Respectfully, I beg your reconsideration. Every time anyone brings up any argument in favor of randomness in market movement (some randomness != perfect randomness), it inevitably turns into an anti-intellectual bashfest by a bunch of mouth breathers; We might as well let it all vent in one thread.
How about this: if there's no crash by the end of the day 20th, you go donate to one of those worthwhile charities that fund some poor kids' education. At least you'll give someone a chance that you squandered so wastefully by learning absolutely nothing in school. Fair?
So in one breadth you decry intellectualism (you hate PhDs, remember?) - in the other, you think I missed the short bus to "school"? That's the problem with you self righteous blue collar types - you can't even manage to be internally consistent.
Yes, that was the point; No one knows. You are essentially paraphrasing Nietzsche. The whole quote is ironic. Isn't stating that there are no facts indeed a proposed fact in itself? Nietzsche's point, as I interpret it, was that we can acquire nothing more than metaphors for our surroundings, whether they be literary or mathematical in nature. Since we cannot chop off our heads and observe the universe objectively, we are forever condemned to perceive it through our minds. Because no one knows, there are no "facts". But this is more a discussion about semantics than it is about the validity of various constructs. If you want to argue that facts describe what is "correct" within the confines our limited knowledge, then yes, there certainly exist facts. My response was directed at the other poster's need to use bold letters to emphasize his feelings about the validity of mathematics. Such "shouting" is usually a sign of mental inflexibility, which is why most fail at trading. By the way, it is funny that you bring up Asperger's. Based on your argumentative style of writing, coupled with the need to make bombastic statements, I assumed you had it yourself. And I should know, as I suffer from/am blessed with exactly that neurological condition. The practical approach is often the best...
No, I think it's a sign of his utter frustration that the public school system has so failed the members of this board. I don't mean you - at least you seem to be reasonable. And while I do enjoy thus spoke zarathustra (or at least, in my younger days), I'm not sure existentialism is particularly useful for this discussion. If we use the existential world view, then we can never consistently or reasonably make any decisions about the market or the world in general. So we default to the another (unreasonably accurate and useful) framework under logical positivism: axiomatic mathematics - the tool with which we had so much success in modeling the physical world that we can exceed our flesh limitations by such wondrous extents. Under the ignorant pitch-fork mentality of this people on this board, we ought to build airplanes based on the intuition that how can we possibly fly without flapping our wings like birds?
There's an ontological difference between truth and fact; it may be that 'there are no facts' is a truth.
I am glad to see that this thread has been cleaned up and there is an attempt to continue this very fruitful discussion. I would like to ask all of the participants to be tolerant to each other. After all, any discussion needs variety of view points to become meaningful. My favorite thinker - one of the Fathers of Cybernetics - William Ross Ashby ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ross_Ashby ) in his ground breaking work "An Introduction to Cybernetics" has established 'The Law of Requisite Variety". In this astonishing discovery he proved that for any system (biological, political, technical, trading system etc.) the stability could be only achieved if the "complexity" of the system is greater or at least equal to the "complexity" of the environment that this system operates in. This law has far reaching consequences. It is continuation of his work that has motivated me for the past 35 years in my research and development of automated systems (not just trading systems, but other systems such as control systems for remote objects etc.) The logical extension of 'The Law of Requisite Variety" led me to rediscovery of randomness and its impact on everything around us. It has fascinated me for years and led me to quite a few discoveries related to the human behavioral patterns. The purpose of my posts on ET has always been and always will be my internal desire to share the fascination and excitement that I constantly experience in my research work. I will be glad to share here my points of view that are, I have to admit, not commonly accepted. However, if some of you should become interested in "new Randomness" I promise you will be amazed how much it will expand your mind. My college and a friend, a retired UFT prof. Burk Brown ( http://www.aakkozzll.com/ ) has written in his web site the words that might help you to appreciate where I am coming from. "A revolution in thought has occurred in our knowledge of human behaviour that ranks in importance with names such as Einstein, Darwin, and Newton etc. It has no comparable hero, it defies common sense to the same extent that the fourth dimension is not accessible to our senses, and appears on no list of the greatest discoveries in the history of man. Unfortunately the revolution in thought is essential to all, is accessible to very few, only after extensive and lengthy training, and these few have been singularly unsuccessful, and frustrated, in their inability to share with all that which they have perceived. One is reminded of the situation described in Platoâs Allegory of the Cave, Abbottâs Flatland, and The Blind Men and the Elephant"
Thank you heartily for the information, and for being willing to toss your hat in the ring. <a href="http://www.aakkozzll.com/docs/history.htm">I see here is an excellent place to start for me.</a> In lieu of the specialized training, unfortunately, I'm grateful there's a small compendium of articles. Do you have any suggestions as to points of entry that you found useful in your education (for a generalist)? I always remain uncomfortable with Plato's analogy as a starting point though, outside of a metaphor for a more psychological phenomenon -- that old Idealist notion of a "real world" has its snags