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Exactly.
Steve
----- Original Message -----
From: "Pal Anand" <palsanand@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, March 12, 2004 12:20 PM
Subject: [amibroker] Re: Comments on Van Tharp courses please
> One must identify the rules men must follow in their thinking if
> knowledge, rather than error or delusion is their goal. These rules
> can be condensed into one general principle: thinking, to be valid,
> must adhere to reality. Or, in the memorable words of the old Dragnet
> TV series, which can serve as the motto of all reality-oriented
> thought: "Just give us the facts, ma'am." But how does one reach
> "just the facts"? The answer lies in the concept of Objectiveness;
> it requires that one grasp the full philosophic meaning and
> implication of this concept. When one grasps this concept, one will
> have an invaluable tool enabling one to assess and, if necessary,
> improve the quality of one's own thinking.
> The concept of "objective" which applies as a norm to all rational
> cognition, has its roots in the theory of concepts. "Objectivity"
> arises because concepts are formed by a specific process and, as a
> result, bear a specific kind of relationship to reality.
> The conceptual faculty is an instrument that reduces units by ommiting
> measurements. Or: concepts are a human method - of integrating
> preceptual data. Or: concepts are a device of our consciousness -
> to deal with existents. All these formulations point to a crucial
> fact. Concepts do not pertain to consciousness alone or to existence
> alone; they are products of a specific kind of relationshiop between
> the two. Abstractions are products of man's faculty of cognition and
> would not exist without it. But a faculty of cognition is concerned
> to grasp reality, and must, therefore, adhere to reality.
> One the one hand, there is a uniquely human contribution to the
> conceptual level of awareness, one that has no counter part in the
> process of sense perception. In contrast to perception,
> conceptualization is not an automatic reaction to stimuli; it is not
> a passive gazing that awaits the infallible imprinitng on the mind of
> some external entity. Concept formation and use is precisely the
> realm that is not automatic or infallible, but volitional. In order
> to conceoptualize, a man must expend effort; he must engage in the
> kind of mental work that no stimulus can necessitate. He must
> struggle to relate, connect, process an ever-growing range of data-
> and he must learn to do it correctly. Further: in such processing,
> the basic method he uses, measurement-ommission, is dictated by the
> nature of his cognitive faculty, not by reality. The result is a
> human prespective of things, not a revelation of a special sort of
> entity or attribute intrinsic in the world apart from man. Take away
> the mechanism of human consciousness, and the realm of concepts,
> universals, abstractions is thereby erased. The concretes that
> exist, the objects of perception, would still remain-as concretes;
> but the perspective that regards them as units would be gone.
> On the other hand, consciousness is the faculty of grasping that which
> is, and there is a metaphysical basis for concepts. There is
> something the same in reality about the units of a concept: their
> characteristics, which differ in various instances only in regard to
> their measurements. This is a fact about the concretes, not a
> creation of man. We can integrate preceptual entities into a mental
> unit only because these entities actually posses the same
> characteristics. We can treat existents as the same in a specified
> respect only because they are the same in that respect.
> Concepts are condensations of data formed by a volitional process in
> accordance with a human "method." The method is "human" because it
> expresses man's distinctive form of consciousness; it arises because
> of the nature and cognitive needs of man's mind. At the same time,
> the method (properly employed) conforms at each setp to facts;
> otherwise it would be irrelevant to a cognitive need. Man, therefore,
> cannot project the products of this method outward, into reality apart
> from man-nor can he detach them from reality, either. Such products
> represent a special kind of union: they represent reality as
> processed by human consiciousness. This is the status described as
> "Objective."
> The element of volition is crucial here. Percepts, too, are products
> of a relationship between existence and consciousness: they are a
> grasp of entities in a specific sensory form. But percepts are
> automatic; although they require a sequence of physiological steps,
> they involve no deliberate "method" of cognition and cannot depart
> from reality. Normative terms, therfore, such as "objective" and
> "subjective," are inapplicable to them.
> If someone asks: where is a preceptual object, eg., a man? it is
> accurate, even though we do perceive in a certain form, to answer:
> the object is out there, in the world. But, if someone asks: where
> is a conceptual object, eg., manness? the answer: such an object is
> neither "in the world" nor "in the eye of the beholder." Manness or
> any other "universal," is facts of the world, it is concretes-as
> reduced to a unit not by the eye, but by the mind of a conceptual
> being.
> Essenses are not attributes marked out by nature apart from man.
> "Essential" is not metaphysical, but an epistemological term.
