Stock Market Distribution

Well a year late it seems I have my answer. I've already shown that a log/log graph of FTSE day changes is mostly linear. This indicates a scale invariant power law distribution!

Such distributions exist where the more you have the more you get. It implies, as suspected, that the size of a days change is liable to snow ball. Large losses encouraging more and more people to become bearish. Likewise large gains encouraging more and more people to become bullish.

This supports the "speculative" side of the market: that people trade not for long term fundamentals but try to trade in the short term and take advantage, or protect themselves, from current trends.

The question then is the distribution of bear/bull thresholds in the average human population. By which I mean if the number of people turning bearish increases with the size of the down turn there must be a distribution of thresholds beyond which people decide to sell. If there was just one threshold at say 1% then were the market ever to turn below 1% then everyone would sell. This doesn't happen.

Obviously the down turn is different from different people. People buying on that day will see a 1% drop. People who were perhaps 100% up will fall to 98% on a 1% drop. People who bought in after the 1% drop would only see a 1% drop where the market drop further to 2% down. There is a distribution of people going into the market, coming out and the existence of thresholds will need to be wrestled from them.

2Do!

Nature of Flagger/Coward Distribution

A linear function was chosen to describe the number of flaggers in a group, such that the total number of flaggers across all the groups was equal to the total number of cowards.

f(x) = a + x (n-2a)/g , where n is the total number of rabbits in each group, g is the number of groups and a is the number of flaggers in the 1st group. This integrates to ng/2 i.e. half the rabbits. The gradient of the function is given by grad=(n-2a)/g.
Using this as f(x) the expression Gc – Gf (from before) was calculated. This gives the average predator pressure experienced by flaggers relative to cowards for populations of heterogenous groups with varying numbers of flaggers and cowards as described by ‘a’.
Gf – Gc =


Substituting the expression a = (n-g*grad)/2 into the expression enables a clearer expression of heterogeneity.

Results
p=0.5, n=10, g=10

Once the gradient is steeper then 60% then flaggers experience rapidly decreasing predator pressure. This is a distribution with group one having 8 flaggers and 2 cowards, and group 10 having 2 flaggers and 8 cowards a range of {2,8}
For 50 groups (g=50) the graph has the same shape but the gradient only needs to be 12% before flaggers benefit more than cowards. The general rule is that the cut-off is proportional to 6/g.
p=0.5, n=20, g=10


For groups of large size there is little extra benefit to cowards until the groups have a larger range than {5,15}. After which there is considerable advantage to flaggers.
p=0.1, n=10, g=10

If the probability of not seeing the predator is very low (10%) there is range of distributions which benefit cowards very much. Suddenly when the range reaches {0.5,9.5} is benefits flaggers. 0.5 isn’t possible so there are no distributions which favour flaggers in small groups.
p=0.9, n=10, g=10

A simple curve where ranges {2.5,7.5} and steeper benefit flaggers. Flagging strategy is an anti-predator strategy and obviously only benefits where predators are skillful and not easily seen by individuals.
ConclusionFlagging as a strategy depends upon strong heterogeneity in flagger/coward ratios. Low dispersal of offspring i.e. children remaining in the warren will create such a heterogeneity. Sexual selection for flaggers is vulnerable to the evolution of a “slag” gene but may provide a mechanism for heterogeneity also.
Another avenue of investigation is in free markets. The local marginal strategy is always to defect and become a coward. However under certain situations strategies that benefit the group will lead to selection for groups of individuals who do not do this, i.e.e those who abandon local marginal thinking.

Co-operative genetics

On holiday while looking at rabbits was wondering how genes for particular sexual attractions spread in populations. What if there was a gene that made brave individuals attractive. Decided to look at the old area I did at college that of tail flagging in rabbits to warn of predators (assume it’s a warning signal rather than predator visual confusion). If this is in doubt then alarm calls will do as another model. Let there be two genes F and C which cause their bearer to F=flag (or give an alarm call) or C=just run away. Let there be two other genes that cause their bearer to find this behaviour attractive Lf and Lc. I’ll ignore a ‘Slag’ gene that just breeds with anything for now (for good reason since it messes this whole argument up, unless there is another gene which doesn’t like Slags etc). I assume a simple haploid genetics to make like easy.

Cowards and Braves

F = brave flagger
C= coward who saves himself
Lf= find flagger attractive
Lc=find coward attractive

These parents: flag+likes cowards x coward+likes flaggers give the following children:

FLc x CLf –> FLc,FLf,CLc,CLf (in equal proportion)

It can be seen that only 1/4 of FLc and CLf matings are like the parent and 1/4 are FLf and CLc.

FLf and CLc parents however only produce themselves.

The other combinations won’t happen since the very nature of the Lf and Lc genes is to make the bearer look to mate with only flaggers and cowards respectively. So if you are Lc you will only look for cowards to mate with, and if you are a flagger yourself only Lf will mate with you so FLc must mate with only CLf.

As a result the population of FLc and CLf both drop by 75% each generation (assuming that all individuals mate freely). If low density means that it is harder to find a mate then this will be larger.

By contrast FLf and CLc populations replace themselves each generation and get added to by the 25% of the FLc and CLf populations.

CONCLUSION: (without the Slag gene) flagging genes rapidly become associated with genes that mate with flaggers at the exclusion of cowards, and vice versa.

The Population Models

Let p=the probability that an individual does not see a predator. This is the probability the individual will be eaten in some time frame.

Take a group n numbering f flaggers and c cowards (n=f+c). The group comes under attack from an ambush predator looking for 1 individual. To succeed the predator needs only catch the prey unawares, after which it is a certain kill. The probability of being taken P is:

P = 1 / Number of unaware individuals

However the flaggers alert the group so they all need to be unaware at once. If all the flaggers are unaware (prob = p^f) then the total number of unaware individuals is f (since all the flaggers are unaware) + pc (the unaware cowards). The probability of being taken as a flagger is then:

Pf = p^f / (f + pc)

The cowards benefit from the flaggers flagging but also the probability that they are looking too or conversely the probability they are taken is p^(f+1). The probability of being taken as a coward is thus:

Pc = p^(f +1) / (f + pc)

CONCLUSION: Thus as a coward your probability of being taken is always p less than being a flagger. Flaggers because of their relative generosity will decline in number relative to cowards in a given population.

However note that Pc has a maximum value when c==n and a minimum value when c==0.

CONCLUSION: Thus having flaggers around instead of cowards is beneficial to cowards. It is better for cowards to move towards areas with higher proportions of flaggers. However as will be seen this leads to mating problems if there are genes that don’t like cowards.

Model 1

Let the population be spread out in g groups. The predation pressure on the population as a whole can be estimated by looking at the individual average, that is the sum of f*Pf for each group divided by the total number . As a continuous function we therefore need (given that f+c=n so c=n-f),

  for flaggers and

  for cowards

If f[x] is a constant f (as before) then the equations decompose to the equations before i.e. Gf = Pf and Gc = Pc

If f[x]=x i.e. it linearly increases through all the groups so that groups have increasing numbers of flaggers and let there be n groups so that flaggers range from 0 to n, then the integrals to calculate are (where g=n):

Which numerically integrated for p=1, n=10 gives

Gf = 0.1
Gc = 0.1

As expected since the average predation in any number of groups of 10 individuals if they are blind (unable to detect the predator) will be 1/10. i.e. Gf/Gc = 1. For the following probabilities where group size is n=10, Gf/Gc gives:

p=0.25   0.264687
p=0.5     0.295375
p=0.75   0.496825

That is the average predation of flaggers is around 30% that of cowards for lower probabilities and rises relatively as both groups become less vigilant. For larger groups (and a larger range of groups) the effect is ever more apparent so that with groups of size n=30 predation of flaggers is 10% that of cowards.

CONCLUSION
When the ratio of flaggers to cowards varies linearly across all the groups it remains beneficial to be a coward as an individual in any one group. However the flaggers in mostly cooperative groups do better than the cheats in mostly cheating groups so the average globally benefits the flaggers. So while cowards will locally do better than their neighbouring flaggers, globally their population will drop significantly faster.

Model 2

In all groups the rate of reduction of cowards is p less than that of flaggers. That is cowards will therefore come to dominate all static groups and if the group size is limited (as by limiting resources) then eventually flaggers will become extinct in these groups. However it is beneficial for cowards to move to areas of high flagging density.

In reality offspring, likely to carry the parents flagging or coward gene, will disperse around the parents creating pockets of high density. Infiltrating individuals may be excluded by territorial behaviour. It would be in the interests of the cowards to let flaggers into their territory, but not vice-versa.

Sexual selection may also provide a barrier to migration as described above.

