|
PureBytes Links
Trading Reference Links
|
--- In amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Wayne Skerritt <ecodesign@xxxx>
wrote:
> and your point is?
>
> W
Does reason lead man to certainty? Human knowledge is limited. At
every stage of conceptual development, a man has a specific cognitive
context; he knows something, but not everything. Only on this basis
of this delimited information can he gain new knowledge. It is
important to relate a new idea to the full context-of seeking to
reduce the idea to the data of sense and to integrate it
with the rest of one's conclusions. Once these logical requirements
have been met, the idea has been validated. If a man evades relevant
data; or if, defaulting on the process of logic, he jumps from the
data to an unwarranted conclusion; then of course his conclusion
does not qualify as knowledge. But if he does consider all the
available evidence (e.g., Chart on each security is the
composite of all of the thinking and information available) and he
does employ the method of logic in assessing it, then his
interpretation must be regarded as valid.
Logical processing of an idea within a specific context of knowledge
is necessary and sufficient to extablish the idea's truth. The point
here is that one cannot demand omniscience. One cannot ask: "How do
I know that a given idea, even if it has been proved on the bases of
all the knowledge men have gained so far, will not be overthrown one
day by new information as yet undiscovered?" This plaint is
tantamount to the declaration: "Human knowledge is limited, wo we
cannot trust any of out conclusions."
Man is a being of limited knowledge-and he must, therefore, identify
the cognitive context of his conclusions. In any situation where
there is reason to suspect that a variety of factors is relevant to
truth, only some of which are presently known, he is obliged to
acknowledge this fact. The implicit or explicit preamble to his
conclusion must be: "On the basis of available evidence, i.e.,
within the context of the factors so far discovered, the following is
the proper conclusion to draw. Thereafter, the individual must
continue to observe and identify; should new information warrants it,
he must qualify his conclusions accordingly.
If a man follows this policy, he will find that his knowledge at one
stage is not contradicted by later discoveries. He will find that
the discoveries expand his understanding; that he learns more about
the conditions on which his conclusions depend; that he moves from
relatively generalized, primitive observations to increasingly
detailed, sophisticated formulations. He will also find that the
process is free of trauma. The advanced conclusions augment and
enhance his earlier knowledge; they do not clash with it or annul
it. The priniciple here is evident: since a later discovery rests
hierarchically on earlier knowledge, it cannot contradict its own
base. The qualified formulation in now way clashes with the initial
proposition.
The apperance of a contradiction between new knowledge and old
derives from a single source:context-dropping. If the researchers
had decided to view their initial discovery as an out-of-context
absolute; then of course the next factor discovered would plunge them
into contradiction and they would end up complaining that knowledge
is impossible. But if a man reaches conclusions logically and grasps
their conclusions logically and grasps their contextual nature,
intellectual progress poses no threat to him; it consists to a great
extent in his identifying ever more fully the relationships, the
connections among facts, that make the world a unity. Such a man is
not dismayed to find that he always has more to learn. He is happy
about it, because he recognizes that he is expanding and refining his
knowledge, not subverting it.
A man does not know everything, but he does know what he knows. The
choice is not: to make unwarranted, dogmatic claims or to give up
the cognitive quest in despair. Both these policies stem from the
notion that omniscience is the standard. One side then pretends to
have access to it somehow, while the other bewails our lack of such
access. In reason, however, this kind of standard must be rejected.
Conceptual knowledge rests on logic within a context, not on
omniscience. If an idea has been logically proved, then it is valid
and it is an absolute-contextually. This last term, indeed does not
introduce a factor distinct from logic and should not have to be
stressed: to adduce evidence for a conclusion is to place it within a
context and thereby to define precisely the conditions of its
applicability.
There are two mental states, knowledge and ignorance, and two
corresponding verdicts to define an idea's status: "validated"
or "unknown." Inherent in the mind's need of logic, however, is a
third, intermediate status, which applices for a while to certain
complex higher-level conclusions. In these cases, the validation of
an idea is gradual; one accumulates evidence step by step, moving
from ignorance to knowledge through a continuum of transistional
states. The main divisions of this continuum (including its
terminus) are defined by three concepts: "possible", "probable"
and "certain."
The first range of evidential continuum is covered by the
concept "possible." A conclusion is "possible" if there is some, but
not much, evidence in favor of it, and nothing known contradicts it.
This last condition is obviously required-a conclusion that
contradicts known facts is false-but it is not sufficient to support
a verdict of "possible." There are countless gratuitous claims in
regard to which one cannot cite any contradictory fact, because they
are inherently detached from facts; this does not confer on such
claims any cognitive status. For an idea to qualify as "possible,"
there must be a certain amount of evidence that actually supports
it. If there is no such evidence, the idea falls under a different
concept: not "possible," but "arbitrary."
