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The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics
In the wake of his enormously popular books The Armchair Economist and More Sex Is Safer Sex , Slate columnist and economics professor Steven Landsburg employs concepts from mathematics, economics, and physics in this sprightly tour of the deepest problems in What is real? What can we know? Why is there something instead of nothing? And how should we live?
Beginning with the broadest philosophical issues—theories of existence, knowledge, and ethics—Landsburg then turns to a dazzling variety of specific applications. He gives us a mathematical analysis for arguments for the existence of God; explains the real meanings of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and Gödel’s incompleteness theorem; and carefully dissects the meaning of social responsibility on the playground, in the marketplace, and in the voting booth.
Stimulating, illuminating, and always surprising, The Big Questions reveals the relationship between the loftiest philosophical quests and our everyday lives.
Beginning with the broadest philosophical issues—theories of existence, knowledge, and ethics—Landsburg then turns to a dazzling variety of specific applications. He gives us a mathematical analysis for arguments for the existence of God; explains the real meanings of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and Gödel’s incompleteness theorem; and carefully dissects the meaning of social responsibility on the playground, in the marketplace, and in the voting booth.
Stimulating, illuminating, and always surprising, The Big Questions reveals the relationship between the loftiest philosophical quests and our everyday lives.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
November 3, 2010
I found the title of this book to be a little misleading. This is more of a libertarian rant by economist Landsburg -- complete with the moral reasoning why restaurants should not be forced by the government to serve all clientele regardless of race -- than it is a philosophy book. I guess it could be considered to be Landsburg's personal philosophy. By the end of his polemic, Landsburg is even disdaining the reading of books, calling it a hobby like tennis. I guess the next time I choose to read a book by an economist I'll pull a book off the shelf by Paul Krugman.
March 28, 2013
If it were possible to take away stars for rating this book, Landsburg would owe me 5. It should be titled The Big Ego. He "likes" Steven Hawking, but consistently claims disagreement with Hawkings main premises. He routinely dismisses any thought but his own. His logic is incomplete and flawed, full of the same holes he attempts to point out in others. Furthermore, he fails at answering any questions other that can I write a book, get attention, and make money. Thankfully, I bought this for 50 cents and I threw it in the recycle bin when I was done.
February 20, 2010
I have, with the help of a friend, concluded that while Landsburg’s writing is a bit off the wall, he would undoubtedly be an awesome professor to have in the area of economics or philosophy. I disagreed with half of Landsburg’s conclusions, and am still a bit baffled at some of the jumps he makes in his arguments, but regardless I did enjoy this book, though I very much doubt it will ever make the re-read list for me.
Landsburg may call himself an economist, but deep down he is a mathematician who believes that all things can be boiled down to simple idealistic examples. In a way, he is not so different than me and my study of physics. I study simple idealist examples where a hockey puck is traveling on an infinitely long sheet of ice that is totally frictionless such that as long as the puck never hits another object or gust of wind, it will keep going at the same speed and direction forever. Obviously, this cannot happen in real life, but at the same time the model is simple enough for my understanding, yet accurate enough that I can formulate a fairly accurate hypothesis at what will actually happen if you were to throw a hockey puck onto a frozen lake. Landsburg has economic models, simple and idealistic like mine, to model real life situations of cost and effectiveness as well your basic supply and demand (along with some others that I will leave as a surprise if you decide to read it). What ultimately makes my models better or at the very least more accurate even for idealistic cases is that physics lacks what drives all his economic models out the window, the human factor. Humans screw things up like you wouldn’t believe, well actually, maybe you would. I found his economic models, particularly his one about pushing a man in front of a trolley in order to stop said trolley from killing five other people, (and other such variants of this model which include a switch, and an evil economist mwahaha). This becomes a question destined for the humanities sector of the philosophy department, not an economics textbook as he implies. If that one man you could push is “worth” more than the five people about to get run over, then by all means let the five die, after all, it’s all about keeping the general population happy, so says Landsburg anyway.
There is nothing wrong with trying to make sense of the world, and as humans I think we will be doing that from the moment we open our eyes to the day we close them for the last time and I applaud Landsburg for doing just that, however, he takes his economic principles and attempts to apply them to damn near everything. His models work great for a very few select areas (which is where he should elaborate at which point I would gladly read more of his writing) but after that it gets shady and in some places down right silly, sort of like me using principles of electromagnetism to justify the French Revolution.