2Do
Model that looks at changing rate of populations in cells (with genetics) dy/dx = ry(genetic factors) – pred(y)
Model that looks at changing rate of populations globally (with genetics)

Model that looks at changing rate of populations in a cell (with steady influx of individuals) i.e. like mandelbrot… look to see if there are critical influxes that lead to changes in the cell ratios… then we know any cell with neighb\ours that cause that level of migration will turn themselves into such a cell. i.e. if their outflux goes to the level that needed to promote them.

Examine the shape of distribution of ratios across groups. Population heterogeneity can create incongruent local versus global properties! Apply to markets where marginal action (i.e. to become a coward) is offset by global benefits of being a flagger. Relevance of markets? Conditions where “Invisible Hand of Markets” no longer operates… consider information dispersal through a population as one means to create heterogeneity.

4 Points on Anti-Capitalism

1) Anti-Capitalism doesn't exist. If someone described me as an anti-Nazi I'd attack the term because obv. they were trying to frame the discussion in Nazi terms. Anti-Nazism doesn't exist precisiely because we reject Nazism. No one supports "anti-unicorn believers" because we think there aren't any unicorns! 1st up: rejection of anti-Capitalism and all debate surrounding it (including the illegally biased news coverage). The correct thinking is: there is Capitalism AND everything else. Once the debate is allowed to start "anti-Capitalism" becomes a vast array of "other" views. Science and God-religions offer two huge subsets of "anti-Capitalism"... most "anti-Capitalists" are primarily attacking this fascism that refuses any debate whatsoever on the subject.

2) The problem with Capitalism for me is not itself, but how a society adopts it. Our society is making it the model of all human organisation. That is why scientists should be anti-Capitalist: because it is being adopted by prejudice and not research or knowledge. This is the main criticism of Capitalism. Final 2 points are why it is unsuitable.

3) Capitalism uses "exchange" in a market to value things. It has no other model of value. In a society where value is determined by exchange there can be no friendship, no family and no love. The reason is that when anyone interacts in such a society they keep an account book open of debt and credit. I help a "friend" only because I expect them to help me back. I have a child only because I think they will be useful to me. This does happen--and so does murder--but it is important it is not the only basis for human relationship. This is exacty what religions are teaching against in fact and why religions are "anti-Capitalism". "Real" wealth cannot be counted in account books they argue and the opposite behaviour of deleting account books is recommended (as the EU is being forced to discuss now ironically).

4) Who owns the wealth? This is the most famous "anti-Capitalist" issue. Mr Wheel and Mr Plough (the respective inventors of their namesakes) have brought humans literally untold riches. The human population rose on the invention of the latter alone from 1million to 100s of millions. If they somehow owned the rights to that then 1 family would literally own the world. Likewise if someone invented a single machine that could do all human labour more cheaply (a day that is approaching fast) would they really own everything, and more importantly how can an economy function when all humans are finally put out of work? It is clear to me that Capitalism isn't a complete, or even very well thought out system, all the time old problems remain to be solved... and the elite who are happy with the status quo will do everything to stop them being solved (like ever lasting light bulbs, and cancer cures, and DVD players that work longer than the warranty etc)... which is the greatest truth.

SRH is essence of contradition!

To have a contradiction there must be self-reference since a contradiction is A & –A and so what ever A is must also be negated in –A… that is some quality of A is referred to in both A and negatively in –A. This is not “self” in the usual existential sense of a “thing” but rather self in the sense of “same”.

When we ask whether the hooded man has the same identity as someone we are asking are they the “same” person. To determine whether they are the same person we must, and can only, compare qualities: have they the same name, do both have beards and blue eyes, the same finger prints, the same DNA.

But all this is not sufficient the key thing to establish is that they are never in two places at the same time. It is a joke that because you never see two people together they must be the same person… I believed that for John Sergeant and Jo Brand until they appeared on the same game show. So we can only prove that someone has an identical genetic twins when we have them both in the same room together at the same time. This seems to be the “essence” of identity: the limitation of objects that they can only occupy one space and time.

Yet I use the word “essence”, and we speak of the “same” space and time. Ex: x is at home at 12am GMT on 25th Dec 1850. The location and time-of-location of x are predicates that we apply to the object x, they are things to be said “of” x but they are not x themselves. The idea of “x” as an existing thing necessarily lies outside the realm of description and predication because this is the only way B.Russell can avoid contradiction. If we allow existence as a predicate then we can talk about those things which don’t exist!

I = (x) x does not exist.

Now this creates a set, I, of all those things which don’t exist. So lets take unicorns. Unicorns don’t exist so they belong to the set I. But how can something that doesn’t exist have membership of a set?

Having hermetically excluded all existing things from predication we are safe, but at a cost there is no way to speak about existence: it is a normative assumption of language, that is we use it when we do predicate logic, and we use it when we communicate but only implicitly; a rule of the game.

Thus one wonders whether “existence” is any more than just a rule of the game. Certainly the idea that our “hooded man” is an “existing” individual, separate from others in some fundamentally true way that we can only ever guess at with more and more evidence, is just a vain hope, a faith in the fundamental reality of the world. Let us hope that physics doesn’t continue its path of upsetting this faith much more since little remains already.

So returning to the top, the idea of reference referring to the same existences may be only a rule of the game, in reality any supposed identity is always, and only ever, based upon evidence and predicates of the entities under scrutiny. We have no magical way of ever pulling away the veil of phenomena to look at the underlying things to decide which is which, and what is what, and who is who. Hesperus and Phospheros once thought to be morning and evening stars with evidence and a new model of the skies became the same entity: I wonder what they thought of this after all those years apart ;-)

Maybe then reference is always between predicates and when these predicates are the same then we presume “real” identity or non-identity… until things change and we decide they are different or the same.

Monkey King interpretation

Posted here some time in 2002 I believe.

"Village of the Undead" (Season 1, Episode 22)

"The Matrix" is just a fairy tale compared with Monkey...

Initially it's a basic situation of good and bad. Pigsy the one representing crude desires is powerless and accepts the intoxication of drink and women without struggle. Quickly he renounces the walk to collect the sutras and is reduced to the level of an animal. Sandy is next. His symbolism has always been enigmatic, I believe it to be something to do with abstract philosophical searching: he never has much role, and always offers irrelevant analysis of situations. Fish is often associated with knowledge and intelligence anyway (maybe practically in its dietary effect on the brain). Anyway these are powerful demons and Sandy succumbs readily too. Both desire and intellgence are soon fooled, intoxicated, attached and literally married to the illusion. The demons are now almost in full existence. Only Monkey and Tripitaka remain. For once it is Tripitaka, they acknowledge, who is the greatest challenge for them.

Monkey's response to the evil is opposite is Pigsy and Sandy. As usual he detects its demonic nature, and typically he opposes it and fights it. Monkey is the ego: out of our control, self determined and always jumping around; basically irrepressible but useful because his self assurance is powerful and he looks after himself and his own very well. Being egotistiocal his relationship with those around him is always oppositional (either playfully arguing with foolish Pigsy or aggressively with demons). However these are a different type of demon from those before: if he believes in them (like Pigsy and Sandy) they will exist but by opposing them he is only making them exist all the more strongly. He cannot win, and quickly is given the choice by the girl: give in or run away. He runs away and joins Tripitaka.

Tripitaka (the monk) obviously represents the seed of enlightenment. Never sure up to this point in the series on the correct path, this time he is clear that they can neither fight nor run away. This is beyond a simple case of good and bad. He at least will surrender. Monkey is proud and loyal and follows his. So they are taken prisoner. All 4 now face death.

The demons owe their existence to the belief and imagination of the 4, but as long as they depend upon them they cannot be sure they exist independently. They need to kill them to prove that they exist freely from their captives minds: so in doing they will gain completely free, independent and solid existence.

One of the demons however doubts this and at the last minute she turns upon the demon king and ends the illusion. Everything vanishes and all 4 are free. What does it mean?

Firstly I shall explain very generally. The whole of Monkey and Buddhist teaching is aimed at teaching that it is our "thoughts which create the world" (as said in the narration at the start of every episode), or better it is the Mind which create the world. When it says "thoughts" or Mind it does not mean Monkey (the ego) creates the world. When we think "I am thinking" (Sandy) or "I want to rule Heaven and create the world" or just "I am going to do this or imagine that" (pure Monkey) or "I desire that" (Pigsy) or "I want to learn the Sutras" (Tripitaka) this is Ego (which monkey also generally represents to) not the Mind. The Mind creates all these thoughts listed and more. The Mind (if anything in Monkey) is the narrator himself who with words and pictures creates the stories. Our 4 characters, the demons and the places they find, are all created by the story, aka the Mind. In this episode they are learning not just to revel in their surroundings (like Pigsy) or analyse things (like Sandy) or change the course of events (like Monkey) according to their wishes and desires, but rather to surrender and ignore the demons and obstacles that the story (their mind) throws up. Without belief and attention fueling the illusion it vanishes and the story ends. The mind they will learn is what puts everything together into the problems they encounter each week.