Like all cognitive claims, possibilities are asserted within a
context. Should it change, the verdict must change accordingly: the
initial possibility may be weakened (even erased), or it may be
strengthened. If favorable evidence continues to be discovered, at a
certain point the claim stops being merely "possible." It becomes
probable.
"Probable" indicates a higher range of the evidential continuum. A
conclusion is "probable" if the burden of a substantial body of
evidence, although still inconclusive, supports it. In this case,
there are not merely "some" supporting data, but a relatively
extensive amount, although these data have not yet reached the
standard of proof. Because they have not, there are still objective
grounds to remain in doubt about the final verdict.
Like possibilities, probabilities are asserted within a context and
may be weakened or strengthened as it changes. If favorable evidence
continues to be discovered, at some point the cognitive climax will
be reached, The conclusion ceases to be a hypothesis and becomes
knowledge. Such a conclusion in CERTAIN.
The concept of "certainty" designates knowledge from a particular
perspective: it designates some complex form of knowledge considered
in contrast to the transitional evidential states that precede them,
(By extention, the term may be applied to all knowledge, perceptual
and conceptual, to indicate that it is free of doubt.) A conclusion
is "certain; when the evidence in its favor is conclusive; i.e., when
it has been logically validated. At this stage, one has gone
beyond "substantial" evidence. Rather, the total of the available
evidence points in a single direction, and this evidence fulfills the
standard of proof. In such a context, there is nothing to suggest
even the possibility of another interpretation. There are,
therefore, no longer any grounds for doubt.
Certainty, like possibility and probability, is contextual. It is a
verdict reached within a definite framework of evidence, and it
stands or falls with the evidence.
Is man capable of certainty? Since man has a faculty of knowledge and
nonomniscience is no obstacle to its use, there is only one rational
answer: certainly.
Man, however, is the living being with a volitional, conceptual
consciousness. As such, leaving aside his internal bodily processes,
he has no inbuilt goal or standard of value; he follows no automatic
course of action; he must follow a specific course of action if he
is to be successsful and the first step in this course of action is
the fact that man needs to act long range.
"Long-range" means allowing for or extending into the more distant
future. A man is long-range to the extent that he chooses his
actions with reference to such a future. This kind of man sets goals
that demand action across a significant time span; and, being
concerned with such goals, he also weighs consequences, the future
consequences of his present behavior. By contrast, a man is short-
range if, indifferent to the future, he seeks merely the immediate
satisfaction of an impulse, without thought for any other ends or
results.
An animal has no need or capacity to be long-range, at least not in
the human sense. An animal does not choose its goals-nature takes
care of that; so it can act safely on any random impulse. Within the
limits of the possible, that impulse is programmed to be pro-life.
But man cannot rely safely on random impulse. If he is to be
successful, he has to assess any potential actions's relationship to
it. He has to plan a course of behavior deliberatly, committing
himself to a long-range purpose, then integrating to it all of his
goals, desires and activities. Only in this way can the attainment
of an ultimate purpose become an issue within his conscious control.
An action undertaken by a short-range mentality may lead accidently
to a beneficial result. If one buys whatever one stumbles across on
the spur of the moment, without reference to reasons, purposes, or
effects, one may get away with it for a while; but only for a
while. Consistency, in regard to any goal beyond the perceptual
level or routine, cannot be achieved by sense perception (validation
of axioms), subconscious habit or luck. It can be achieved only by
the aid of explicit values and knowledge gained by applying logic to
facts.
No one could expect to reach the big sale uptown by pointing his car
north, then steering at random, with no map, no plan, no knowledge of
turning points or detours, no concern but the impulse of the moment.
To reach a sale, however, is a modest quest. To trade your way to
financial freedom is a more difficult task.
For any living organism, the course of action that success demands is
continous, full-time, all-embracing. No action an organism takes is
irrelevant to its existence. Every such action is either in
accordance with what self-preservation requires or it is not; it is
for the entity's life or against it. This is true even of so
innocuous an action as a man's taking a nap. In one context (if he is
tired after work, say, and needs to unwind), such an action may be
beneficial; if he does it on the job, however, it may lead to
unemployment; if he does it outdoors during a blizzard, he may never
wake up. The principle involved in this simple example applies to
every choice one makes, it applies to one's choices in regard to
gambling, investments or trading for a living. It applies whatever
the form and scale of a choice's effects-which may be obvious or
subtle, major or minor. The point is that every choice has effects
which redound, directly or indirectly one's ability to be successful.