As I said, I did enjoy this book (or rather I just enjoyed disagreeing with it so much) and I would recommend this book only to those who already know how to think for themselves. Giving this book to someone with little to no background in philosophy or science might be a bit disastrous if only for the fact that I truly believe the STD infection rate in America will rise (to understand this rather bizarre conclusion, read the book). I was humored, infuriated, annoyed, and fascinated by this book and give it a very well deserved 4 stars.
Landsburg may call himself an economist, but deep down he is a mathematician who believes that all things can be boiled down to simple idealistic examples. In a way, he is not so different than me and my study of physics. I study simple idealist examples where a hockey puck is traveling on an infinitely long sheet of ice that is totally frictionless such that as long as the puck never hits another object or gust of wind, it will keep going at the same speed and direction forever. Obviously, this cannot happen in real life, but at the same time the model is simple enough for my understanding, yet accurate enough that I can formulate a fairly accurate hypothesis at what will actually happen if you were to throw a hockey puck onto a frozen lake. Landsburg has economic models, simple and idealistic like mine, to model real life situations of cost and effectiveness as well your basic supply and demand (along with some others that I will leave as a surprise if you decide to read it). What ultimately makes my models better or at the very least more accurate even for idealistic cases is that physics lacks what drives all his economic models out the window, the human factor. Humans screw things up like you wouldn’t believe, well actually, maybe you would. I found his economic models, particularly his one about pushing a man in front of a trolley in order to stop said trolley from killing five other people, (and other such variants of this model which include a switch, and an evil economist mwahaha). This becomes a question destined for the humanities sector of the philosophy department, not an economics textbook as he implies. If that one man you could push is “worth” more than the five people about to get run over, then by all means let the five die, after all, it’s all about keeping the general population happy, so says Landsburg anyway.
There is nothing wrong with trying to make sense of the world, and as humans I think we will be doing that from the moment we open our eyes to the day we close them for the last time and I applaud Landsburg for doing just that, however, he takes his economic principles and attempts to apply them to damn near everything. His models work great for a very few select areas (which is where he should elaborate at which point I would gladly read more of his writing) but after that it gets shady and in some places down right silly, sort of like me using principles of electromagnetism to justify the French Revolution.
As I said, I did enjoy this book (or rather I just enjoyed disagreeing with it so much) and I would recommend this book only to those who already know how to think for themselves. Giving this book to someone with little to no background in philosophy or science might be a bit disastrous if only for the fact that I truly believe the STD infection rate in America will rise (to understand this rather bizarre conclusion, read the book). I was humored, infuriated, annoyed, and fascinated by this book and give it a very well deserved 4 stars.
September 2, 2013
"The Big Questions" by Mr Landsburg is an amazing book, meaning it is profoundly amazing how any sane publisher agreed to publish it and a respectable book-seller (I got mine at Barnes&Noble) agreed to stock it.
Despite what the title might suggest, namely an honest and potentially insightful list of questions in modern philosophy, it is probably the worst collection of self-serving punditry and condescending drivel I stumbled upon this year. And that includes yellow press and fashion magazines.
Despite the author's claims of knowledge of such relatively arcane areas of modern physics as quantum theory, I was appalled to discover the lack of even basic understanding apparent from shallow and irresponsible remarks on the topic, which as a PhD in particle physics I happen to know something about.
Quantum mechanics, though, isn't the worst gap in Mr Landsburg education. The glaring hole in his world view is the complete lack of any trace of idea of what modern scientific method actually consists of and how it operates. This disastrous ignorance leading to math-flavored variety of witchcraft and self-congratulatory worship of pet theories he calls Models, this alone should be sufficient grounds for his faculty to send Mr Landsburg back to school, rather than to allow him to teach and publish his research findings.
He shouldn't be allowed to graduate until he is able to explain what role observation, experimentation and hypothesis play in the process of knowledge acquisition, until he understands how "beliefs" relate to "evidence" and what constitutes the latter.
There was little point in reading on after this much became obvious, however I finished the book. The Biggest Question this book raises is: What is more scary, the fact that Mr Landsburg is allowed to teach our young, or that his "research" may some day affect our policies?
I do wonder now, how strong is the correlation between sources of funds and "scientific" conclusions of any US economist. Of course correlation does not *always* imply causation... or is it *never*, Mr Landsburg?
