The Empire of Chance

The Empire of Chance PDF Author: Gerd Gigerenzer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107393000
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
The Empire of Chance tells how quantitative ideas of chance transformed the natural and social sciences, as well as daily life over the last three centuries. A continuous narrative connects the earliest application of probability and statistics in gambling and insurance to the most recent forays into law, medicine, polling and baseball. Separate chapters explore the theoretical and methodological impact in biology, physics and psychology. Themes recur - determinism, inference, causality, free will, evidence, the shifting meaning of probability - but in dramatically different disciplinary and historical contexts. In contrast to the literature on the mathematical development of probability and statistics, this book centres on how these technical innovations remade our conceptions of nature, mind and society. Written by an interdisciplinary team of historians and philosophers, this readable, lucid account keeps technical material to an absolute minimum. It is aimed not only at specialists in the history and philosophy of science, but also at the general reader and scholars in other disciplines.

The Empire of Chance

The Empire of Chance PDF Author: Gerd Gigerenzer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107393000
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Empire of Chance tells how quantitative ideas of chance transformed the natural and social sciences, as well as daily life over the last three centuries. A continuous narrative connects the earliest application of probability and statistics in gambling and insurance to the most recent forays into law, medicine, polling and baseball. Separate chapters explore the theoretical and methodological impact in biology, physics and psychology. Themes recur - determinism, inference, causality, free will, evidence, the shifting meaning of probability - but in dramatically different disciplinary and historical contexts. In contrast to the literature on the mathematical development of probability and statistics, this book centres on how these technical innovations remade our conceptions of nature, mind and society. Written by an interdisciplinary team of historians and philosophers, this readable, lucid account keeps technical material to an absolute minimum. It is aimed not only at specialists in the history and philosophy of science, but also at the general reader and scholars in other disciplines.

The Empire of Chance

The Empire of Chance PDF Author: Gerd Gigerenzer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521398381
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
Connects the earliest applications of probability and statistics in gambling and insurance to the most recent applications in law, medicine, polling, and baseball as well as their impact on biology, physics and psychology.

The Empire of Chance

The Empire of Chance PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description


Empire of Chance

Empire of Chance PDF Author: Anders Engberg-Pedersen
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067496764X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Anders Engberg-Pedersen shows how the Napoleonic Wars inspired a new discourse on knowledge in the West. Soldiers returning from battle were forced to reconsider what it is possible to know and how decisions are made in a fog of imperfect knowledge. Chance no longer appeared exceptional but normative—a prism for understanding the modern world.

Empire of Chance

Empire of Chance PDF Author: Anders Engberg-Pedersen
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 067442543X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Napoleon’s campaigns were the most complex military undertakings in history before the nineteenth century. But the defining battles of Austerlitz, Borodino, and Waterloo changed more than the nature of warfare. Concepts of chance, contingency, and probability became permanent fixtures in the West’s understanding of how the world works. Empire of Chance examines anew the place of war in the history of Western thought, showing how the Napoleonic Wars inspired a new discourse on knowledge. Soldiers returning from the battlefields were forced to reconsider basic questions about what it is possible to know and how decisions are made in a fog of imperfect knowledge. Artists and intellectuals came to see war as embodying modernity itself. The theory of war espoused in Carl von Clausewitz’s classic treatise responded to contemporary developments in mathematics and philosophy, and the tools for solving military problems—maps, games, and simulations—became models for how to manage chance. On the other hand, the realist novels of Balzac, Stendhal, and Tolstoy questioned whether chance and contingency could ever be described or controlled. As Anders Engberg-Pedersen makes clear, after Napoleon the state of war no longer appeared exceptional but normative. It became a prism that revealed the underlying operative logic determining the way society is ordered and unfolds.

The Empire of Chance

The Empire of Chance PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Second Chance

