Apparently I am having trouble sleeping (again) so here is a quick comment. In my opinion, Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey are the two premier American authors of the last century (we're talking Cowboy themes now). If anyone has a first edition hardback signed by either person, you have a real collectible item worth serious dollars. In contrast, although I like Sekida, not many know of him and his work doesn't command a premium. Good night Steve
This is the NOW concept that scientist speaks of in his last post (in the hook up forum). Several traders have intimated that trading is possible using mental processes that are very different than what is regarded as the convention. As one of them, I refer to "sports memory" trading. Scientist comments on his findings which are similar. It is very difficult to communicate about unknown opportunities. The opportunities are unknown to the reader and known to the writer. For a trader to adopt a goal of just using NOW to trade is nearly impossible to begin with. If he did then something happens (changes) with regard to almost everything that can be considered in his personal quest to attain skills, knowledge and experience. This is true of all things kindred to the NOW opportunity and goal. Fighting with swords in an ancient civilization is just something to picture as a kindred example. I believe it would be very common for anyone to just cast aside the NOW concept and its utility for trading to make money. The few who may consider it would, logically, tire after a while. It is just too tiring to continue to deal with shuffling all the thoughts and ideas that surface once the idea is planted. Most all old ideas have no use and a lot of new thinking has to be put in place. You can see how the book owners here pass up the book contents that deal in this vein. They read it. They own it on a shelf and they pass its value up. But what if......... My normal genre is cutting edge reasoning to deal with short lived problems. Seeing people die quickly in a trauma center is a good example. Not bringing a distillation column into balance in itsoperation is another. Doing glider acrobatics qualifies. A NOW orientation for making money is the place to be. Participating in parallel activities enhances knowledge, skills and experience. ET was fortunate to be able to see one dramatic and excellent before, during and after successful transition from the norm to NOW operations. Scientist. That lack of understanding of this transition paralleled the success that occurred. See the writings of his detractors. Google "scientist". As an experiential phenomena, let me comment on the salient components of the evolution that occurs. Reread the scientist last post to run a check on the elements from another similar viewpoint. A person can also see why they are unable to identify with this thinking and why they have the rationale that they do for rejecting it. First, of all the idea of NOW is foreign; it flys in the face of most transition people are trying to affect to make money. It puts immense weight on the person's personal performance capabilities. It appears as a reality check that is trenchant. It cannot be a possibility because of the requirements,personal requirements. Blatant knowledge and skill requirements. The wholistic nature of the markets and trading come right into view since NOW gives a person a front row seat. There is no one sitting in front of you to block anything from view. Time changes. this is the most amazing aspect of NOW. Time changes concurrently in two ways. This read from this point on is not good news for most traders. Any views a person has are changed by a consideration of things not considered in the past. This is not desired by most since a struggle has occurred to establish what is what and its efficacy is a nagging problem always. Considering something new or different is always tough for some people. By getting the idea of NOW causes the present to expand in width. More and more can be crowded into the present. It is a capability increase that is phenomenal. Knowldedge is available and multiple skills can be used simultaneously. The NOW elevator is rising and, with abundant knowledge and skills, the scene has more depth and is a 360 view obtained by orienting the viewer to the 360 view. this was not a sensory possibility before. Time has, relatively speakng, slowed down in proportion to the three increases in available knowledge, multiple skills availability and the advent of a full 360 view. A distancing, relatively speaking, from the past and future has also occurred by the characterisitc of time slowing down and the seemingly widening of the present. I write a paper on channels and 25% of it is in discussing adjacent bars. Five hours of review on the paper by the VI team (Village Idiot) to be sure pitfalls are taken cae of result in quintupling some parts of the text. Time is being changed; it is being slowed down for people. They have much longer times to look at what they have been seeing for their trading careers These illusions, to others, who will never have the experience, are not important either. That is the way it is for most people. Glimpses make up their worlds. Short unperceiving looks at things. What happens to the past (its content to provie the basis of futures analysis and decision making) is that is not on the table nor is it in view. Prediction become mute for the reason that the past came off the table. All of the mind uses and the time that they consummed leave and there is a vaccuum that sucks NOW into the space and expands it. OR a clearing of thoughts