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Pal Anand wrote:
> --- In amibroker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Wayne Skerritt <ecodesign@xxxx>
> wrote:
>
>>and your point is?
>>
>>W
Pal,
With all due respect, it would be good if this point of view was on
another, more suitable Yahoo newsgroup...... Ayn Rand? or existential
philosophy perhaps? 8-)
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
>
>
>
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