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Rating  - On Being Certain
A fun and informative read. Robert Burton informs,presenting factual and ironic detail of the brain an our behavoral responses to external and internal memory. Recomended for students of psychycolgy, marketing and those interest in broadening their understanding of human behavior.
Rating - It's Not What You Know it's Whether You Really Know It
I think my title above gets to the substance of Dr. Burton's narrative. How do we know what we know? Dr. Burton posits that the feeling of knowing is a necessary biological function required to allow humans to contemplate thought and take action. In other words, there has to be some reward for a person to think about and know what they are concluding and this reward comes in the feelings of knowing, certainty and correctness. The problem is that the feeling is not always corroborated by the facts. How many times have you been dead certain of something, only to be later proven wrong? And of those times, how many are followed by hindsight reframing of the situation to maintain your correctness?
Burton delves into the physioligical details, philosophical ramifications and cultural and social implications of the reality that we may never be able to grasp 100% certainty on any subject. The subject poses conundrums about issues like free will, religious beliefs and other areas, and Burton explores these in his text.
My concerns are that Burton starts out by stating that some of what he discusses is his own speculation, but never clearly tells us where that occurs. In addition, he is guilty of his own bent towards certainty when he states that the case for evolution is air-tight (it's not). Finally, someone once said that the seeds of destruction of a false belief are contained in that fasle belief's own logic. So, if the conclusion is that we can never be 100% right, then that very conclusion can never be 100% right, so maybe it's wrong and we can be 100% right. Kapeesh?
That being said, there is a lot of interesting material about how the brain works, and a lot of food for thought about how it is that we know what we know.
Rating - Certainly Interesting
A readily readable and thoughtful look at how our minds work in relation to things our minds produce like thoughts and ideas. It goes on to raise important questions about the implications of "the feeling of knowing" for philosophy, psychology and indirectly politics. It is a worthwhile read. It might have been improved by a more extensive look at the neurology of this erstwhile affect.
Rating  - One of three recent great books on our weird minds
I rank this second among my favorite three books this year on the topic of the oddities of normal human thinking - right after How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of "Intangibles" in Business and just above Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions.
How Burton treats the issue of certainty is an interesting compliment to how Hubbard treats uncertainty in How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of "Intangibles" in Business. Burton looks at situations where we can feel certain but be wrong. Likewise, Hubbard looks at how we can be "statistically overconfident" and will usually underestimate our uncertainty if we attempt to assign odds to uncertain events. Hubbard seems to offer more empirical data on this topic and, more importantly, how to adjust for this error.
There seem to be more and more books in the genre of quirks in human reasoning and perception - specifically, how we feel certain or uncertain. But these are among the very few I would recommend. Save your money on the rest.
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Customer Reviews for St. Martin's Press,0312359209,9780312359201,0312359209,153.4 |
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Books : On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not Customer Reviews
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