of these things makes room for waves of thoughts all focused upon now. If a person embarks on NOW as the trading modus, then, in effect, everything changes. Everything changing cannot be allowed to happen; it is simply not a possibility. But what really happens is that a person just goes to two operant ways. He trades to make money one way and he also has all the prior equipment he had before and is not using it. It is like taking off with a state of the art naval fighter. You trade in NOW with live steam and everything else is before and after trading. The whole market session is just as long as the deck you use. You are taking off in NOW only. NOW moves through the trading day and everything needed is just being used for NOW in NOW. I use the expression that I trade with sports memory. Scientist articulates it similarly as "a business" memory type activity. NOW is an "unconscious time as depicted in the "four stages of trading". To experience the effects, is not ever going to happen for most. describing them is not too important but it is valuable to let others know what it is like as an informative gesture. FYI so to speak. Ancient wisdom can have new unforseen applications. I, briefly, have given a glimpse of this in this post. It is not a good post because it is difficult to compress into a few thousand words how such a major shift in making money technique is involved. Around 1960 I caught on to the idea that trading to make money was an incredible cash flow system and it could be run at the max. Optimal extraction, it turns out, cannot be done conventionally. The shift that is possible in the human interaction with the markets, is truly amazing. The NOW ways, depicted by the ancient saying, are the consumate kind of enjoyment for taking all the potential the market present out of the market. It is the "unbelievable" place to operate for fun and enjoyment and making a lot of money. Every few years a topic comes up that is really exciting to deal with. In my life getting to sports memory trading has been the most fun of all. Putting all the many many pieces together and leeting them flow is something else. The sufficiency math gismo is where the action really is.
I really don't care much for philosophers and conjecturers of all sorts. I do know what the quote is talking about having been in some pretty strange and wonderful martial arts schools. There is a point that a person can reach where they use intelligence distributed in their gut. Scientists discovered this extra intelligence in the later 90's and they made the startling discovery that our gut can react to events up to 5 seconds before they happen. They measured increased electrical activity ahead of the actual event. Becoming aware of what that distributed intelligence is telling us is the thing a Sword fighter needs to do. The sword fighters are the best at this BTW. I had a lot of time to think about why the sword would be the path to awakening that part of consciousness and it became obvious that it is because the sword is quite scary. You walk into a Japanese Sword school and there are real, really sharp swords on the walls and people there that know how to grab one and slice you from shoulder to hip diagonally. It is a weird, unreal situation and if that does not awaken the distributed intelligence in a person maybe nothing will. Tai Chi is similar, somehow slowing down and moving and relating to the universe gets us in touch with our gut. The problem with all the Marital Arts is that there is a Voodo element that creeps in. If one can get in touch with the distributed intelligence and avoid the Voodo one can become a more aware person. I find that when I am driving I can pay attention to my daydreams and they will warn me of impending events, and it is always about 5 seconds ahead of time. The events have to have an emotionally disturbing component like somebody driving badly in a way that would anger me. I was driving on a dangerous hiway in California last year, had a daydream about a guy crossing the double yellow and passing a whole bunch of cars and coming straight at me, 5 seconds later here comes the stupid bastard straight at me. I could easily avoid him because I was not completely surprised. My wife is a complete natural at listening to her gut. She was driving on a two lane road through the desert where we live, something told her to stop. There is no stop sign there at all but she stopped and right in front of her a corvette blew the two way stop at about 150 miles per hour. My daughter was in the car and she said the Corvette was kicking up a huge rooster tail of dust. In the hand to hand area it is strange how, with training, you can relax and just let an attack come straight at you, you will judge the direction and amount of force before it happens and you will react without even being in a hurry and just divert the whole thing so it does not hardly touch you. You can do this a lot better if you are not violent, your gut can't be in charge when you are mentally disturbed so it is better to have no intention of harming anybody regarding self defense. I'm not particularly that great at fighting, I got the lessons, learned the things I wanted to and stopped worrying about it. I lift dumbbells for exercise nowadays and revel in the knowledge of just how wonderfully made us humans are.
Three things I like about this thread: Grob's reference to the Scientist post, Grob's referance to sports memory, and maxpi's post - very insightful.
Anybody contemplating this idea should read Murdoch's Sovereignty of Good and Nicomachean Ethics. Iris Murdoch wasn't just a novelist.