Probability is not about the odds, but about the belief in the existence of an alternative outcome, cause, or motive.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Probability concerns believing in alternative outcomes rather than just calculating odds.
- In plain terms
- Probability is about trusting there are other possible results.
- What can you take from it?
- Focus on possible alternatives not just odds.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What alternatives do you ignore?
- How do you define probability?
Another view
Mathematical odds are still useful tools.
More from Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Science evolves from funeral to funeral.
Permalink to quote #10 We favor the visible, the embedded, the personal, the narrated, and the tangible; we scorn the abstract.
Permalink to quote #12 At no point during his ordeal did Nero think of himself as 72% alive and 28% dead.
Permalink to quote #9
Related quotes
Granted, religion is wishful thinking, but there is no other kind of thinking.
John LeonardJohn Leonard quote #21 As a rule, when there arises a thinker as great in theology as Kepler in science, the whole mass of his conclusions ripens into a dogma. His disciples labour n…
Andrew Dickson WhiteAndrew Dickson White quote #1 The act of writing is the act of discovering what you believe.
David HareDavid Hare quote #2