Despite what the title might suggest, namely an honest and potentially insightful list of questions in modern philosophy, it is probably the worst collection of self-serving punditry and condescending drivel I stumbled upon this year. And that includes yellow press and fashion magazines.
Despite the author's claims of knowledge of such relatively arcane areas of modern physics as quantum theory, I was appalled to discover the lack of even basic understanding apparent from shallow and irresponsible remarks on the topic, which as a PhD in particle physics I happen to know something about.
Quantum mechanics, though, isn't the worst gap in Mr Landsburg education. The glaring hole in his world view is the complete lack of any trace of idea of what modern scientific method actually consists of and how it operates. This disastrous ignorance leading to math-flavored variety of witchcraft and self-congratulatory worship of pet theories he calls Models, this alone should be sufficient grounds for his faculty to send Mr Landsburg back to school, rather than to allow him to teach and publish his research findings.
He shouldn't be allowed to graduate until he is able to explain what role observation, experimentation and hypothesis play in the process of knowledge acquisition, until he understands how "beliefs" relate to "evidence" and what constitutes the latter.
There was little point in reading on after this much became obvious, however I finished the book. The Biggest Question this book raises is: What is more scary, the fact that Mr Landsburg is allowed to teach our young, or that his "research" may some day affect our policies?
I do wonder now, how strong is the correlation between sources of funds and "scientific" conclusions of any US economist. Of course correlation does not *always* imply causation... or is it *never*, Mr Landsburg?
January 2, 2011
The Big Questions is a wonderful book, which exactly achieves the author's stated objective: integration across the disciplines of mathematics, economics and physics in order to address questions of philosophy.
Landsburg deals with many Big Questions, such as:
1. What comprises the universe? - mathematics
2. What is consciousness? - a network of 100b neurons firing electrical signals in complex ways (if we can simulate this using a computer program at sufficient level of detail, we could create consciousness)
3. What can we know? - unprovable truths, mathematical theorems
The book is structured so as deliver the material in a series of short "bites", (i.e. written for a general audience).
I found the book to contain original thinking, where Landsburg provides fresh insights that are also important and deep. For example, Landsburg discusses how we measure the degree of people's beliefs (are they strong or weak?), and how this is done not by asking people but by observing behavior. Understanding the role that beliefs play in our lives is an important step in evaluating how strongly we hold them. Beliefs that don't factor into our lives in any significant ways are likely, as Landsburg points out, to be beliefs we have not thought deeply about or scrutinized (and for good reasons).
In this respect, Landsburg's commentary about religious beliefs is resonant. His claim is that (many/most?) of those who profess devotion to faith hold weak beliefs because their behavior does not conform to the reasonable predictions that such beliefs imply. For example, a belief in hell equals a 100% conviction rate, and we know empirically that increasing conviction rates reduces the incidence of crime. Thus, believing that there really is an all-knowing, all-seeing being, a Judgment Day, and anguishing never-ending punishment, the religious should show a lot more caution/self-restraint/morality. Lansburg thinks this doesn't bear out, but acknowledges that there have not been studies done and it is therefore an open empirical matter. What matters, however, is not whether an air-tight case can be made for the hypothesis, but its formulation in the first instance. In other words, Landsburg sheds fresh light on the intense debate between atheists and Christians in the United States. While people like Richard Dawkins take as their premise the basic assumption that we can rely on surveys to discover people's belief in God, Landsburg's hypothesis, if confirmed, could show that there is no disagreement. In that case, there would just be an identified gap between people's surface-level beliefs and their deeper-held beliefs. In some sense, then, Landsburg is claiming that people are (or at least can be) wrong about what they believe.
Pushing ideas deeper and posing research questions is a theme that runs throughout the book. Landsburg does this well in the area of distributive justice, where we takes the philosopher's "hypothetical insurance market" and points out that we already have a lot of the empirical data we need to answer the question about how much insurance people would buy when facing differing levels of risk.
Landsburg deals with many Big Questions, such as:
1. What comprises the universe? - mathematics
2. What is consciousness? - a network of 100b neurons firing electrical signals in complex ways (if we can simulate this using a computer program at sufficient level of detail, we could create consciousness)
3. What can we know? - unprovable truths, mathematical theorems
The book is structured so as deliver the material in a series of short "bites", (i.e. written for a general audience).
