Book: The Drunkard's Walk: how randomness rules our lives

Leonard Mlodinow
2008
272 pp
Rating: 4 out of 5

Quite a fascinating book, which I am sure I will not do credit to here, at least partially because the discussion of some mathematical concepts got a little beyond me at times. But mostly very readable, I would not want to frighten anyone away from reading the book because of some challenging math/logic problems.

The book's thesis is that humans are not very adept at understanding randomness. We seem to be built to recognize patterns, and so randomness is a little hard for us to recognize when it happens. The author points this out in several ways, but the two that stick with me are:

1. Things that are actually random can sometimes appear to have a pattern. Think about it, if random things happen enough times, at some point they will appear to be happening in a patterned way. It's built into the definition of randomness!  But we are easily (and gladly, it would seem) fooled into thinking there is an actual pattern.
2. We just really want to see patterns where there are none. Mlodinow points out many experiments that have pretty much proven this. We especially want (and try to) see patterns that confirm our existing biases when confronted with absolutely randomized series of events.

The book starts with a rather brilliant examination of why people tend to fixate on what are really pure coincidences as somehow meaningful or part of a pattern, or even worse yet, having some kind of direct causal link when there absolutely is none. I've always thought that of course, in an infinite universe, anything can occur, so of course 'miraculous' seeming coincidences are going to naturally (if you will) occur all the time. I find that most people are not very appreciative when one brings this up. Mlodinow explains that too.... as beings that tend to excel (again, proven in experiments) when we feel more in control of any situation, randomness is seen as tremendously disempowering.... and therefore threatening.

I think this is giving me an idea for a new dot... one that has to do wtih limitations of our own brains/perceptions, and how they interfere with us accurately understanding the world around us.