Part One: Umberto Eco's Antilibrary, or How We Seek Validation, Chapter 8: Giacomo Casanova's Unfailing Luck: The Problem of Silent Evidence Summary and Analysis

Summary

Silent evidence was defined as ignored events that had contributed to a Black Swan event. A well-known novelist, Balzac, was brought forward as an example, since one of his stories dealt with a writer who experienced a period of silent evidence for not having his book published and then was published. If the character had not experienced the lucky break of becoming published, he would have become silent evidence.

Another example was the common practice of analyzing why millionaires became rich. Certainly hard work, risk-taking and other traits were found to be in common, but those same traits were also common to...