You are indeed correct. My formulation was imprecise. My response was simply directed at his desire to let all the letters of the word "fact" enter the majuscular kingdom. This thread is not about existentialism, and I apologize for deviating from the subject. I stated earlier that I am currently pursuing a math degree, thus I assume that we are in more agreement than you seem to believe. I am here to learn, and I want to thank MAESTRO for giving me food for thought. Ashby was an unknown to me until now, but that is something I will remedy in the near future.
We are associated by name only, at least to the best of my knowledge. Chaos theory is relevant for this thread, though.
No, I was not. He was an empiricist. IU am a pragmatist. Question for you: Isn't it a fact that you replied to my post? When I see totally absurd idiotic statement, like the ones you and some others often make I cannot help it. But you are correct, I should not pay attention to such dellusions. Instead of judging me try to help some other traders learn something. This is 80% of my posts. What is the percentage of your posts towards that? I bet not even 1%. You spend your time arguing.
Dear all, once again, could we please stick to discussing the topic of this thread which is RANDOMNESS at large. I promise we would all gain if we try to stay focused.
As far as this world even exists, then yes, I would consider it a fact. I thought I made this perfectly clear in my last post. I have no history of being argumentative, and I do not intend to start now. Although, I must confess that I have an affinity for "totally absurd idiotic statement". My sense of humor is peculiar, perhaps. Judging by your history of posts, it seems you tend to argue more than me. You have a tendency to be condescending and lecturing, but your posts do have merit, I will give you that. However, I would advise you to open your horizons a little... To make this easy for you: I am, as all my opinions are, stupid (although I actually am a certified genius). Can we please focus on the topic at hand? Or did you already debunk randomness several pages back? I will not reply to another off-topic post again. If I do, please ban me from the site. I refuse to let my self-worth decay further; I will stay clear of the abyss that is pointless discussions in the realm of cyberspace. On a side note (ironically), I've already skimmed through "An Introduction To Cybernetics", hopefully I'll have the time to dive deeper into it soon!
I think I understand Mike0085's position a bit. Long post ahead -- doing this without proofreading just to get it out in one smear. First off, Nietzsche was far from an empiricist (nor was he an existentialist), though he shared its attack on transcendentalism. There's a certain tradition in philosophy that often begins with the Skeptics, runs through Nietzsche, then Heidegger, then basically corresponds very well with much of what people are chewing on today that crosses many boundaries of inquiry, including theoretical physics and even Eastern philosophy. On the other hand there's the anti-realist strain in analytic tradition that fits well with formal logic, linguistics, logical positivism, and much of the functional sciences. Most Americans from the particularly "hard-nosed" sentiment fall into this tradition, and then stop at positivism, often never understanding the big problems with positivism we've since explored. You state you're a pragmatist, but I'm betting you actually fall in this camp (which is directly opposed to Pragmatism). When I talk about things like a skepticism about the "real world" it doesn't mean that we float in god's dream and operate outside of factual existence. It's rooted in a epistemological position that there is no correspondence between language, including mathematics, and this so-called "outside world". Our knowledge operates within a network of other concepts that we have deemed true, and "truth" is not a property of the outside world that somehow grants itself to our statements. We add and refine concepts within this network, but in doing so we never get closer to some absolute truth out there. This process is what Kuhn talks about in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions"><i>The Structure of Scientific Revolutions</i></a> and is formalized in the <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pragmatism/#PraTheTru">pragmatist theory of truth</a>. This is what Maestro hinted at when he talked about changes in scientific knowledge over time, and about the Big Bang, and which is also why I took back the "correspondence theory" dig. So, getting back to randomness -- my whole arc in this thread has been disagreeing that we're getting outside of Plato's cave by uncovering randomness as a "sky hook" to transcend the structural limits of our comprehension. Rather, randomness could be a functionally better fit within what we know now. You would agree with me along these lines, I think, but not with me on the Pragmatist stuff. edit: I may be misreading what role randomness plays in this new cosmology anyway; no idea since I haven't yet read into the texts that Maestro has presented. Regardless, I think this is, maybe, a fair way to frame two commonly opposing positions when addressing a claim about whether randomness is a fundamental property of all things, or a measurement of what we don't know.
I went to Montana State for my undergraduate degree, then went to University of Houston for my MS in Applied Math. The University of Houston is a tier one research university, and they have a very difficult graduate program compared to the majority of other schools. Its no Princeton, but its not easy either. Coming from Montana's program I was surprised by how rigorous the program in Houston was, and I had quite a bit of difficulty adjusting. At UH, I worked as a research assistant for a face recognition project as a supported grad. student (i.e. free tuition and a meager paycheck). I have a couple publications I was a co-author on that were accepted to conferences, and this is unusual for many MS students. I am not saying that I am "so-much-better" than anyone, I am just saying I apparently had what my professor wanted in order to work with him on projects or maybe I just got lucky. I am humble about it. Math teaches you that, actually, since you really learn logic. You learn there are other possibilities to your preconceived notions. Now I am at UC-Denver, which has a great computational mathematics program, and is different in a good way over UH where I went before. Honestly, the requirements are easier, however they also are more realist. They don't bother to make you take preliminary tests just to be in the program on 5 textbooks worth of abstract material such as topology or algebraic geometry. Here they just make you test out of the stuff that matters so you can reasonably learn higher math. Of course this is a subjective observation. I came here because I wanted to be closer to home while being in an urban environment. I also grew tired of being in the heat and in a dirty city full of poverty. Denver is much cleaner in my opinion, and a better place for my sanity since I can go hiking or camping whenever I want, while being able to also enjoy the benefits of an urban environment. However, I have no need to justify it to you. When I say "part time", I mean I am taking 6 credits per semester instead of 9. Typically a graduate program consists of 9 credits per semester since the work-load is much harder over undergraduate. A typical graduate homework assignment takes about 8 hours. Undergrads typically take 15 credits per semester and spend about the same time on homework as grad students. Its just a different criteria. However, I already satisfy about 3/5 of what I need for a PhD. I was lucky enough to have an extremely strong MS program, so all I really need to do is complete my dissertation and do some "breadth" courses. I work full-time and go to school part-time because its expensive to go to school and have a family. My wife and I are trying to have a kid. Right now, I work for a trading platform company, and I can't mention the name because its not relevant. I am talking as myself, not for my company. Too many times people confuse individual opinions with who they work for. Before working here I spent my time in grad school, and part-time coding automated methods that aided manual trading and indicators for my friend's large Forex portfolio. Now, I am not sure why I even bothered to respond to you since you are such a hostile person, however perhaps it helps you to understand there are people with a "normal" history behind posts on these forums. All I was concerned with is the fact that a handful of people who call themselves traders tend to be extremely hostile towards "academics", however they never bother to define what these people actually are with truth, and instead make up television-stereotype lies. Its like having a made-up enemy without fully understanding the fact that most everyone who is an "academic" is actually mostly normal. Anyway, this is a late response. However, I
Well, let me correct YOU and tell you its quite common. We have a couple people in our department graduating this year with a PhD after spending two to three years working full time and going for a PhD part time. This sounds like not many, but even at my former university, which had a very large graduate program, only 5 people graduated a year with one. Typically the last 1-2 years of a PhD program are full time, since you need to get involved with a professor's research. You are not accounting for the difference between "supported" and "unsupported" students, nor are you accounting for their progression through the program. There is not enough funding for every graduate student to be supported. I was a supported student for my MS, and now I am not one temporarily since I relocated across states. Of course, its the ultimate goal for a PhD student to become a supported researcher at a university, but often things life gets in the way.