I found the book to contain original thinking, where Landsburg provides fresh insights that are also important and deep. For example, Landsburg discusses how we measure the degree of people's beliefs (are they strong or weak?), and how this is done not by asking people but by observing behavior. Understanding the role that beliefs play in our lives is an important step in evaluating how strongly we hold them. Beliefs that don't factor into our lives in any significant ways are likely, as Landsburg points out, to be beliefs we have not thought deeply about or scrutinized (and for good reasons).
In this respect, Landsburg's commentary about religious beliefs is resonant. His claim is that (many/most?) of those who profess devotion to faith hold weak beliefs because their behavior does not conform to the reasonable predictions that such beliefs imply. For example, a belief in hell equals a 100% conviction rate, and we know empirically that increasing conviction rates reduces the incidence of crime. Thus, believing that there really is an all-knowing, all-seeing being, a Judgment Day, and anguishing never-ending punishment, the religious should show a lot more caution/self-restraint/morality. Lansburg thinks this doesn't bear out, but acknowledges that there have not been studies done and it is therefore an open empirical matter. What matters, however, is not whether an air-tight case can be made for the hypothesis, but its formulation in the first instance. In other words, Landsburg sheds fresh light on the intense debate between atheists and Christians in the United States. While people like Richard Dawkins take as their premise the basic assumption that we can rely on surveys to discover people's belief in God, Landsburg's hypothesis, if confirmed, could show that there is no disagreement. In that case, there would just be an identified gap between people's surface-level beliefs and their deeper-held beliefs. In some sense, then, Landsburg is claiming that people are (or at least can be) wrong about what they believe.
Pushing ideas deeper and posing research questions is a theme that runs throughout the book. Landsburg does this well in the area of distributive justice, where we takes the philosopher's "hypothetical insurance market" and points out that we already have a lot of the empirical data we need to answer the question about how much insurance people would buy when facing differing levels of risk.
Read
January 15, 2010In "The Big Questions", Steven E. Landsburg uses math, economics and physics to discuss questions of philosophy, especially morality and ethics. That sounds a lot more serious than the book turned out to be. In fact, Landsburg ends the book by saying that most of it was written "not to make any particular point but because it seemed to fit and I think it's interesting." It's a good introduction to some basic econ, math and physics, and to Landsburg own beliefs and guidelines on life (including the reasoning behind them).
Many of the examples and anecdotes were old news to me, because I have already taken courses in math, physics, economics and philosophy. But it's well-written, entertaining and easy to read.
Favorites:
* If more people really and truly believed in the religions they claim to follow, they would behave differently. For example, why don't we have more suicide bombers? Landsburg concludes that hardly anyone is actually religious:
"If religious belief were as widespread as people claim it is, there should be millions upon millions of voluntary martyrs. (...) Believers in hell should commit fewer crimes; believers in heaven should take more risks; believers in one religion should interact in predictable ways with believers in another; believers in God should have a powerful interest in the alternatives. Those implications are testable. I am moderately confident that carefully gathered statistics would refute the hypothesis that religious beliefs are widely or deeply held."
* If you want to write, study something you love and write about it. Do not take writing classes:
"If your writing is murky, it's usually because your thinking is murky, too. The cure for that is not a series of writing exercises; it's to master your subject matter. (...) Prose flows easily when you understand what you're saying. If you're struggling to 'craft' your prose, you're probably confused."
* The Economist's Golden Rule: Don't leave the world worse off than you found it OR Don't spend valuable time and energy in non-productive ways. It follows that you should not steal, counterfeit or be an Olympic athlete:
"If you bake a cupcake, the world has one more cupcake. If you become a circus clown, the world has one more squirt of seltzer down someone's pants. But if you win an Olympic gold medal, the world will not have one more Olympic gold medalist. It will just have you instead of someone else."
Many of the examples and anecdotes were old news to me, because I have already taken courses in math, physics, economics and philosophy. But it's well-written, entertaining and easy to read.
Favorites:
* If more people really and truly believed in the religions they claim to follow, they would behave differently. For example, why don't we have more suicide bombers? Landsburg concludes that hardly anyone is actually religious:
"If religious belief were as widespread as people claim it is, there should be millions upon millions of voluntary martyrs. (...) Believers in hell should commit fewer crimes; believers in heaven should take more risks; believers in one religion should interact in predictable ways with believers in another; believers in God should have a powerful interest in the alternatives. Those implications are testable. I am moderately confident that carefully gathered statistics would refute the hypothesis that religious beliefs are widely or deeply held."