More specifically I now write. All the things of the world are created by our minds, just as everything in the episode is created by the story. The demons represent ordinary things which because they are very attracive to the 4 travelers become an issue and distraction from the goal of gaining the sutras (which represent the achievemnt of truth). Not everyone passing through these place will find these demons - hence why they seem to lie in wait. Actually they are ordinary things, but because the travellers believe them to be attractive and special they become so. Thus they are distractions and become obstacles and the demons come into existence. The illustration is drink, girls and enjoyment to attract Pigsy and Sandy. "What is wrong with enjoying yourself" says one of the girls philosophically to Sandy as he falls under the spell of this hedonism. (A poignant question to todays rational and capitalist world).

Secretly we know that the Mind has created our obstacles. In reality when we become wise for example we get bored of things and they evaporate - forgetting them we normally don't wonder how they changed. Attraction draws us deeper and deeper into our obstacles, and intoxicated we wish they were really existing so we could feast on them and really gain something from them. Soon the belief that the things we like really are likable, gives way to no wish to escape the illusion (the blue pill in the Matrix 'story'). As we give ourselves up to the object of desire we are exchanging our very power to have an attraction and find something attractive for the very attraction itself. We are handing it the power and becoming its slave. This is the way we kill ourselves with desires and this is the strength of the demons. Its no good to reject the things we like either, because this does not stop our like for them. A classic learning curve for most religious people. When we reject things we still believe that the power of attraction is real and separate from ourselves, otherwise we would realise distance can't help. The ignorant run away like Monkey (becoming the subdued puritan here).

It is Tripitaka who has Buddhist teaching already! (strange if he is going to get the sutras) who realises that there is nothing that can be done. If you fight them you will become evil also he tells Monkey, i.e. they will become stronger and beat him. He neither gives into the objects of desires nor runs away. He (and Monkey) is then trapped (again :-)). For ego this is very painful and Monkey is suffering in the vat of acid. The next bit is not woven into the story I don't think. Tripitaka has sowed the seed of the end of the story here because he does not believe the demons fully. He is neither fooled into intoxication nor fearful - just trapped by his mind. The demon power is already weakened. The scene is set to end the story.

Already weakened it is then through the demon who has intoxicated our philosophical fish Sandy that the ray of enlightenment comes. "If we are created by these 4 prisioners how can I exist if they are dead". The very desire which has Sandy's mind transfixed suddenly realises its complete dependency on Sandy and so realises its own emptiness. It kills the king demon and so all the desires and illusion is ended. The obstacle is gone and all are free to pursue Enlightenment.

The narrator ends with the statement "Each day the clever mans learns something, but each day the wise man learns to accept a bit more uncertainty". The point and relevance is that it is our fixation on definite things which begins the path to evil. Rather it is with a mind which gives up definite things, realising that the interest and attraction for specific things, and the rejection and boredom of other things is all set in motion by ourselves. Reality is not a definite thing, it does not come in the shape of good and bad things, demons and heavens, or interesting and boring things, nor does it make sense like a story or even this explaination of the episode! Its just a matter of seeing the Pigsy, Sandy, Monkey and Tripitaka in ourselves, and doing the crazy journey for real (and being a little irrepressible to).

Facebook debate on Wales v France ref decision…

Most interested in the argument that cropped up about not listening to other people. It’s not a valid argument (no-one seems to have noticed) but it raises a point about individuality. If we decide to base our thoughts on what others are thinking, what do we do if they are thinking you shouldn’t do that? Like when Brian—in the ‘Life of Brian’—tells the throng that ‘they are all individual’ what a stupid thing to say because if it’s true then how can you tell them? If they need telling then they already aren’t! Indeed the very fact we can talk about “individuality” at all is proof that it doesn’t exist! Is there an SRH argument here?

In the face of an outrageous ref decision that invalidates the outcome of a game isn't it better for the whole team to just walk off the pitch?
Like ·  · Share · October 15 at 9:26am via mobile
Alva Gosson Even if Wales win the cost will damage the final. Strike!
October 15 at 9:30am · Like

Jeremy Edwards It all depends on which course of action raises the most revenue.
October 15 at 10:02am · Like

Michael Sissons No! They'd be banned from competitive rugby. Not every commentator is agreeing that wasn't a red cardable tackle, either...
October 15 at 10:13am · Like
Alva Gosson Hi Jeremy, sadly I think you're right. I was against rugby becoming professional... yes it means the players have more time to concentrate on rugby and the rugby is better, but it risks people starting to play not rugby but the stupid game of trade and income... which is vacuous and pointless. Sadly too many people spend their lives playing this game. Unlike in football I still believe these guys play rugby.. which is why it is the far superior sport (still).
October 15 at 10:50am · Like
Alva Gosson Hi Mike, well if the IRB decided to back the decision and ban Wales then they would invalidate themselves, and set off a huge political battle. A niche would immediately open up for any group/tournament who would include Wales and other teams would have to decide whether they backed the IRB. The IRB could become isolated and defunct and a new rugby board evolve. I wouldn't let all that stupid politics get in the way of my team walking off. (As a principle it never matters what other people think btw.)
October 15 at 10:55am · Like
Alva Gosson ‎(p.s. reason for that is that if the principle was to base our thoughts on what other people believe, what do we do if other people don't believe that principle ;-)
October 15 at 11:00am · Like
Alva Gosson ‎(p.p.s. absolutely technically for an image processing computer, it was a red card, but I would expect the red card to be for something that was either deliberate or un-professionally sloppy. Being upended on to your shoulders from waist height is utterly trivial... I'll put money on it the famously shifty French played that for all its worth (if the player had leapt to his feet--as he could have--it wouldn't even have been noticed); no risk of injury at all, and nothing more than a fantastic tackle! Shocker!)
October 15 at 11:13am · Like

Cheong Kong Chen I bet u will be seriously torn when both of ur "favourite" teams get into the final. And I wonder if u r going to watch it ;)
October 15 at 11:49am · Like
Alva Gosson Well rugby is the most important bit, how the teams play the second, and who the teams are the third. First two apply to everyone; the third just personal preference. So won't make much difference who gets thru :-) Personally I hope it's NZ because a NZ v France final would be the most unpredictable (given history). Objectively I hope so too because if NZ don't win this the bomb on Hiroshima for the Japanese will be a firework compared to the fall out in NZ! Sadly the final is spoilt because thanks to Alain Roland (hmmm french/irish) the N. Hemisphere isn't fielding its better team for the final so everything is messed up on all levels for everyone. Plus Australia objectively can't win because that makes it 3 WCs from 7 and they're cocky little b*****ds at the best of times ;-)
October 15 at 12:27pm · Like

Jeremy Edwards Rugby, racing & beer ...
October 16 at 8:20pm · Like

The Tortoise and the Hare hold a key truth on rates.

Fig 1: If a journey is split into two halves and the first half S1 travelled at the speed on the x-axis, then the y-axis gives the speed the second half needs to be cycled to get an average of 15mph. Given by this expression:

Going slow has a far bigger impact on average speed than going fast! Half the journey spent 3mph off at 12mph requires the other half 5mph faster at 20mph! The effect rapidly diverges as speed slows down.

As speed increases the energy required per mile increases with a square (or a cube per second) so to double speed requires 4x the energy. Thus the impact of the above means that total energy used in a journey rapidly increases if we spend time slower than the average we want see Fig 2. (Y axis has just relative units the numbers don’t mean anything.) So spending time at 10mph when we want an average of 15mph will result in us putting more energy in over the journey than were we to spend time at 25mph! If the speed even drops a little to 10.5 it doubles the energy you need to pull the average back! While 4.5mph the other way (19.5mph) only increases energy use by 35%.

The clear message is what I’ve heard from time trial cyclists that its “not the going fast but the not going slow.”

 

 

 

 

Now this is exactly what Aesop was saying. Short periods of spectacular performance are impressive but are highly wasteful and are easily out stripped by a slow but regular approach; the stream over centuries eroding the landscape versus the flood.

This applies to cars too. The car manufacturers would like us to think that cars with spectacular performance will achieve more but such performance will achieve very little if we spend time below the average we want. A Porsche driver wants to travel 100miles in an hour. If he spends 30minutes at 70mph he needs to spend the other 30minutes at 175mph! Or more sensibly we want to travel 60miles in an hour. The Porsche has to get out of an urban area and averages 40mph for 30mins of the journey, they will need to average 120 for the rest! While a car that simply found a route where they could cruise at 60mph the whole way would achieve the same.