> "Essential" designates characteristics that perform a certain function
> in connection with human conceptualization. The function is to
> differentiate and condense various bodies of data, and the
> characteristics that perfrom this function in one cognitive context
> may not do so in another. Since the category of "essence" arises
> because of a need of man's consciousness, the "essential" in each
> context has to reflect the state of human knowledge.
> Since defnitions are condensations of observed data, however, they are
> determined by such data; they are not arbitrary; they flow from the
> facts of the case. In this respect, definitions are "empirical"
> statements, and reality is the standard of what is essential.
> Definitions are statements of factual data-as condensed by a human
> consciousness in accordance with the needs of a human "method" of
> cognition. Like concepts, therefore, essences are products of a
> volitional relationship between existence and consciousness; they too
> (properly formed) are "objective."
> In the traditional (Platonic) viewpoint, every entity must have an
> essence or definition. This is not true. Since the designation of
> essential arises only as an aid to the conceptualizing process, it is
> inapplicable apart from that process. Concretes that have not been
> integrated into a concept have no "essence"; inthese cases there is
> no need or possiblity of a definition.
> Where, philosophers are wont to ask, does one draw the line in
> grouping concretes that are neither essential the same (as are a red
> table and a black one) not essentially different (as are a table and a
> chair)? "Suppose"-as a well-known professor of philosophy
> asked-"someone invents a "hanging table": an object with a flat, level
> surface designed to hold other objects, but hangs from the ceiling by
> chains, rather than resting on 3 legs on the floor. Is it "really' a
> table or not? And how in the world could anyone know?
> Precisely the "hanger" is borderline, one has several options. Since
> the entity does have some significant similarities to tables, one may
> choose to subsume it under that concept (which would require a
> contextual alteration in one's definition of "table"). Or; since the
> entity does have some significant differences from tables, one may
> form a new concept to designate it. Or: since the entity is not
> widespread and is of no importance in this regard to further
> cognition, one may and probably would choose niether option. One need
> not designate it by any one concept, old or new, but may identify it
> instead by a descriptive phrase, which is exactly what the professor
> did in posing his question.
> The borderline-case problem is no problem-not if one accepts an
> objective view of concepts and therefore of essenses, with the
> clasificatory options this makes possible.
> Conceptual options, it must be noted, exist only within certain
> defined limits. They exist only where the facts of reality can be
> organized by men in different ways without this making any cognitive
> difference or leading to any contradiction. In such cases, all the
> alternative modes of handling the facts are in accordance with
> reality. This situation provides no foothold for subjectivism to
> enter.
> What is knowledge and how does man acquire it? The objective approach
> to concepts leads to the view that, beyond the preceptual level,
> knowledge is the grasp of an object through an active, reality-based
> process or method chosen by the subject. Concepts, like every other
> mode of cognition, therefore, is the grasp, not the creation, of an
> object. Beyond the preceptual level, however, such conformity can be
> attained only by a complex process of abstraction and integration.
> Since this process is not automatic, it is not automatically right,
> either. Man cannot, therefore adopt a passive policy, one of waiting
> for the truth to enter his mind. In the use of a concept, as in its
> formation, he must choose and act. He must initiate step-by-step
> cognitive function; he must be willing to expend the effort required
> by each step; and he must choose the step carefully. They must
> constitute a "method" that makes it possible for man's consciousness,
> when dealing with abstraction, to achieve by deliberate policy that is
> not guaranteed to it automatically: to remain in contact with the
> realm of reality.
> Man does not need a "method" of cognition, mystics say, because on the
> most important matters he is incapable of error; if he turns his mind
> over to God, he is automatically right. Man is not automatically
> right, skeptics say, so his conclusions are untrustworthy and he
> cannot discover any "method"; in this view, man is incapable of
> truth. Man is not automatically right, is the correct reply by
> Objectivism to both schools, and for this very reason he must define
> a "method" of cognition, a "method" that will guide his mental
> processes properly and thereby make a fallible being capable of truth.
> For a volitional, conceptual consciousness, a "method" of knowing
> reality is both necessary and possible. The method must reflect 2
> factors: the facts of external reality and the nature of man's
> consciousness. It must reflect the first, because consciousness is
> not a self-contained entity; it is the faculty of perceiving that
> which exists. The method must reflect the 2nd factor, because
> consciousness has identity; the mind is not blank receptivity; it is
> a certain kind of integrating mechanism, and it must act accordingly.
> The conslusion: to be "objective" in one's conceptual activities is
> volitionally to adhere to reality by following certain rules of
> method, a method based on facts and appropriate to man's form of
> cognition. People often speak of "objective reality." In this usage,
> which is harmless, "objective" means "independent of consciousness."
