Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing

Jamie Holmes 'Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing" disappointed me, given the other reviews I had seen and the general buzz that this book has seemed to generate.First of all, Holmes does not provide his own account of how to deal with ambiguity. Rather, the book is a collection of stories ranging from the MotoGP to the fashion industry to the Yom Kippur war in which different individuals face ambiguity and respond to it in either (stereotypical) bad or good ways. Holmes does well in making explicit the lessons we are supposed to draw from each story. However, what would have been most interesting - the particular arguments in favour of each conclusion on the basis of each story - is entirely absent.Second, given the generality of the lessons that Holmes wants to teach us and the claims he wants us to consider or accept, many of the stories are redundant. Yes, they serve the purpose of illustrating each lesson. But, strictly speaking, they are not necessary. A good example is the following. Holmes alludes to the interesting (philosophical) difference between 'risk' and 'ambiguity'. In the former, we can assign probabilities to the different possible outcomes of our action/an event, whereas in the latter we don't even have sufficient information to assign probabilities. However, after having presented the distinction, Holmes doesn't do anything with it. That is a real shame given that normative uncertainty (and acting under it) is currently a hot topic in decision-theory.Most helpful in Holmes' book I found his inclusion of Arne Roets and Alain van Hiel their version of the need-for-closure scale. By answering fifteen questions, scoring each question between 1-6, you can come to a total score that will inform you about your own need for closure. In my view, this should have formed the starting point for the book, after which Holmes could have discussed different strategies of lowering your scores on this, when and why closure might be a virtue, etc. But this is not the case. A missed opportunity, in my view.

This is an increasingly important area, as evidence-based policy and the testing culture of many education systems focus on the value of knowing. Holmes misses out clear identification of the reasons why knowing has become such a strong driver, and why not knowing is more relevant than ever - not least because of the 'VUCA' (volatile, uncertain, complex & ambiguous) world around us. Whilst there are many interesting anecdotes and examples of academic research, the author fails to connect their relevance to his central theme.

Good txn

Very mind provoking, but a bit rambling at times. However the answer to one of the problems posed would only be correct in a US context as our plugs will not fit. Read the book and you will understand what I mean!

This is a very readable account of what happens when we confront uncertainty and ambiguity - when our understanding of the world breaks down, when the causal relations we expect to hold are upturned. Basically - we do whatever we can to regain a sense of certainty, of comprehension.An example will illustrate this (drawing on the example Jon Elster gives of cognitive dissonance in  Explaining Social Behavior ). Say you buy an expensive ticket for a show you expect to enjoy. Then you don't enjoy the show. Your expectations are challenged. One way you could resolve this is by revising your perception of the event itself ('Maybe it wasn't so bad - yeah, I loved it!'). Alternatively, you can alter your beliefs ('They lost it years ago - and the ticket wasn't so expensive anyway...'). Either way, you regain the congruity between the value you ascribed to the ticket, and what you actually derived from it. This may seem to exhaust the possibilities for regaining a sense of certainty - but one of the fascinating findings from the research summarised by Holmes is that we can also attempt to compensate by reaffirming our certainty in other areas - completely removed from that in which we experienced the certainty-undermining event.So, for example, students who are reminded of their morbidity subsequently proclaim their political views more strongly. After the earthquake in San Francisco in the early 20th century, people tried to compensate by creating more certainty in the status of their relationships: both marriages and divorces increased.Holmes also looks at the relevance of our aversion to uncertainty and ambiguity in the areas of decision making - particularly in relation to:* high stakes hostage events (how low tolerance of ambiguity led to the tragic end of the Waco siege),* anticipating vs. reacting to market trends (looking at how Zara shortened time-to-market, foregoing the need for costly investments based on shaky predictions) and* health (where our grasping for certainty can lead to harmful overtesting).Much of the advice he gives can be summarised as 'being open-minded is better than being close-minded' - which seems quite trite. But it's the depth and breadth of the exploration into why this is the case that made this a worthwhile read for me.He also discusses the importance of ambiguity for creativity - citing interesting research which suggests that speaking more than one language, or having experience living in more than one culture, can increase one's capacity to tolerate and exploit ambiguity and uncertainty. This has benefits for creativity (which he suggests thrives on the representation, exploitation and resolution of uncertainty), and also creative thinking more generally.The style of the book is well-written stories and case studies, which makes it very readable, but I would have appreciated some more consolidation and summaries of the material covered and the main points and advice - hence four rather than five stars. But it's still a very good read which I'd recommend to anyone interested in the subject of how we deal with the fact that (spoiler alert!) we can't know everything we'd like to about how to get by in the world (gutted, right?).