The logic applies to any rate. To make money it is not making a few spectacular incomes, but the not ever making a little. Conversely to reduce rates and save money it is the little purchases, or the not buying things, that matters rather than the big buys. In chimps it applies to social status too: success has been shown to lie in saving energy by minimising skirmishes and putting it into big fights.

I think the main difference between working and middle classes lies in this too. The rich buy quality occasionally, while the poor make lots of cheap purchases. The rich work consistently at a reasonable rate, the poor accept low rates and hope to make up the difference by big wins in gambling/lotteries and occasional lucky deals. Capitalists know this and try to encourage us to spend a little often thus sapping our wealth.

On Time

The suggestion of neutrinos breaking the light barrier finally raises the possibility of time paradoxes. A clock strapped to one of these neutrinos will have moved backwards the next time it is checked, while the neutrino—from the frame of reference of the observer—will have travelled forward in time to a new place. A future cyclotron—using perhaps the gravity of planets—could bend the path of neutrinos so that they return suitable close to the starting point. If a detector position here could signal rapidly enough for the neutrino source to be moved then a very bizarre situation would arise. A clock strapped to the arriving neutrinos would see the change of position of the journey happen before they had set out! So that in fact their arrival would be moving the position back so that they could set out on the original path… has some difficulty saying that!

Anyway got me thinking about the great unsolved question of time.

There is an obvious problem with time. The standard model sees it as having a direction—Past, Present and Future—and somehow the Future becomes the Present which becomes the Past. This change from one to the other is imagined like a river, or an arrow or in someway a movement. Once so established we then use time along with space to relate positions of moving things so that like static frames of a film they may be strung together into a flowing phenomenon of change. But if we wish to explain the movement of an arrow or a river by using static events linked by time, we can’t then use the river or the arrow to describe the flow of time. At root we still (in the 21st century despite millennia) have no way to think about the time apart from the observation that things change. This idea that movement was ineffable was first posed to me by a friend, Andrew Rennie, at college. And being ineffable I have been reluctant to take up the gauntlet for what is 21 yrs now!

It would appear that the standard view of time serves to separate events into film like frames that are static and frozen. These are describable pictures and numbers may enumerate the points in these pictures and the frames themselves. But how they fit together—how the points in space are differentiated from one another, and the frames in time are differentiated from one another is beyond such insight. How they comes to be joined together into a changing phenomenon remains utterly unexplored in this frozen world. Perhaps essentially so since the very process here is to encode and produce in language the phenomenon of change, which is essential to differentiate the sequence of symbols and thoughts of the process.

Returning to the start, phenomenologically, what we begin with is the observation of change. That nothing remains as it is. We may sit and stare at a leaf and, if stationary, we will start to notice that it has movement in the wind, and as the days go by its shape will change as it grows or is eaten or decays. We like sudden changes, but most change is a very morphing from one shape into another and from one state into another. This morphing, refusal to remain what it is, is the essence of Being. We must I assume begin with this idea. It is the flux of Heraclitus, the Power of Nietzsche, that is forever in turmoil undoing what is, and becoming what is yet to be. “Becoming” is what came first, the Become only steps along the journey. Language being entity biased prefers the Become, the established things that have happened, but it forgets that they are only here because they Became, and like the Little Mermaid the cost of having Become is to one day Begone. Unenlightened life, as Buddha taught us, is dominated by fixation on the Become, the Becoming, and the Begone. Enlightened life is the realisation that true reality is built upon the shifting sands the both build and destroy the sand dunes of our minds.

Time travel is a mine field of paradox. As I read once paradox is a sign that something has gone wrong in our language and thoughts since in reality there are no paradoxes. If I was to return to 1859 what assurance have I that it is the ‘same’ 1859 as recorded in History? A paradox requires that it is the same 1859 so that in a century and a halves time I will be building my time machine. But how do I know this? More importantly how could I know this! What even does the ‘same’ time mean? Its normal usage would be concurrent events in different places, but the idea of same place but different time moves the question of same ‘time’ to same ‘place’. The question in 1859 is then is this the same place as in 2011. If I was in Downe House in Kent in 1859 I would be witnessing Darwin putting the finishing touches to ‘On the Origin of Species’. Downe House lies on certain identifiable roads and in relation to certain other places. In 1859 these would remain the same so I could give a normal definition of same place. Likewise I would recognise Darwin, and the house and grounds having seen paintings of him and visited the house, so could give a normal definition of same house and man. But this is deceptive. What if I was visiting an exact copy of the Earth? Crazy but what if I was the visit the area 100,000 years before: how would I find the ‘place’ where the house now stands. I need a point of reference. I could use GPS and make that a point on the Earth’s surface. But what is my 0 position. The rotation of the earth, precession around the sun etc all mean that there is no fixed point 100,000 years ago that I can find to map to the present. I would need to map the current 0 longitude and latitude back through time to find it 100,000 yrs ago. Likewise the whole issue of the English plate moving from the South Atlantic over time to crash into the Scottish plate. 100,000 yrs ago the GPS reading for Downe House would have been in the sea and wouldn’t even refer to the same rocks as today. So same ‘place’ is entirely relative, the problem I have when trying to reference the next sentence clause: it must be relative to a mysterious thing called Here and Now which is always assumed a priori and cannot be defined.

It is that mysterious Here and Now which is the true Place and Time and this remains the same even when we travel back to 1850. It is just another day. True that people carrying future knowledge don’t show up very often. If I was to tell Darwin the impact of his book in my world it would be a very odd occasion for him; and the fact it doesn’t happen suggests that there is something else wrong here. But assuming that it does happen the point is that I would be retelling Darwin of a world that is not in his future as though I was from further down the river than him, nor now is it in my future. The point is that we are both in a new place and time, as ever and the future remains as open to us as it did. If I went and killed one of my ancestors there would be no paradox as my own history doesn’t change, there are simply two ‘pasts’ one before in my memory and one after in my memory.

A rational agent can’t know their own probability distribution

If it did then it would be able to construct choices that differ from that distribution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_probability

On Boredom

Cut from Facebook

Boredom is one of the great sufferings in life (largely unacknowledged I think!). Decided yesterday (after 20yrs of filling my bored moments thinking abt it) that isn't it just a type of greed, coming after an more exciting period of time has ceased?
Like ·  · Share · September 23 at 10:42am via mobile
Weng Leong and Richard Pickles like this.
Alva Gosson The mistake all addicts make is to be motivated to recreate the high when maybe the best approach is just to go thru the withdrawal? Needless add an economic spin to that ;)
September 23 at 10:44am · Like ·  1 person
Alva Gosson Now i got my answer i'm bored ;)
September 23 at 10:46am · Like ·  1 person

Jerry Cloony what about less thinking and more doing Alva !?
September 23 at 12:16pm · Like ·  1 person

Jeremy Edwards Boredom is a state of mind. If something's become boring it's no longer fun. And when it's not fun it's time to stop doing it. One of the one-liners in quality assurance ...
September 23 at 12:53pm · Like
Alva Gosson Hi Jerry I'm sitting on the toilet in the middle of a 60mile cycle how much more doing do you want :) you know i'm only going to think of an answer to that ;) I take a Tao approach at mo that doing is really non-doing if you look closely. Certainly whenever i do anything i realise i depend entirely on other people and the 'doing' wasn't mine anyway + sun 'doing' a gr8 job drying my washing today ... The world goes around thats abt all we can say. + i just 'did' some thinking so done even more :)
September 23 at 3:05pm · Like ·  1 person
Alva Gosson Jerry u just reminded me of my new year resolution which wasn't to 'do' anything spectacular (that is just ego) but rather to harmonise between the worlds around me... Not 'done' that at all! Still 1/4 yr to go!
September 23 at 3:18pm · Like ·  1 person

Jerry Cloony hehehe !!! Just get on with it and don't share you sticky mobile phone with anyone. hahaha !!!
September 23 at 3:37pm · Like
Alva Gosson Eco-friendly home made anti-theft paint ;) Sorry there was a purpose to being so frank it was to highlight the difference between the base nature of reality and doing and the more sublime realm of thought.
September 24 at 1:17am · Like ·  1 person
Alva Gosson Indulge me here this interests me a lot! A visit to the toilet is preceded by some sense of urgency and desire for something, and a process which leads to some satisfaction and the evacuation of something which the digestive processes have made. So it is with thinking itself, tho Socrates prefered the analogy of child birth... At risk of suggesting he was talking shit perhaps, 4 which he was killed anyway ;) anyway was digesting this in bed this morning and now i give birth to these ideas ->
September 25 at 8:09am · Like
Alva Gosson themselves BUT, and this is the point, the process of having these ideas IS NOT the idea itself any more than a baby IS the birth, or a shit IS the pooing -> therefore i can't think abt thought itself as it happens real time! So there is the distinction between what a thought is about and a thought itself and they CAN'T be the same... I call that SRH-it's called Non-Identity in the books. So buddha asks us to go to the toilet and be the pooing not the poo, and be the thinking and not t thought.
September 25 at 8:35am · Like
Alva Gosson Problem with ego, property and Capitalism is that it protects and values the poo more than the pooing, and it is the poo which becomes marketed and fetishised by the customer rather than the industry and the skill of its pooers. So you have worthless shiters in the streets seeking to buy poos that they think are worth something. Bad mistake!
September 25 at 8:41am · Like
Alva Gosson Interesting cos most of the time we think that with enough doing, working, living, shopping, thinking, scientific investigating, pooing we WILL have sometime to show for ourselves when actually we ARE those things.

