Its take on probability as a way of modelling our brain is refreshing, for instance, the beginning of chapter 1:
Suppose some dark night a policeman walks down a street, apparently deserted; but suddenly he hears a burglar alarm, looks across the street, and sees a jewelry store with a broken window. Then a gentleman wearing a mask comes crawling out through the broken window, carrying a bag which turns out to be full of expensive jewelry. The policeman doesn't hesitate at all in deciding that this gentleman is dishonest. But by what reasoning process does he arrive at this conclusion? Let us first take a leisurely look at the general nature of such problems.
A moment's thought makes it clear that our policeman's conclusion was not a logical deduction from the evidence; for there may have been a perfectly innocent explanation for everything. It might be, for example, that this gentleman was the owner of the jewelry store and he was coming home from a masquerade party, and didn't have the key with him. But just as he walked by his store a passing truck threw a stone through the window; and he was only protecting his own property. Now while the policeman's reasoning process was not logical deduction, we will grant that it had a certain degree of validity. The evidence did not make the gentleman's dishonesty certain, but it did make it extremely plausible. This is an example of a kind of reasoning in which we haveall become more or less proficient, necessarily, long before studying mathematical theories. We are hardly able to get through one waking hour without facing some situation (e.g. will it rain or won't it?) where we do not have enough information to permit deductive reasoning; but still we must decide immediately what to do.
Ah, but policeman's actual thought process might have actually been purely deductive or purely reflexive, it might only be that the probabilities justify a series of a discreet calculations.
Suppose some dark night a policeman walks down a street, apparently deserted; but suddenly he hears a burglar alarm, looks across the street, and sees a jewelry store with a broken window. Then a gentleman wearing a mask comes crawling out through the broken window, carrying a bag which turns out to be full of expensive jewelry. The policeman doesn't hesitate at all in deciding that this gentleman is dishonest. But by what reasoning process does he arrive at this conclusion? Let us first take a leisurely look at the general nature of such problems.
A moment's thought makes it clear that our policeman's conclusion was not a logical deduction from the evidence; for there may have been a perfectly innocent explanation for everything. It might be, for example, that this gentleman was the owner of the jewelry store and he was coming home from a masquerade party, and didn't have the key with him. But just as he walked by his store a passing truck threw a stone through the window; and he was only protecting his own property. Now while the policeman's reasoning process was not logical deduction, we will grant that it had a certain degree of validity. The evidence did not make the gentleman's dishonesty certain, but it did make it extremely plausible. This is an example of a kind of reasoning in which we haveall become more or less proficient, necessarily, long before studying mathematical theories. We are hardly able to get through one waking hour without facing some situation (e.g. will it rain or won't it?) where we do not have enough information to permit deductive reasoning; but still we must decide immediately what to do.