> The actual purpose of the concept, however, is to be found not in
> metaphysics, but in epistemology. Strictly speaking, existents are
> not objective; they simply are. It is minds, and specifically
> conceptual processes, that are objective-or subjective.
> If objectivity requires a method of cognition, what is it? The answer
> in a word is: logic. Logic is a volitional consciousnes's method of
> conforming to reality. It is the method of reason. Logic is the art
> of noncontradictory identificaton. Knowledge is the "grasp" of an
> object. To grasp, we must identify, ie., to discover in some form the
> identiry of that which exists. On the perceptual level, one learns
> only that an entity is, not what it is.
> If man knew everything about reality in a single insight, logic would
> be needless. If man reached conceptual truth as he does preceptual
> fact, in a succession of unconnected self evidencies, logic would be
> needless. This, however, is not the nature of a conceptual being. We
> organize sense data in steps and in a definite order, building new
> integrations on earlier ones. It is for this reason that a method of
> moving from one step to the next is required. That is what logic
> provides. The method of logic, therefore, does reflect the nature and
> needs of man's consciousness. It also reflects the other factor
> essential to a proper method: the facts of external reality. The
> principle which logic provides to guide man's mental steps is the
> fundamental law of reality.
> Intrincism holds that universals are real ("out there"); subjectivism
> holds that they are nominal ("in here," in the sense of being
> arbitrary linguistic creations). In one view, concepts represent
> phenomena of existence apart from consciousness. In the other view,
> they represent phenomena of consciousness apart from existence.
> The intrinsicists, eager to ground human thought in the world of
> fact, project the products of man's conceptual activity outward, into
> reality apart from man. The subjectivists, rebelling against such
> projection, give up the quest for a grounding; man's conceptual
> products, they typically declare, being his chosen creations, his own
> prespective on things, are detached from reality. Neither school
> understands that such products, by their very nature, reflect both
> fact and choice, both existents and man's perspective on them, both
> reality AND human consciousness.
> The objective approach to concepts leads to the view that knowledge is
> the grasp of an object through an active, reality based process or
> method chosen by the subject. Intrincism leads to the view that
> knowledge is the grasp of an object through the passive absorption of
> revelations. Subjectivism leads to the view that knowledge is the
> creation of an object through the active inner processes of the
> subject.
> The intrincist regards knowledge, in effect, as a series of
> thunderbolts from the beyond. In this view, each item (or set of
> items) is revealed to man as a separate, contextless deliverance.
> The subjectivist regards knowledge as a series of thunderbolts
> emanating from within human consciousness, whether personal or
> social. In this view, each item or set is invented as a separate,
> arbitrary caprice. Neither of these approaches can identify the
> cognitive necessity of integration, of reduction, of proof. Left to
> its own devices, neither feels the need of an "art of
> noncontradictory identification."
> Logic is the method of achieving objectivity. This is the knowledge
> that is necessary to convert objectivity from elusive ideal to normal
> actuality. It is this knowledge that enables a man not only to base
> his conclusions on reality, but to do it consciously and methodically-
> to know that he is doing it and by what means-i.e., to be in control
> of the process of cognition.
>
> rgds, Pal
> --- In amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "fgornati" <francogornati@xxxx>
> wrote:
> > --- In amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "quanttrader714"
> > <quanttrader714@xxxx> wrote:
> > > Good luck in lala land.
> >
> > Hi Mark, sorry about that post. Not fair and I regretted it just as
> I
> > hit the send button.
> > The distinction about objectivity and subjectivity about price data
> > is ambiguous. Data are certain, as long as they have they have been
> > well recorded, but per se are of little significance. You need a
> > model, a theory to interpret them. When you choose to apply a trend
> > definition you are interpreting them in a subjective way, someone
> > else could talk of trends in prices as 'windmills of the mind'.
> > Every mechanical rule is a subjective choice made upon a theory. The
> > fact that is applied sistematically doesn't mean it's objective.
> It's
> > only measurable as long as it applies to the past.
> > I think that prices are a historical process and there is nothing
> > like an urn and a set of white and black balls. The system is open
> > and undefined and when someone makes only use of past prices he's
> > simply deciding to act on the basis of a well defined set of
> > information, on the ground of a theory that assumes the existence of
> > a stable generating process, and is forming his expectation,
> positive
> > or negative, accordingly.
> > In all this process there is not so much objectivity, in my opinion.
> >
> >
> > in about the future he's moving along the same line as one
>
>
>
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