What makes us happy or sad is not Reality

cut from Facebook…

IF how we think about something determines whether we are happy or sad, then it is our ego that is making us happy or sad. LIKEWISE if there are two sides to a situation that matters to 'us', then that is also our ego making us happy or sad. Reality can only be one way or the other, everything else is ego.
Like ·  · Share · 6 hours ago
Alva Gosson We know when things are Real cos they actually ARE, and they don't need a STORY to accompany them to tell us how they are. Most things aren't real ;-)
6 hours ago · Like
Alva Gosson like this post :-)
6 hours ago · Like
Alva Gosson Qualify that: like what this post says (obviously it can't 'say' anything).
6 hours ago · Like
Alva Gosson I ended up in a situation that was unfair... at least it suddenly occurred to me as such 3 days later which made me unhappy. So I made a decision to deal with it. Everyone i told about is said it was unfair. Then it turned out that the situation I was thinking about hadn't even arisen. All that storm in a tea cup over a story I wrote myself... one that even convinced everyone I told... my mind, my ego, making me trouble :-)

To be constrained, and the constraint.

For a system to be useful it must have constraints. For example a system of N degrees of freedom can be represented in an N dimensional space, however without constraints it occupies that whole space.

The problem is the opposite for a system that is seeking to express itself. It needs freedom from constraints so that it may be large enough to contain all possibilities. The N dimensional space is the ideal system in which to express other systems because it is free from all constraints other than its dimensionality.

For a system to express itself it needs to have less constraints than itself. If it has the same constraints as itself then isn’t its representation the same as itself?

Consistent Networks and Rugby World Cup

Exploring a way of using networks to create means and therefore predictions of missing links in the network.

If a team A plays a team B then a statistic can be formed of their relative strength(RS) r by dividing r=A/B.

If a team plays itself then we would expect its relative strength to be r=1

In a round-robin competition where every team plays every other team a network of RSs exists. Where loops exist it is possible to calculate the score where team A plays team A. For example in the Tri-Nations competition, where 3 teams play, suppose Australia plays New-Zealand with r=2, and NZ then plays South-Africa with r=2. This means that A is twice as good as NZ who is twice as good as SA so we would expect SA to be 1/4 as good as Australia (assuming it is the same Australia we started with). It is this assumption which is flawed as teams are never the same and so can never play themselves! This is a kind of SRH where relationship with oneself once again proves impossible. However holding the assumption that loops multiply to 1 and that such consistent networks reflect  the underlying dynamics of competitions the following calculations can be made.

In a competition of N teams there are N-1 degrees of freedom in a consistent network. So with N=4 teams playing there are 3 unique r values. Imagine the network (a square with diagonals drawn in). Once we know 3 of the sides (a,b,c) the 4th side is simply d=1/(a*b*c). One diagonal is e=1/(a*b) and the other diagonal is f=1/(b*c). Care must be taken to treat these as vectors where direction from A->B always means A/B.

Once real values are known for any of these values the following expression can be used to find the “nearest” consistent network.

  

If each arc of the network is treated as a dimension then the space of all possible networks between N teams is represented by an N(N-1)/2 dimensional space. However only certain points in this space are consistent networks. The consistent networks obey the loop constraints as discussed so the distance from the real network to a consistent network is given by D. Numerical minimisation of D offers the easiest way to discover the nearest consistent network, that is the consistent network that gives the smallest overall change to the data values.

UPDATE (3/10/2011)
However this method means reducing a score from 1 to 0.5 is considered a smaller change than increasing one from 1 to 2 when actually they are the same change. Instead it makes sense to calculate the difference between log values D, then take Exp(magnitude of D) as the Euclidean distance. This forms each part of the above expression.

Recap on 2011 6-Nations championship

N=6 teams play, with a network of size 6.5/2=15 and N-1=5 degrees of freedom (size of the system). From the final championship scores the following relative scores r were calculated (original actual scores before minimising in brackets):

Eng/Ita=4.08 (4.54)
Ita/Ire=0.35 (0.85)
Ire/Fra=1.44 (0.88)
Fra/Sco=0.99 (1.62)
Sco/Wal=1.04 (0.25)
Wal/Eng=0.47 (0.73)
Sco/Eng=0.50 (0.73)
Fra/Eng=0.49 (0.53)
Ire/Eng=0.70 (3.00)
Wal/Ita=1.94 (1.50)
Sco/Ita=2.02 (2.63)
Fra/Ita=1.99 (0.95)
Wal/Ire=0.68 (1.46)
Sco/Ire=0.71 (0.86)
Wal/Fra=0.97 (0.32)

D=3.15

Tri-Nations 2011

N=3 with 3x2/2=3 arcs and 2 degrees of freedom.

This year only 2 matches were played with the following relative scores and geometric average.

A/SA = 1.65
SA/NZ = 0.51
NZ/A = 1.19

For geometrically averaged r D=0.33!

Geometric because if a team does 4x another on one occasion and 1/4 on the next occasion they are on average the same as that other team!

Very much the teams didn’t play as well as themselves! Also the limited size of the network means it doesn’t hold much information. Both rounds are consistent within themselves (small D), but contradictory between themselves. Since the scores represent how many times one team scored than the other it is perhaps better to use the geometric mean for averaging them.

Rugby World Cup 2011

The first week is done and South Africa/Wales (r=1.06), Australia/Ireland (r=0.4!!) and Australia/Italy (r=5.33) have both played Southern Hemisphere teams. These two games link the networks above and enable a consistent network to be calculated for the top 9 teams.

N=9,full network arcs=36 (not all games will be played),d.f.=8

There are 6 more arcs to add to the 6 Nations network
Aus/SA = (1.65)
SA/NZ = (0.51)
NZ/Aus = (1.19)
SA/Wal = (1.06)
Aus/Ire = (0.40)
Aus/Ita = (5.33)

Numerically minimising the new expression gives the following network seeds from which the rest of the consistent network can be calculated:

D=3.30632

a -> 3.95592, b -> 0.218121, c -> 1.97058, d -> 1.09539, e -> 1.02128, p -> 5.10258, r -> 1.17188, t -> 1.33486

Eng/Ita=3.96 (4.54) [a]
Ita/Ire=0.22 (0.85) [b]
Ire/Fra=1.97 (0.88) [c]
Fra/Sco=1.10 (1.62) [d]
Sco/Wal=1.02 (0.25) [e]
Wal/Eng=0.53 (0.73) [1/(a b c d e)]
Sco/Eng=0.54 (0.73) [1/(a b c d)]
Fra/Eng=0.59 (0.53) [1/(a b c)]
Ire/Eng=1.16 (3.00) [1/(a b)]
Wal/Ita=2.08 (1.50) [1/(b c d e)]
Sco/Ita=2.12 (2.63) [1/(b c d)]
Fra/Ita=2.33 (0.95) [1/(b c)]
Wal/Ire=0.45 (1.46) [1/(c d e)]
Sco/Ire=0.46 (0.86) [1/(c d)]
Wal/Fra=0.89 (0.32) [1/(d e)]

Aus/SA = 1.84 (1.65) [p b c d e/t]
SA/NZ = 0.46 (0.51) [t/(b c d e p r)]
NZ/Aus = 1.17 (1.19) [r]
SA/Wal = 1.33 (1.06) [t]
Aus/Ire = 1.11 (0.40) [p b]
Aus/Ita = 5.10 (5.33) [p]

Using this consistent network we can walk between teams multiplying with the arrows and dividing against the arrows to find the relative strengths of games not played. This provides a ranking of teams.