* If you want to write, study something you love and write about it. Do not take writing classes:
"If your writing is murky, it's usually because your thinking is murky, too. The cure for that is not a series of writing exercises; it's to master your subject matter. (...) Prose flows easily when you understand what you're saying. If you're struggling to 'craft' your prose, you're probably confused."
* The Economist's Golden Rule: Don't leave the world worse off than you found it OR Don't spend valuable time and energy in non-productive ways. It follows that you should not steal, counterfeit or be an Olympic athlete:
"If you bake a cupcake, the world has one more cupcake. If you become a circus clown, the world has one more squirt of seltzer down someone's pants. But if you win an Olympic gold medal, the world will not have one more Olympic gold medalist. It will just have you instead of someone else."
February 15, 2012
there is a lot of great advice and educated thinking in this book. The author's background in economics is the most important influence on the writing and he applies that sort of thinking to many subject areas.
my paraphrasing of some of what i found interesting: many people hold erroneous believes about things they do not directly experience because it costs nothing to hold such beliefs. ethical dilemmas such as should one healthy person's organs be harvested to save five sick people from dieing? He creates an Economists Golden Rule to guide all decisions which is to include the benefit and loss felt by everyone involved.
He makes some interesting and controversial claims such as people with few sexual partners could better the world by having more sex which would take away partners from promiscuous partners who may be spreading disease. Also it serves poor people better to spend $2 billion on food than $1 billion on food and $1 billion on expensive medical procedures.
my paraphrasing of some of what i found interesting: many people hold erroneous believes about things they do not directly experience because it costs nothing to hold such beliefs. ethical dilemmas such as should one healthy person's organs be harvested to save five sick people from dieing? He creates an Economists Golden Rule to guide all decisions which is to include the benefit and loss felt by everyone involved.
He makes some interesting and controversial claims such as people with few sexual partners could better the world by having more sex which would take away partners from promiscuous partners who may be spreading disease. Also it serves poor people better to spend $2 billion on food than $1 billion on food and $1 billion on expensive medical procedures.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 21, 2009
This is an incredible book, one of the best I’ve read this year. Making sense of philosophy and economics using mathematics had to be good, and it was. Landsburg has the best description and explanation of Quantum State I’ve ever heard or read.
I learned a lot in this book and was persuaded by his arguments including belief in a certain kind of ESP, being a jerk when it comes to illegal immigration, and even the true nature of reality.
I read his previous book, The Armchair Economist, and don’t remember it being all that good, but I’m thinking of reading it again just because it must have some insights I failed to grasp. I’m also looking forward to reading his other book, More Sex is Safer Sex. His blog is always interesting too.
I learned a lot in this book and was persuaded by his arguments including belief in a certain kind of ESP, being a jerk when it comes to illegal immigration, and even the true nature of reality.
I read his previous book, The Armchair Economist, and don’t remember it being all that good, but I’m thinking of reading it again just because it must have some insights I failed to grasp. I’m also looking forward to reading his other book, More Sex is Safer Sex. His blog is always interesting too.
January 29, 2010
Very interesting worldview expressed here - pretty much what you would expect from a Libertarian, economist-mathemetician. Whether you agree with him or not, this is a guy who has thought long and hard about what he believes, and why. He me leave some very big gaps in the explanation (too much "trust me on this" type of stuff), forget that the "devil is in the details" and take some big leaps, but this book will challenge you to also think about "the big questions" for yourself. Probably would make a good book for a book discussion group with a scientific and/or philosophical inclination.
Read
July 28, 2011I read this a little bit at a time over many weeks so it is hard to remember much of it. It's a mixture of philosophy, economics, math, physics, theology (or not), educational philosophy etc. Landsburg thinks way outside the box and he is excellent at following things to their logical conclusions. He is brilliant - and often arrogant - but he does get you to think and to question the underlying assumptions of conventional wisdom. It would be a good discussion book (as long as we don't all have to understand all of the math and physics involved).
