么回事吗?他知道作者的观点就是Extremistan是不可预测的吗?这也太讽刺了吧
PS. 第一次看到有人这么黑冯诺依曼的。
《The Black Swan》读后感(四):“黑天鹅现象”这个概念不准确
作者Taleb把黑天鹅定义为满足三个条件的事件:1.outlier,例外 2. 影响巨大 3. 人类用事后聪明把这个事件发生的理由解释得头头是道,好像事前就能够预测一样。Taleb然后说,寥寥几次黑天鹅事件,造就了我们今天的世界。比如宗教的形成,比如重大历史事件。不得不说,Taleb以此重大异常事件,作为历史进程世界面貌的原因这种说法,表面上看上去很牛逼,其实有点傻逼。反驳如下:第一,如果一个事件天天发生,那还叫异常吗?其二,重大事件不塑造世界面貌还叫重大吗?
因此可以说,与其说这种废话,还不如多研究一下为何会发生Black Swan这种事件——比如the Tipping Point里面的努力,或The theory that would never die中所谈到贝叶斯法则对未来事件的预测,甚至在To think, fast and slow里面也提到了这种对不确定的预测的思考机制。
Taleb谈到对于未来的预测,说不仅你,我,我堂兄Joey,几乎所有的“social scientists”都弄错了,以为自己能搞定不确定性uncertainty。假如Taleb兄台要真是想解决这个问题,大可不必提那些笨蛋,而只去研究像Laplace和其他谈Randomness和Probability问题的大神们的说法。如果不是Taleb这本书只是为了写成畅销书,那么只能说他就是个笨蛋。
总得来说,Taleb写得有些哗众取宠,不算是真正的高手。
loc401谈到如果911能够提前预测,就不会发生911这个事件。这个说法其实很有意思,很值得注意。假如一个警察很有威慑力,那么他的辖区的犯罪事件就很少。那么他就没有机会破获重大案件,就不能获得突出成就,往往不会被瞩目,常常默默无闻。而在足球场上,假如一个防守球员技术高超,使得对手往往躲开他,也就会使得在球场上几乎看不到他的精彩表演,人们也往往觉得他不重要。这种球员在球队的时候不被重视,被卖掉之后可能才显现出后果来。然而,也只有明眼人才看得到这种隐含的价值。许多人只能看到表面的、sensational的价值。这不能不说是一种悲哀。不过,人类的能力有这个局限。这个居住在现代城市中哈瓦那大草原上的原始人,只有看到自己几十个人的部落中哪个人能够捕捉野兽的强力,只能看到重大的激烈事件,看不到数据,看不到复杂现象背后的价值。
然后Taleb又说,如果你想在餐饮业成功,你的创意就必须是非常新鲜,才能成功。如果别人也想到了你这个点子,那么你就有了一大堆竞争者——这句话的指导意义有限。谁不想去想出最新鲜的创意?或者他的这个指导最适合那些粗线条的头脑,随便想出一个点子就要动手去干那种。
Taleb说我们对预测未来的愚蠢自信(也就是对黑天鹅现象的无知),导致我们更容易触发黑天鹅现象。难道实际上的黑天鹅现象是触发的?至少真正的黑天鹅事件不是人们行为触发的,而是自然界实际存在,被人们发现了而已。Taleb有什么理由能证明黑天鹅是触发的?417
此处Taleb还谈到,由于黑天鹅现象的存在,某些所谓“专家”也只能是“砖家“,不比普通人高明,只是能讲得头头是道而已——这个看法相比卡纳汉在think, fast and slow里面谈到的看法,他去一个投资公司,给那些投资高手做顾问,研究之后发现他们的业绩乏善可陈,选股票、选投资对象跟抛硬币做决定差不多。也就是说,这些所谓高手对股票的预测也完全不靠谱,也就是说对未来的预测,专家和普通人差别不大,相比卡纳汉这个观点,Taleb的观点还嫌初级。
422 Taleb又说,没有科技重大发明科学发现不是黑天鹅现象,都不是计划或设计出来的。因此他说他反对马克思和亚当·斯密,认为自由市场是因为允许人们有好运造成,而不是通过提供激励促成。这个说法是非常有问题的。首先,正像他自己所解释的那样,黑天鹅现象本身是不可证伪的——也就是说这个说法本身是个事后的explanation,只能解释,不能预测。也就是说,黑天鹅现象本身就进行了筛选:运气使然的有重大影响的意外。正如我们说,马云很丑,还遇到很多挫折,但他的努力不放弃,依然能够让他成功,成很大的功。这是个事后的描述性解释,不能归结为一个规律,因而不能用于预测:如果即使你跟马云一样丑,也遇到很多挫折,但假如你像马云那样努力不放弃,你也能获得像他那样的成功。也就是说,听一听,给屌丝生活来点热度就算了,不能当真。