EvNZ=0.67
EvA=0.78
EvI=0.86
EvSA=1.41
EvF=1.69
EvW=1.89

6 Nations further study

The values of the 6 nations network was evaluated after each game in two ways. (1) the nearest consistent network NCN was calculated each time in one step from the raw data network (2) the NCN was calculated from the last network plus the new dimension of data, i.e. in a series of incremental stems. Version two allowed for teams to gradually improve or weaken during the tournament, while version one assumes that games at the start are as important as those at the end.

Results from 1 step calculation.

The first 5 games do not complete any loops so offer no network with which to work. Team strengths relative to England are given on a Log scale and games mark the x-axis.All teams strengthen against England as the tournament progresses, in particular Ireland who storm ahead in the game against England.

Version 2 – Incremental

Essentially the same results but changes in teams (i.e. the walk through the Network space) is smoother. Scotland in particular should be happy with the way their team improved the most during the tournament, perhaps however because they started so weakly. France and Ireland take the last two games very seriously.

UPDATE 3/10/2011

Following the decision to work in log space to make 1/4x the same magnitude change as 4x the 6 nations 1 step calculation yields:

D=8.13701 – the large D value is because %increases above 1 are as valuable as %decreases below in this method.

{a -> 1.04727, b -> 0.745217, c -> 1.32598, d -> 1.43158, e -> 0.76705}

So relative to England the teams would score:

E-W = 0.955
E I = 1.098
E It = 1.432
E F = 0.939
E S = 1.245

Using this method there is very little between the teams! England is stronger than Ireland, Italy and Scotland, but Wales and France are the threats.

A General Note on Networks

If one walks a network making sure that no “loops” are formed then after N-1 arcs (where N is the number of nodes) the “seed” arcs will be laid from which all other arcs can represented by an alternative route through the seed network. In other words the number of arcs A = N + R – 1(R=the number of “regions”). However regions are topographical in N dimensional space so that no arcs ever cross. I believe this is a recognised formula … will check.

ToDo
It has also not been fully tested whether deciding which arcs to make seeds (i.e. degrees of freedom d.f.) and which are dependent on the network leads to different minima. Easy to test just try a few variations of network.

Debt: First 5000 years.

David Graeber is my new man http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2009-08-20-graeber-en.html not read yet but seems to fit exactly into my own embryonic thoughts that society (& economics) is the means by which the powerful try to keep themselves powerful and the poor remain slaves.

Brave v Coward & Sexual Selection

Thought up a genetic model on holiday. I always call my automata “bugs”. So each bug has two binary genes. Gene1 decides whether on seeing a predator the individual signals to the group or not, giving us a brave allele and a cowardly allele. Gene2 decides who you wish to mate with a brave or a coward.

The bugs were distributed in a 15x15 grid, with a 10% chance of moving to adjacent squares randomly, and with a 1% chance of mutation in the genes. Bugs died if they were preyed upon or ran out of energy. The total amount of energy in the group was kept constant by scaling each bug up when the energy fell.

The chance of being caught was determined by the number of braves in your square. Let a solitary individual not see a predator (and get predated) on 70% of occasions (p=0.7) then a group of B braves will be predated on 0.7^B of occasions. If you are a coward in a group of braves you benefit from the braves and yourself so 0.7^(B+1) the extra protection is the benefit of cheating.

2DO-- Originally I wanted to create an expression in the classic style of economics and ecology to express the marginal point at which cheating became less beneficial to being brave. A coward having a lot of non-mobile cowardly children will not benefit as much as a brave having lots of brave children so a dispersal factor will be needed to determine the probability of meeting your offspring.

Instead I did a model. Interestingly being 11 or 00 means that you can produce a self sustaining population since 11 are braves who breed with braves, and 00 are cowards which breed with coward. However as explained under heavy predation groups of braves do much better than groups of cowards.

If you are 01 or 10 then you wish to breed with a different type from yourself. This means that only a mixed population strategy works and is more complex and liable to failure than the simple 11 or 00 strategies.

In the few test runs I performed the 11 quickly became the most dominant type, but then entered population dynamics due to other factors. This eventually gave an opportunity for other types to take over, which usually lead to extinction of all the bugs. One notable feature is the prevalence of type 10 i.e. brave bugs who seek to mate with cowards. As the 11 population falls away and cowards become more frequent it is beneficial to mate with a coward. However under heavy predation large groups of cowards get decimated, so braves are selected for which benefits 10s. However as the cowards fall away 10 run out of mates and if 11s can’t respond fast enough the system collapses.

The program worked by setting the probabilities of each bug, and then throwing dice to select individuals into the next generation. Thus it was not that whole squares got selected for (as in reality) but rather than probability of being selected was increased in good squares. I thought this would reflect general dynamics better.

2Do The model doesn’t have proper diploid sex. A proper diploid genome with sex (genetic mixing) and dominance effects will complicate this logic.

Hereness & Existence

Slowly condensing an awareness of “hereness” and existence.

While working in the Walthamstow FoodGiant in 1994, washing my hands and looking in the mirror, I suddenly experienced that the “thought” that I had a brain (the mental picture so to speak) was better illustrated by the fact I was having the thought. That is the existence that we attribute to other brains was in my case proven by the existence of the world. To put it again: if we survey the objective world we can identify any number of objects, all of which occupy the same status of being part of the world. Then there is the question of which object is myself, it is as though I then need to “enter” the world and when I do I discover that the object of my “brain” corresponds to my experience of the world itself. The existence of my perceptions and my world is the same as the existence of my brain – there is only one level of existence. This is the identity theory which states that brains are consciousness, rather than cause it. Now this runs into problems so expressed but is the beginning of the awareness.

Yesterday came a similar awareness that the existence of the Universe is the same as my existence. It followed from thoughts inspired by a hypothesis on TV that Jack the Ripper was a known criminal with a mental illness that occasionally made him need to kill. This raises that ancient question of freedom and choice and evil once again. If he “needs” to in a way that he cannot control then is he culpable for his crimes? I believe, and have it supported in Buddhist teaching and others, that there is always choice. However if we sink to such a low level of consciousness that we can’t gain perspective on our desires then indeed it will seem to our consciousness that we are overwhelmed by forces beyond our control. Indeed he quite possibly had a desire to kill and mutilate women (this is after all only an extreme type of hatred and greed), but that he “needed” to suggests that his mind was already in a very low state when the desire hit. Once the awareness hits that we always have the possibility to escape the confines of our genetic and mechanistic programming (our body that is) the question arises about the nature of our experience of the world: is this the result of our genetics and mechanistic programming or does this transcend these? What we sense is purely mechanistic—the colours we see depend upon the receptors in our eyes and the wiring of our brain and even the language we speak—but the fact we sense is beyond this. Like Kierkegaard trying to separate the dancer from the dance it is hard to separate the actions of the mind from the mind itself. But if some people might want to say that the ability to see is only the sum of colours and other perceived elements, they might also want to say that a dance can exist without a dancer. Yet and this is crucial the dancer can’t be another type of dance! If we speak of transcending our experience of the world we are going outside experience. Now it is at that level that I realised we are no longer separate from the world. To use Heideggar’s metaphor, the light that shines through our experience is the very light of the Universe. To experience our existence is to experience the existence of the Universe.

On Community

Why do we need context? Determine that and you have the SRH.

===============

Heraclitus says “Only the waking share a common cosmos; each sleeps alone.” Indeed Human existence is one of community, from which extends the whole issue of being-in-a-community and so therefore being-an-individual and then the fear of being-outside-a-community.

Humans mediate their being-in-a-community in many ways from socialising, to having a family, to talking, to working. The latter is of particular interest to me as I prepare to write a book because it forms the basis for economics while the others do not. Work I will argue is simply a social phenomenon; unrecognisable from the activity of survival animals are engaged in (in particular the impact of work by machines, and productivity arising from ethnotechnological efficiency will be examined).

Just listening to Kick-Ass sound track and reminded of the long discussion on Facebook (ironically a community website) about the riots. I was arguing for social inclusion of the rioters; everyone else arguing for social exclusion. Why do some people like Kick-Ass exercise their freedom by fighting for social justice, while others do so by becoming the criminals? (Essentially the problem of evil). Briefly if some people just “are” evil then they have no choice in what they do, so technically they are not evil. If they chose to do evil then in some way they don’t see it as evil. Viewing from a social perspective I suggest that they do evil because they believe it will lead to social inclusion in their peer group, or they are dreaming not realising that social inclusion was their goal.