The validation of a free market system follows the method of
objectivity. It is a system that is incompatible with any form of
subjectivism or intrinsicism. It is a system of and for mentally
active, this-worldly valuers, not of passive self-abnegators. Nor
does the system permit any intrinsicist to enforce his commandments
through the power of law. Similarly, because it is geared to the
reality orientation, it is imcompatible with any form of
subjectivism, whether personal or social. Nor does "free-market"
mean that "anything goes"; in a republic, "nothing goes" that
infirnges man's rights.
The principle of objectivity applies to every feature of such a
system: it applies to all values and all forms of human relationship
that are inherent in the system. The economic value of goods and
services is their price (this term subsumes all forms of price,
including wages, rents and interest rates); and prices on a free
market are determined by the law of supply and demand. Men create
products and offer them for sale; this is supply. Other men offer
their own products in exchange; this is demand. (The medium of
exchange is money.) "Supply" and "demand," therefore, are two
perspectives on a single fact: a man's supply is his demand; it is
his only means of demanding another man's supply. The market price
of a product is determined by the conjunction of two evaluations,
i.e., by the voluntary agreement of sellers and buyers. If sellers
decide to charge a thousand dollars for a barrel of crude oil because
they feel "greed," there will be no buyers; if buyers decide to pay a
nickel a barrel because they feel "need," there will be no sellers
and no crude oil. The market price is based not on arbitrary wishes,
but on a definite mechanism: it is at once the highest price sellers
can command and the lowest price buyers can find. Economic value
thus determined is Objective.
An objective value is an existent (in this instance, a product) as
evaluated by a volitional consciousness pursuing a certain prupose in
a certain cognitive context; the evaluation (including the purpose)
must be rational, i.e., determined ultimately by the facts of
reality. Values cannot exist (cannot be valued) outside the full
context of a man's life, needs, goals and knowledge. The above
describes precisely how economic evaluations are made on a free
market. Men are left free to judge the worth of various products,
the worth to them; each judges in accordance with his own needs and
goals as he himself understands these to apply in a particular
context. Market value thus entails valuer, purpose, beneficiary,
choice, knowledge-all the insignia of objective value as against the
revealed variety. At the same time, men's evaluations, economic or
otherwise, cannot with impunity be capricious; under a free-market
system, irrational men suffer the consequences, one of which is their
eventual loss of economic power and thus of the ability to influence
the market price. Market value, therefore, is objective in full,
technical meaning of the term. It is specifically objective, as
against being subjective or intrnisic.
Any person in a free society can choose to brush reason aside but,
since there is no agency to deflect the principle of justice, such
persons do not set the long-range economic terms of the society. If
a man succumbs to a buying spree in a bull market while ignoring a
company's fundamentals-he loses out, and he continues to lose unless
he learns a better approach. The system thus institutionalizes,
though it cannot compel, respect for reality-and men's economic (and
other)evaluations are set accordingly.
Market value, in essence, is the most rational assessment of a
product that a free society can reach at a given time; and there is
always a tendency for this assessment to approach the product's
objective value, as people gain the requisite knowledge. In time,
barring accidents, the two assessments coincide. The creative
minority grasps the objective value of a good or service, then
teaches it to the public, which is eventually lifted to the creators'
level of development. "It is in this sense," that the free market is
not ruled by the intellectual criteria of the majority, which prevail
only at and for any given moment; the free market is ruled by those
who are able to see and plan long-range-and the better the mind, the
longer the range.
The dominant view today is that economic value (like every other
kind) is not objective, but arbitrary. Monopolists or
other "exploiters," subjectivists claim, charge any amount they feel
like charging; landlords and bankers set rents or interest rates at
whim; employers pay whatever niggardly wage their avarice decrees.
Economic theory and history alike prove that a free market does not
work this way; both theory and history make clear what happens in a
free market to overchargers, underpayers, and other would-be fiat-
mongers (they lose their customers, their workers, and ultimately
their shirts). Subjectivists, however, cannot heed any such proof;
since they do not acknowledge the possiblilty of consciousness
preceiving existence, they cannot accept the possibility of an
objective economy.
rgds, Pal
Send BUG REPORTS to bugs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Send SUGGESTIONS to suggest@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
-----------------------------------------
Post AmiQuote-related messages ONLY to: amiquote@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(Web page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/amiquote/messages/)
--------------------------------------------
Check group FAQ at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/amibroker/files/groupfaq.html
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/amibroker/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
amibroker-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
|