One of my sisters/cousins sent a book to me this year during Dusshera, which is titled “Algorithms to Live by” by Brian Christian & Tom Griffiths. Its subtitle is “The Computer Science of Human Decisions”. I have now finished reading it, which made me think this can be another post for my blog and that’s why we are here.
You might be asking yourself what is this book about and should I get one too. I will answer both of your questions. The answer to the first question is what you might expect. This book discusses algorithms that may be useful during certain events in one’s life. The events can be anything from something special like going to a casino, to something mundane like sorting your book collection, to something regular like parking your vehicle, to something exciting like planning guest seating at your wedding, to something dumb like finding a life partner (or a secretary), to something as practical as scheduling your everyday tasks. The answer to the second question is why not! Here’s a quote from the book that recommends this decision:
We can hope to be fortunate – but we should strive to be wise.
What this seems to mean to me is that we may be fortunate in enjoying certain outcomes once in a while but being wise is something that will guide our approach that will (more or less) guarantee favourable outcomes regularly. This book will make you worldly-wise about which approach to take in various situations to maximize favourable outcomes. Fortune can come and go but wisdom, once acquired, is always there to guide. Through life and death. So it is time for