Last night I dreamed I was a mass-murderer; today am I a mass-murderer dreaming I am sane? After reading Raymond Tallis’ discussion of Zhuangzi And That Bloody Butterfly it is clear that the answer is “No”. It also reveals the problem with the mass-murderer because he might be fooled by this puzzle! If I am a mass-murderer who is dreaming then who today am I talking to, or writing for here? If I am simply dreaming all these words, then the mass-murderer will awake and remember all this and then who is he remembering it all for; the people he wants to kill? Thus whichever way I turn I recognise that the desire to remember my dream and its words are inspired by an audience (an unspecified audience, implicit in the existence of language) and so the murdered finds himself in a community, one that he wishes to annihilate or at least alienate himself from. Why would he do this? I suspect, as with all crime and violence, it is ironic. It is because his desire to be in-the-community is so great that he ends up being-outside-the community, just as people whose desire for peace is too great end up creating wars, and people whose desire for non-crime end up committing crimes as do Kick-Ass and his partners.

Been having a discussion with friends upon the whole nature of private and public funding, that is between Capitalism and Socialism. Read Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” and then started Jim Collins - Books - Good to Great and the Social Sectors. Hayek argues that putting power in the hands of all powerful people leads to abuses of freedom both by implication of giving up freedom, but also because powerful people have to get used to hurting a minority in every choice and so lose compassion. Big planning he says is thus anathema to freedom and so free-markets and individual competition is the best of a bad world. Collins argues that business thinking revolves around money as both input and output, while social services has money as an input but needs other measures of its output than money. The Cleveland Orchestra is used as one example of how other measures than profit were used to chart its progress to the #3 orchestra in the world. Collins’ articulation of the point that there are other measures of success than profit cuts to the root of the debate about Capitalism for me. A profitable organisation may have unmeasured costs on the community and the welfare of people, even amounting to more cost than profit when viewed against other baseline measures; something which a purely monetary economics can’t stop. Private funding ignores the impact on the public; public funding ignores the impact on the private. Thatcher, and other post-Hayekians, would say there are only individuals and on the level of man to man they cannot be wrong (in Kant’s terms each man is an end in himself), but like the dreamer they ignore the a priori necessity of a community that ought—if they awake—to inform their individual choices as leaders. Clearly there is room for a dialectic, as indeed we have!

Death implies Other

Further to the post on 25th Sept 2007 "Notes as I read..."...

The chicken egg problem means that a system can never be the "exclusive cause of itself" (XCI) because if it was then how was it created in the first place.

Thus a system is either Eternal and XCI or it is not Eternal (mortal) and not XCI.

To be not XCI a system must be caused by something other than itself (even if it can also be caused by itself). Thus no mortal system can exist independent of other systems. Death implies Other.

Now the SRH (which states that referring to oneself is impossible) is based on similar logic. To refer to oneself we must also be in existence, for if we were not existing then how could we be referring. Equally if the statement is a self-referring statement, then it must be referring in order to exist (as a self-referring statement). So we have the chicken and the egg again, albeit rather loosely:

If the statement fails to refer to itself it is still an existing statement so we can say that the existence of the statement is prior. The fact of whether it is self-referential or not, is built upon the statement existence. So the SRH is complaining that the reference is apparently to something which somehow embodies "itself", as though failure to refer would destroy the "self". The reference to a statement is thus not strictly self-referential:

"This statement has five words." could refer to the existence of a statement alone which is independent of the further judgement that the statement referred to is itself. This wouldn't raise the chicken egg problem. Yes, there is a statement here which has five words, it happens to be itself, it could have been any statement on the page, it just happens to be the same one as we are reading. Very boring.

However to be self-referential it would have to be taken to mean that "This statement has five words." is really the statement we are reading. This exciting possibility is why these statements are so alluring. This is the feeling we have of ourselves, it is more than one person amongst billions who just happens to be us. This means that "this statement" is only true when there exists this statement which also refers to itself. This raises the chicken and egg problem. There is only a statement with 5 words, if there is a statement with five words.

Put another way if the statement is "really" and "essentially" and "necessarily" self-referential (EN-SR) then it must refer to a self-referential statement. It is not good enough to set up reference to any old statement and then notice that this statement is itself. That is only partial, secondary and non-essential, non-necessary self-reference. This point has been made before in this blog.

To further illustrate. Suppose this page forms an ordered set of statements, P. We now have a statement "Statement x of P" where x is a free variable. Now I could list on this page random versions of this general formula with random natural numbers substituted. Eventually one of these statement must be numbered with the same number as its position in the page P. Alternatively I'll just cut to the chase with the next statement. "Statement 37 of P." Now this happens to we statement 37 on the page because I just counted all the current statements and added 1. Now I added one because I knew that once the statement was formed it would be a new statement but I did this before it was formed, before there were 37 statements, done in anticipation of it being the 37th statement. Before I typed it out and put the full stop at the end it wasn't true. Thus I built a system by other means whose self-reference only became "switched on" when the full stop was put in place. Thus it was built without self-reference being in place. As above if self-reference was needed to build the statement then it would have to be immortal. But because it is created, there must be other ways to create the statement other than itself. So we know that the real nature of a self-referential statement is actually just a statement and this is what is referred to. The statement does not refer to a self-referential statement, so it is not really self-referential! This is the SRH.

Form v Process

It’s an old Buddhist teaching but was clearer to me at the weekend… the rose growing on the pile of shit (or more usually the lotus flower growing from the pond mud).

The simple point is that the rose is made from the shit, yet in particular its smell is appealing while the shit is unappealing. How remarkable that what is horrible can become what is desirable. This is the teaching of emptiness.

It is sensible to think that something substantial passes from the shit to the flower, and this would not be entirely wrong, but what is that “thing”.

In scientific terms it is the atoms of the shit and its bad smell that can be transferred and reorganised into the atoms of the rose and its pleasant fragrance.

But as has been discovered the quarks in atoms can be reorganised to produce different atoms so atoms are not the real building blocks. And, as will be discovered (if Buddhist theory is correct) there are no fundamental building blocks and whatever we take as the fundamental untransmutable base will always be changeable as its components become reorganised.

So what began as an Democritic (after Democritus) reductionist analysis to explain the qualities of things by find the components which bring those qualities into the mix rather flounders as we discover the nature of reality. Indeed a flower is made of nothing different from the shit, but it is never-the-less different. The flaw is thinking that the nice flavour of a sponge cake is somehow a mixture of the flavours of flour, butter and sugar. But these when mixed taste horrible. Something new has emerged that wasn’t there before, an illusion that is caused in our senses by these raw materials.

This is a slightly simplistic version because it is not that something nameless passes between the shit and the flower. The rose needs nutrients but also sunlight, water and carbon-dioxide. Like the cake the ingredients alone are not enough, it requires heat in the oven to help reform the structures of the ingredients. This is the full picture that when the correct conditions all come together then and only then does the emergent property appear. It is not that something nameless passes from the ingredients to the product, but that the resulting “form” is entirely new depending only upon the interaction of its component conditions.

One may persist in the view that something is present in the conditions that is passed and reformed into the product, but then one may observe that the conditions themselves are only emergent properties caused by as the result of preceding conditions. So we can always rewrite the ingredient list as an infinite series of prior conditions and never have need to mention a root and core substance.

One however should not attach to the idea of emptiness and of flux and change only. It is only the less common side of the coin. The common side of the coin is still valid which views station stops of emergent properties linked together by the railway tracks of processes. It is just that this view lives side by side with the view that sees the station stops as simply momentary hiatuses in the endless cycle of train services.

Mass of Higgs Particle

For a while I thought that physicists had explained the origin of Mass by describing it as the interaction of particles and the Higgs particle.

By the SRH then the Higgs particle can’t have the quality of Mass: that is it can’t have either a zero or non-zero mass.

It turns out that the Higgs Particle has mass, and that interaction with the Higgs explains only the masses of other particles but not the Higgs (obviously by SRH). But assuming that the theory proposed that the Higgs gained mass from interaction with itself, reveals the very fine distinction required for the SRH.

Borrowing the terms “inner” and “outer” from Hofstadter we can examine the situation where a particle. Suppose it gains mass by interacting with itself. Now the “inner” quality of the particle, the nature of the particle that enables it to give mass, must be mass-less. This would mean that mass is simply an “outer” quality, a superficial veil draped over the core nature of the particle.

Returning to sentences this distinction enables a better analysis of the sentence: “This sentence has five words.” The inner nature of the sentence is indeed a reference to itself, but it refers only to an “outer” quality that has no intrinsic relationship with the essence of the sentence. Using Google Translator into Chinese gives “這句話有五個字" which in the “inner” sense is the same, but clearly the outer quality is very different. Thus the sentence escapes actual “inner self” reference and so escapes paradox.

So just as Use/Mention is a distinction, so Inner/Outer are distinctions just as Hofstadter argues. I need now re-read that chapter of GEB to understand the 3rd distinction he makes and whether that is relevant also.