March 22, 2010
Up and down. Certain parts of the book I really enjoyed and learned from (such as the topics on Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle and Godels Theorem). Others, such as Landsburg's thoughts on religion and "belief" were not so enjoyable. Faith is something that you either have or don't - and Landsburg clearly doesn't have it, or even "get it". His opinions are strongly expressed.
Overall, I'm glad I read it though and will continue to check out his future works.
Overall, I'm glad I read it though and will continue to check out his future works.
August 21, 2011
This was a very provocative book filled with all kinds of neat insight. I found myself very sympathetic to many of the author's viewpoints save only a few. The only reason I gave this four stars is because I would have liked to have seen some of the ideas more fully developed. Understandably, this is geared to a popular audience, but a deeper analysis on occasion would not have made it any less readable.
Read
October 31, 2010Philosophy and economics ands physics and math and ... finding lots to disagree with and lots to think about.
Abandoned because reading his conclusions to tricky philosophical issues felt like missing the point that *I* am supposed to be *thinking* about them, not reading about them. Reading other people's conclusions is like confusing a takeaway for "cooking", or a vial of semen for sex.
Abandoned because reading his conclusions to tricky philosophical issues felt like missing the point that *I* am supposed to be *thinking* about them, not reading about them. Reading other people's conclusions is like confusing a takeaway for "cooking", or a vial of semen for sex.
August 11, 2010
Landsburg approaches Big Questions, from "What is real?" to "What should economic policy be?" with rational arguments based in mathematics. Very entertaining and thought-provoking. Some tangential digressions, but for the most part those are not a distraction.
February 1, 2011
This fellow likes math and economics for many of the same reasons I do. I hope I don't come off as QUITE so conceited, though! In the end I thought his conceit got the better of him. He even cheated here and there.
May 18, 2010
Very entertaining though probably not as deep as I was expecting. Economic insights here are pretty simple for anyone who studied the subject but I was fascinated to learn more on maths, physics and philosophy. Recommended.
will-not-finish
December 13, 2010"I'm not saying that the laws of arithmetic are eternal and immutable; I'm saying more than that. Eternal means for all time, but mathematics exists outside of time." In the beginning there was arithmetic... Sheesh.
October 30, 2010
Almost 4 stars but not quite. A lot of good things to think about to be sure, and a very quick read as a result of his good writing and clear explanations. I felt that there was a bit of a lacking to some arguments -- particularly with regards to philosophy and consequentialism.
January 11, 2011
Interesting ideas, but the author comes off as way too self-assured that his answers are "right". Being certain (or extremely confident) that you have deduced the logical answers to the big questions requires certainty about the premises. I'm not so confident of those.
February 14, 2011
The subtitle is a nice teaser, and the book--to some degree--delivers on the promise. Landsburg loves math and tries to do a lot with it. Even if he's not right in his answers to the "Big Questions" (and he accepts that he may not be), he provides an interesting point of view.
January 22, 2015
Does this book tackle a philosophical questions with insights from mathematics? Not really. Does it offer personal prejudices, circular arguments and spurious reasoning as a counterfeit as such? Very much so. Read at your own risk & don't say you weren't warned.
December 21, 2009
I learned about logic and clear thinking.
February 10, 2010
Overall, I liked the book. However, this is the kind of book that you have to read twice in order to fully understand it. I'll have to read this book again next year to see what I think.
Want to Read
August 24, 2011Recommended by a student, 8/24/2011
August 28, 2015
Tedious, hideous, desultory and... bleh. Mediocre.
October 28, 2021
"Do not be too constrained by traditional boundaries between subjects. Let your mind run free." That is a clarion call in the second last paragraph of this exciting read, The Big Question by Steven E Landsburg, and true to those words, it seems the good Professor was on a mission to prove his point.
The title of Steven Landsburg's treatise, "The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics (which, according to Landsburg, must be the fabric of the universe), Economics, and Physics," does an excellent job of explaining the goal of this book. Landsburg addresses topics such as belief, knowledge, right versus wrong, and other philosophical problems through mathematics's lens (primarily).
This attempt is an interesting (and ambitious) idea for a book. The execution, however, is rough and abrasive. Landsburg's points are consistently logical, cohesive, and coherent. However, how the points are made is often dismissive, making the arguments hard to separate from the harsh treatment of viewpoints that might not align with those of the author.
