This thread makes me want to brush off my Heidegger and Nietzsche books. The question that underlines all this is as much as a philosophical question of epistemology and existentialism as it is with hard science. "What are man's truths ultimately? Merely his irrefutable errors." - Nietzsche
Dear MAESTRO, I am waiting an answer to this post, whenever you can of course: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=3272907#post3272907
You can take it one step further and ask: Would the move (that the big fund was maybe orchestrating) have happened without the big fund anyway?. Was the move coming that way all along and you only noticed this morning or maybe yesterday, or maybe you could have known this move coming a whole week in advance?.:eek: Furthermore, even if you knew it was coming a week in advance, could the relatively big interim fluctuations prevent you from exploiting it fully and properly and extracting a large amount of money from it?. I fully suspected this morning break and had planned for it all week, posted about it on the 15th, but only played it with a token position yesterday, for example.:eek: My current belief is that there is very little "random" in the markets, but there is a huge lot of "noise" that I do not understand, that makes it very hard and risky to exploit even the clearest of predictions. Sort of a Cassandra's complex mixed with a Pandora's Box. Now...off I go to my deterministic short term scalping...and playing with MAESTRO's splines...
Of course the big move would not have happened without the fund moving. Mixing metaphysics with the financial markets is a dangerous trap--- one I was in for quite some time pre 2003--- markets are moved by actions, nothing else, knowing these drivers and how they interact is the key to understanding the market--- adding metaphysical layers is the wrong path. surf
When your timing sucks as much as yours does, it is a good time to shut up, suspend judgment, suspend trading and open yourself up to learn from your elders.
To start with I never said that randomness is measure of ignorance or of anything for that matter. Then, randomness in quantum mechanics arises only when quantum systems interact with classical objects, the notorious measurement problem. Quantum mechanics has many interpretations. The many-world interpretation for example is completely deterministic. It is the measurement problem that gives rise to randomness but this is more of a philosophical issue. Evolution of quantum states is deterministic as described by the wave function. If interaction with a classicla objects occurs, there is state reduction and this leads to randomness. But in the many-worlds interpretation, state reduction does not occur. This is to say that things are much more complicated than what people read in popular science books. Unless someone has a PhD in QM it is very hard to talk intelligently about these things. I don't although I took several graduate courses in this area so I will refrain from discussin this any more other than to say that the issue of randomness and what random means is very complicated and not a subject for superficial talk.
Not at all! I was just trying to illustrate that one of the measures that I consider somewhat objective is the results of actual trading; trading that is based on the models that have psychological origin. Although I cannot provide any details of our trading results I can only tell that we have experienced quite stable success over the past 10 years. That gives me the confidence to think that I have done something right and my models do hold water. The foundation of those models (we currently have more than 20 of them) is exactly what we are discussing in this thread. I shall continue to present arguments for Embedded Randomness here. Even if I could ignite 1 or 2 people to seriously consider this approach I would feel satisfied. After all, we are not forever on this Earth and I need to propagate my ideas while I can. I am 100% sure they will help!
Here we come to our main disagreement. All other discussions, of course, are derivatives of this corner stone notion. statement #1 NOTHING in this world is random statement #2 There is not a phenomenon in this universe that is not based on a RANDOM PROCESS Now, I shall use the time that I have to compile enough evidence to prove statement #2 and will argue with statement #1. However, I will only engage myself in this very fruitful debate if all of the participants would exhibit respect to each other and refrain from childish insults that ET is famous for. I believe that I can provide a conclusive set of arguments that shall illustrate the validity of statement #2 and I shall present evidence that disproves the statement #1. I will also try to encourage the participants of this discussion to research the subject from its origins despite some prior educational dogmas that they might have inherited. Cheers, MAESTRO