444也提到,我们大脑机制是不善于抽象思考,不善于学习规则,而只关注事件的。然后他又提到,许多为了事业牺牲的献身者常为我们所纪念,但是成功搞定了事业的人则为我们所忽略。烈士,和活下来的士兵就是一个例子。人们祭奠先烈,却不顾老兵生活不堪,无人问津。还有,当《速度与激情》系列主角保罗·沃克生前淹没在其他青年男演员之中并不出彩,一旦早夭人们纷纷纪念哀悼,仿佛失掉了一个少年英才演艺瑰宝,也不关注他跟好友吸毒又飙车而死(虽然他似乎并未驾驶),却并不更关注其他不吸毒也不飙车的那些青年男演员。
《The Black Swan》读后感(五):精彩有余,营养不足
作为一本主要介绍人类思维无法完全感受随机性的书,我觉得此书不如Fooled by Randomness。从物理,哲学,文学,艺术等等一直攻击到经济学,虽然有一些从分形概率来的洞见,但是很多地方都体现了作者对于各学科进展的无知和偏见。支持我读完这本书的是作者把自己生活中很多小的洞见写在了一起,算是吐槽吐的酣畅淋漓。比如作者把大部分投资人的高收益归结于随机游走的幸运儿,把经济学统计学等直接说成是greatest intellectual fraud等等。但是此书最大的缺陷是经不起细想。比如作者之前先讲了narrative fallacy,基本意思是人都有讲故事的冲动,经常喜欢把无关系的事情讲述成一个故事,以降低知识的维度。他举了很多例子,其中一个是面对两个命题
A(1). 小明幸福的结婚了,他杀了他的妻子。
B(1). 小明幸福的结婚了,但是因为财产纠纷杀了他的妻子。
或者
A(2). 加州地震,死了一千人。
B(2). 加州地震引发洪水,死了一千人。
虽然B的信息更多,而且从纯概率的角度来说几率明显小于A,但是人们更容易记住B,而且更倾向于相信B。
然后他又提出了confirmation bias, 大意是说人们倾向于轻信因果性。之前的两个例子也适用。另外的例子比如股市崩盘,而之前如果发生过什么金融事件,哪怕再微不足道或者毫不相干,人们也会想出各种各样的故事来事后justify他们之间的联系。从narrative fallacy和confirmation bias出发,作者攻击了历史(历史最擅长讲故事,归类因果),经济金融(比如各类经济报告金融报告),新闻(擅长危言耸听),成功人物传记(把成功人物的一些毫无关系的习惯说成成功的理由)。
另一个是说the scandal of prediction. 大概是说各种data maning,经济预测采取的模型只不过match了一个完全随机的过程的路径实现,所以做出的预测往往是骗钱。有些比如经济危机的预测已被人们当成笑话还能无害,但是有些会直接影响到政府或企业决策,这种时候就会导致悲剧。
本来这些论断虽然算不上太哲学但是都很有说服力,基本上集中于书的第一章。可惜从第一章最后一节讲“fat Tony”的故事开始书的质量有了明显的下降。这个故事是说"fat Tony"是一个非常Brooklyn类型的人,为人有亲和力,生活作风潇洒随意,在学校的时候表现一般,但是在花街很成功。另一个人是"non-Brooklyn John", 常青藤优等生,生活极其规律,为人比较书呆子,但是在花街过得很卢瑟。然后作者开始了结论:”你们有没有发现当年学习比较差的人纷纷开上了豪车,买了珠宝,而全A生们却过得无所适从“?我看到这的时候当即吐血,这个无厘头的结论不是把之前的narrative fallacy,confirmation bias,scandal of prediction什么的都占全了?
之后的部分虽然也有精彩的地方,但是经常会陷入罗嗦,前后矛盾或者胡乱开炮的境地。比如为了讲正态分布为何脱离现实,作者估计举了十多个例子,而且很多都是内容雷同换了个壳子。而作者对于整个学界的大肆攻击(很多是不公正的)以及对mandelbrot的个人崇拜也让此书掉价很多。基于以上原因我怀疑此书后半部分很有可能是作者给业界人士开讲座的讲稿凑成的。当然我这个论断也免不了narrative fallacy了。
最后对于读Taleb的建议是读他的一本书就好了,作为一个通俗作家而非严肃的学者,并没有必要去研究他的哲学架构。没有时间的可以都Kahneman and Tversky (1974),Taleb大部分的理论都来自于这篇不到十页的论文。