Second Chance PDF Author: R Richard
Publisher: Club Lighthouse Publishing
ISBN: 1897532873
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
In the eighth book in this action packed series a telephone call sends Justin Imperiale to the South Continent. The caller is a man who claims to be from planet Glyon. Justin flies to the South Continent to talk to the man about re-establishing an ancient Empire along the mountain crests. Justin meets the man and convinces him that he, Justin, is the King of The Sky, a legendary warrior who can defeat any man in combat. The man then returns to Glyon. Justin is contacted by a man who claims to be from the South Continent and also claims to have information regarding a major drug shipment, due to leave the South Continent. The information is supposed to lead Justin into a trap. However, he is clever enough to avoid the trap and seize a couple of drug shipments.The men from Glyon return. They might be willing to try to set up an Empire, but first they must talk to a High Priest of the Temple of Vorell.While waiting to make the trip to see the High Priest of the Temple of Vorell, Justin is attacked in his hotel room, but escapes. He and the men from Glyon then travel to talk with the High Priest of the Temple of Vorell. It's decided that the people of Glyon will come through the Gate and try to establish a new Empire. The capital will be near the old Empire capital city of Corzaro. The start of the new Empire will be financed by gold and emeralds, mined from jungle mines, discovered by the ancient Empire.The need to operate mine in the jungle leads Justin and Tapu, the leader of the men from Glyon, into a conference with the jungle people. Justin reinforces his standing as King of The Sky. Tapu then begins to set up the new Empire.Justin returns to Zaya to crush the last warlord and also to obtain fighter aircraft for the new Empire. Glyon mechanics go with Justin and refurbish the aircraft. Glyon pilot then fly the aircraft back to the South Continent and are attacked on the way.Justin discovers that the Association of Nations betrayed the Glyon flight and he retaliates by seizing bank accounts.The Sky Path people attack the Glyon, who use advanced weapons to defeat the attack with little loss of life. Justin makes it appear as if the magic of the King of The Sky caused the defeat and builds the image of the new Empire among the original inhabitants. After the initial defeat, Justin leads a raid on a Sky Path camp and again defeats the Sky Path people. Justin also finds evidence that the Association of Nations is secretly funding the Sky Path. Justin then must fight a warrior, recruited by the Sky Path to prove his tight the title King of The Sky.With the Sky Path well on the way to its defeat, Justin now turns to the problem of the President of Alvarado. Justin has promised to make the sky fall on the President. So, he uses the space patrol boats and his anti-gravity machines to do a bit of asteroid mining. Astronomers have found a nickel iron asteroid not too far from Corin. He arranges for the asteroid to be dropped on the Presidential Compound of Alvarado. The asteroid ends the problem of the President and the distribution of the nickel iron will create jobs for the subjects of the Empire.Justin then gets Tapu and the President of the Association of Nations to agree to return a mysterious tribe of original inhabitants from the jungle to the mountain crests.

Chance, Character, and Change

Chance, Character, and Change PDF Author: John Mattausch
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351529536
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
Chance is real. Not only is it a cause of societal change, but we as individuals are chance-given characters who discover and build our character in chancy circumstances. Chance is also expressed as coincidence and contingency, expressions which have episodically been of undeniable historical importance. Mattausch asserts the conventional picture of societal change is incorrect. Societal change is not a linear succession with each phase of change replacing its predecessor. Instead, the process is one of accumulative change in which chance plays various roles. Chance, Character, and Change develops the idea of chance, situating it within the history of thought and social change. By focusing strictly on manifestations of chance and of luck that can be seen and explained, Mattausch is able to show how chance acts in the environment of evolution and the social practices that regulate the inheritance of knowledge and technology. This, in turn, steers societal change and how change itself occurs. Chance's role is often characterized as coincidence or contingency, and this automatically is seen as progressive or degenerate. However, Mattausch notes that accumulative change is potentially both progressive as well as decadent. Chance also plays a part in the social aspects of our world--customs, practices, cultures, societies, and politics. When we act, Mattausch argues, we do not distinguish between good and bad, but rather between determinism and chance; the latter is a test of character, not of free will. This theory is general in its assertions and application, and can be related to many areas of study from economic theory, to human behavior, to politics. The rich texture of the writing and vivid use of examples from daily life and the work of other major thinkers draw in the reader. The most striking aspect of this work is the author's writing style and the way he weaves together evidence, classic research, and contemporary thought. It is skillfu

The School World

The School World PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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Book Description


Novelty

Novelty PDF Author: Michael North
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022607790X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
If art and science have one thing in common, it’s a hunger for the new—new ideas and innovations, new ways of seeing and depicting the world. But that desire for novelty carries with it a fundamental philosophical problem: If everything has to come from something, how can anything truly new emerge? Is novelty even possible? In Novelty, Michael North takes us on a dazzling tour of more than two millennia of thinking about the problem of the new, from the puzzles of the pre-Socratics all the way up to the art world of the 1960s and ’70s. The terms of the debate, North shows, were established before Plato, and have changed very little since: novelty, philosophers argued, could only arise from either recurrence or recombination. The former, found in nature’s cycles of renewal, and the latter, seen most clearly in the workings of language, between them have accounted for nearly all the ways in which novelty has been conceived in Western history, taking in reformation, renaissance, invention, revolution, and even evolution. As he pursues this idea through centuries and across disciplines, North exhibits astonishing range, drawing on figures as diverse as Charles Darwin and Robert Smithson, Thomas Kuhn and Ezra Pound, Norbert Wiener and Andy Warhol, all of whom offer different ways of grappling with the idea of originality. Novelty, North demonstrates, remains a central problem of contemporary science and literature—an ever-receding target that, in its complexity and evasiveness, continues to inspire and propel the modern. A heady, ambitious intellectual feast, Novelty is rich with insight, a masterpiece of perceptive synthesis.