While the book is a delight to read, and I learned quite a few things, other aspects are pretty controversial, especially the chapters on ethics. This is enunciated in his attempt to try to solve some of the classical moral dilemmas that have been debated for aeons. The author applies what I could label "impeccably sound economic arguments" to some ethical dilemmas such as the well-known Trolley Problem, its modification of the Doctor Problem, or its second modification, the Headache Problem. For example, Landsburg claims that it is OK to kill an innocent person to stop a minor headache that will last for an hour to one billion people! Landsberg's anti-humanism is sometimes disturbing, but I think it's primarily a by-product of his faith in mathematical mysticism.
It would be interesting to read a book that debates Landsburg's arguments. After all, this is what philosophy for the last three millennia has been about, arguments and counterarguments. So be sure you read the book, but read it with an open mind. It's an exciting book in an intellectually middling sort of way. I think the best way to put it comes from a much deeper economist: "a stupid man's idea of what a smart person sounds like."
The title of Steven Landsburg's treatise, "The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics (which, according to Landsburg, must be the fabric of the universe), Economics, and Physics," does an excellent job of explaining the goal of this book. Landsburg addresses topics such as belief, knowledge, right versus wrong, and other philosophical problems through mathematics's lens (primarily).
This attempt is an interesting (and ambitious) idea for a book. The execution, however, is rough and abrasive. Landsburg's points are consistently logical, cohesive, and coherent. However, how the points are made is often dismissive, making the arguments hard to separate from the harsh treatment of viewpoints that might not align with those of the author.
While the book is a delight to read, and I learned quite a few things, other aspects are pretty controversial, especially the chapters on ethics. This is enunciated in his attempt to try to solve some of the classical moral dilemmas that have been debated for aeons. The author applies what I could label "impeccably sound economic arguments" to some ethical dilemmas such as the well-known Trolley Problem, its modification of the Doctor Problem, or its second modification, the Headache Problem. For example, Landsburg claims that it is OK to kill an innocent person to stop a minor headache that will last for an hour to one billion people! Landsberg's anti-humanism is sometimes disturbing, but I think it's primarily a by-product of his faith in mathematical mysticism.
It would be interesting to read a book that debates Landsburg's arguments. After all, this is what philosophy for the last three millennia has been about, arguments and counterarguments. So be sure you read the book, but read it with an open mind. It's an exciting book in an intellectually middling sort of way. I think the best way to put it comes from a much deeper economist: "a stupid man's idea of what a smart person sounds like."
March 26, 2022
Pop economists often get a bad rep. The common allegations levied are of simplistic narratives, oversimplified axioms and thorough lack of nuance. While these are not entirely false they are most definitely not entirely correct. Under the assumption that not all books can be as dense as Journal papers you've got to understand that economists who write for the larger audience primarily serve two purposes. The first is to help the lay person understand how incentives work and number two point out the logical fallacies using real world examples to actually drive home the importance of thinking rationally like an economist. Stephen landsberg does exactly this with the addition of using witty and humorous prose. The book does not have the chart breaking light bulb moments which a book like freakonomics might have had but it gives you a lot of incentive to actually rethink your beliefs and hopefully become more rational by the time you finish this book. For me this book reaffirmed the mathematical nature of philosophy, the transactional nature of our morals and how we are all in our own little ways deluded economists who think that we are thinking rationally but are more emotionally driven than we might want to believe.In this, the book does a similar job what Kanheman's Thinking fast Thinking slow does, in that it drives home the point that many times what we believe in is a product of sensory perceptions, emotions and human biases. Overall a very fun and informative read which is eclectic and wide ranging in its scope
June 5, 2018
Many small daily loge ideas, questions on philosophy, math, mostly on economics...I think i have understood the direction of author. Landsburg has similar taste on scientists. We like same group of scientists whom led us to have the same rational and critical thinking.
October 1, 2020
Started off quite interesting but I gradually lost interest. Thought it would be quite eye opening and philosophical but the writer is an economist and there was too much economicky stuff for me! Good insight though!
October 12, 2023
If you have time to read only one chapter (or, if you started from chapter 1 and didn't like it at all), I recommend this as my favourite:
(20) The Economist on the Playground
For math buffs (along Martin Gardner's lines), this will be delightful:
(21) Let the Rabbi Split the Pie
(20) The Economist on the Playground
For math buffs (along Martin Gardner's lines), this will be delightful:
(21) Let the Rabbi Split the Pie
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