I AM

I'm bike riding with an mp3 player these days which I put loosely in my pocket. I'm often finding myself thinking whether it has fallen out, only the realise that if I'm still listening to music it must still be connected.

Yesterday this thought was a bit deeper. Exactly the same is true of our eyes, and is the basis of the arguments in this blog against brain science. We may factually wonder whether our eyes are still working, only to be reminded that if we are seeing then they must be (and everything else in the process of seeing also).

Now, the question is this: What is the extra information that I have as a result of hearing the music, that I don't have by doing an examination of my pockets to find the mp3 player? It is clearly very significant knowledge because it tells me not only that the mp3 player is there, but also that the headphones are still in my ears, and that the cables are not damaged, and that the battery is still active--all deduced from the simple observation that I hear music! Imagine how hard it would be to determine all this otherwise.

Even if I did take the mp3 player down to a laboratory for testing to ensure that it was working, the data by itself locked in a cupboard would not be sufficient: I would need to see that data and understand it. In other words the critical feature of "hearing" the sound would have just become "seeing" the data.

So this key feature is what is called "subjectivity". It is what is missing from the scientific view. It is also the underpinning of the scientific world: raw data is not in itself meaningful (altho some like Hofstadter have argued for data having some intrinsic entropic existence).

Now the idea that I can tell I have eyes in tact by virtue of being able to see, and that I have a brain in tact by virtue of being able to think that (which the close to the most recent progress on the SRH), and that I have the ability to reason and be cognisant by virtue of recognising that very fact is basically Descartes. And one can extend this to realisation that the fact that there are things at all, and a universe (a Brahman) shows me instantly that I AM (Atman or Yahweh). Thus the creation of the universe is done so by the I AM and they are sides of the same coin. The Tat Tvam Asi.

What we can't argue and where the problems occur is that as seeing proves I have eyes, and cognisance is proof I have a brain, the presence of a universe is proof that there is some thing called "me". The presence of the "I AM" is not thus proof of a thing called "I AM".

What is More

• What is "More"?

  29 minutes ago · Like

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  Alva Gosson in brief answer it depends only upon what we have now... which means that we will always be seeking more, and once we find it we will always feel we have less. This is the force that leads into the brick wall of suffering.

  28 minutes ago · Like

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  Alva Gosson So we want "more" fish, but sadly it will mean "less" fish. That is the problem.

  24 minutes ago · Like

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  Alva Gosson A friend who was very happy with his new house a few years ago said recently he needed a bigger house. Its a systemic problem, the solution goes to the root of human life and our understanding of existence itself. "More" government, or "less" government, "more" policy or "less" policy: its all framed within the very problem itself. I read all this btw its freely available and people have been talking about it and living it for millennia, its just unfashionable since Plato (at least) onwards.

  21 minutes ago · Like

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  Alva Gosson I could go on (as you know ;-): here's the question that puzzled me - who is richer the starving man who finds a half eaten burger in the bin, or the man who ate that burger in the first place? To me (after some considerable thought) it's clearly the starving man, while the other man didn't even finish the burger so it meant very little to him. Now economics is the science of creating more wealth... clearly it's a complete jumble of rubbish! I believe that a new fashion in politics is waking up to this "Science of Happiness" but maybe too late for the oceans and the forest and the land anyway.
  Another question that puzzled me for much longer. Is the person in a concentration camp waiting to die in actual poverty? Well we are all waiting to die so we can remove that from the equation. I believe that an identical structure of wealth and poverty would develop here just much as anywhere with people having better and worse bunks, and more or less sleep, and better or worse jobs etc.

Close Distribution Difference from Normal

Here are the actual difference from Normal for the frequency distribution of change in Ln(adjusted close prices). The y-axis corresponds to %s of the population, and the x-axis is the size of the move in Standard Deviations from the mean.

Unlike the original approach the purpose now is no longer to model this, but rather to understand it so that it can be incorporated into a fractal system.

If we assume that the markets are random (from the standpoint of the market there are random events in the industries) then the pattern here is due to investors (a feature of psychology, and interactions between markets).

There are 2 noticeable shortfalls in this chart which mean that events of –1.5 STDEV and +1.4 STDEV are far less likely than expected. The events that would have fallen into these are mostly pushed to the centre (-0.5 to +1) and to the extremes (<-2.5 and >+2.2). I explain this as follows. Small drops in the daily price (>-1.5) get bought into returning the close price to near or slightly above the open price, and likewise small daily rises in price (<1.5) suffer from profit taking causing the price to fall.

Daily moves below 1.5 lead to worry in speculators and they sell causing a larger than expected move. Once the rot sets in investors will follow and cause the fat tail.

Daily moves 1.5 lead to euphoria which seems to happen in two waves. Closing prices 3 STDEV from opening price are less likely as a second wave of euphoric buying pressure pushes the price higher. There after irrational exuberance stretches the price upwards.

This chart is for the majority of events (speculators). Another chart can be produces to study the behaviour of the extremes (investors).

V for Vendetta

Finally got around to watching this film… In a land far, far away… it depicts aspects of contemporary society and has its good points but its main premise is for me a bad point. I’ve certainly missed many points on a first casual viewing but the fundamental premise that by somehow destroying the haze of illusions that masks people hiding them from each other and themselves—by creating a world of genuine love—we would make a better world. Well in one sense of course this is true and it is the religious dream of reuniting people with God, cleansed in the rain of his love; but, what makes V think that after he has set things back on course, people won’t drift back into inauthenticity? You won’t kill the devil that quickly. I’m not being negative. Each one of us, exactly as V intends, can see through the illusion and gain enlightenment. Indeed V says that precisely because the illusion is created by ourselves we are the ones to over come it. The “totalitarian state” here is not meant literally but symbolically for our own failure to master ourselves which leaves us slaves to our own whims and fancies and like leaves in the wind. Obviously those disaffected by totalitarian states are projecting their dissatisfaction with themselves onto the outside world. It is interesting how popular this film seems to be and I suspect in those circles that take it to be a literal representation of the control exerted on us by modern governments. Certainly such mechanisms of control as shown in the film  are thoroughly pervasive but as the film shows we don’t have to be susceptible to them. Happiest time of my life was the 2 years I didn’t have a TV and didn’t follow any external official narrative, I fell in love (‘my muse’), and followed my own inner narrative. Problem with that approach is it doesn’t work because wisdom means awareness of both the outside and the inside! Wisdom of the external narratives on TV and the papers is the easy part; what about wisdom of ourselves: that is almost impossible because it is different for us all. As V says he can show us the fear of death that leaves us helpless to control but he can’t actually make us face it as she does. It’s the blue versus red pill in the Matrix: how many of us would really throw away the comfort and fake peace of our lives to pursue a path that goes beyond our own death? Put more directly, if we were prepared to within ourselves why do we need a film like V to persuade us! Anyone persuaded by V needs to look very deeply at why they weren’t being authentic anyway! Isn’t being inspired by V just another mask—one we can’t remove at the end because it is the film itself!

But I don’t want to dissuade from the purpose of the film which as an instruction to ourselves to be themselves and to treat others with unique respect and love is excellent. It also raises a point for me: what was she prepared to die for? Until we have something we are prepared to die for, or better we are not afraid to die, then we can’t live. This has been a point in the blog before but the film raises the point excellently. But what do I have that I would die for? That would be a suitable answer to this whole blog: at the moment there is nothing!

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Just in SRH style fun would I die to save myself? Need to think up a plot (a lying fiction ;-) where this actually happens.

Stock Market Distributions again

THIS MAY BE FLAWED

I’ve returned to this problem again. Working out the expected distribution of votes at random in the Eurovision song contest (which will be biased because countries get to vote against themselves!) I noticed a similarity with the stacked charts I had produced for stock market data (simply ordering the raw data). In the Eurovision the game is simply dropping in one of the 10 scores to the pigeon hole of your chosen acts and then adding the scores up at the end. A variation I used for this stock market simulation was repeatedly adding a line of bricks of random length randomly along to a wall. The result is very like a stock market chart but has a more normal distribution (essentially it creates a random walk – this remains to be proven). However by fortune I made a mistake and forgot to reset the array I was using to hold the daily change data before producing the frequency histogram. The result was that over time the array became very large and the distribution narrowed and became more like the stock distribution.

The area of the green normal is the same as the blue FTSE data but the size of the peak and the squeezing is very pronounced.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why this particular game should lead to this distribution I cannot explain at the moment. A similar game of repeating a unit with a percentage of Gaussian random changes produces the expected result that only certain events are produced more often depending upon when they enter the unit and how long they survive in the repeating unit. Need to look at again.