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I have not read Lilly's book, but I am aware of it. It's been on my list for years, but I've never gotten around to it. I've read far too few books, and that is something I'm trying to remedy. I'm much more of a thinker than a reader, and I sometimes find it difficult to devote time to other people's thoughts...
Well put! I sometimes get embarrassed when speaking of it, mostly because I feel I have trouble communicating my thoughts clearly. It's very easy to sound like hippie, something I am not. I am mostly interested in gaining insight and control over mind and body, in addition to using it as a tool for scientific, or trading, breakthroughs (à la Crick).
I've always liked the very abstract and the unmistakable concrete, but I struggle with things in between. That's why I'm fascinated by trading; It's both very mechanical and abstract at the same time. I've been scratching the surface of Complex Adaptive Systems lately, and that seems right up my alley. I've also devoted more time to AI, which is something I've wanted to do for years. More about this in my reply to @Deucalion in a little while.
My goal was to accumulate 8 figures before I could really start living, but I've adjusted my goal a little. I spent three years traveling the world; flying first class and staying in suites at five star hotels. Everything gets old after a while, and the most fun is to be had within one's own brain. I despise myself for not pursuing my real interests much sooner, but I guess that's part of growing up...
A mathematician who is not also something of a poet will never be a complete mathematician. - Karl Weierstrass
After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in esthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are always artists as well.
—Albert Einstein
Thanks for the links, @Deucalion. Interesting stuff indeed!
I was joking about Bayesian inference, of course. I think you have me confused with someone who wish to guide others to the end of the trading rainbow...
I am a very intuitive thinker, but I have a long way to go in order to understand how that process actually works.
I think in pictures and often find it hard to describe my feelings and thoughts. I classify things based on a intuitive feeling of coarseness and shades of color. I have great difficulty remembering auditory information, and I struggle with separating background noise from speech. It's nearly impossible for me to watch a "noisy" movie without subtitles for me; I experience sensory overload. I also have difficulty focusing on a single stream of information, especially such banalities as small talk, and normally drift in and out of the dialog. However, when I really get interested in something, I experience a sort of "hyperconcentration" where I am oblivious of my surroundings.
However, I'm also mathematically inclined and like to quantify my intuition as much as possible. It's very important to distinguish between emotion and intuition, though. I'm a quite calm, rational human being, but my intuition simply outperforms my other cognitive efforts. Since intuition can't easily be reverse engineered, it sometimes feels as if my brain is a black box. It's kind of like Plato's Cave; I can sense an outline of what is going on, but not completely.
My view has always been that there are complex processes in the unconscious that form my intuition. The more input I feed it, the better it performs. I've never understood why people have such a hard time accepting that theory. Probably it's because most people's intuition is not very fine-tuned. I spent quite a bit of time to be able to recognize and try to eliminate emotional bias. I've never been very emotionally affected, and I've always seen that as a human weakness. When people speak of using feelings to one's advantage, they are usually referring to intuition.
Quickly rereading what I wrote, I can see that I sound like an pretentious, egomaniacal, pompous ass. It seems that I think I am Nietzsche's Übermensch. That's not my intention, and that is also why I rarely speak of such matters. However, I thought it might be fitting for this thread.
To balance out the bragging, I would like to add that I am often quite a slow learner. I usually spend a lot of time getting the fundamentals right, but then I am usually able to take quantum leaps. I spend a lot of time focusing on the on the essence of the more complex aspects, before I even attempt to fully understand the basics. I really don't like the linear approach one is forced to follow in school.
In trading it seems that almost all are focused on very narrow fields, without having a deep understanding bout the interconnected "whole". I think this is a big mistake. It's in the complex relationships between the whole and the parts that the brain has the greatest advantage over machines. I am using a complex evolving system, my brain, to solve and exploit a complex adaptive system.
I'm much more interested in Bayesian probabilities with regard to machine learning. My interested in AI lies in the possibility of trying to quantify an approximation of my intuition. I've wanted to spend more time on this for years, but I haven't been able to actually get started until recently.
The problem with all of this, at least for me, is that it's more interesting than trading. So even though a lot of it might not necessarily be applicable to trading, I still want to delve into it. I'm screwed.... I've been working on a way to just focus on my swing trading for some time, and I think this is it...
Yeah, neurogenesis is a beautiful thing. Running seems to be a good type of exercise for this. Any exercise that involves balance and speed should be good. I can't wait for this to get more documented. At the rate I'm going, I'm afraid my brain will explode from all the new neurons...
I forgot to add that good money and risk management is key if basing trades on one's intuition. I don't really want to get into details about it, but modeling for volatility is really helpful.
Someone sent me a video of an installation based on the patterns in nature:
Google "intuition & emotion" and one comes with a ton of nonsense linking the two and mixing intuition with spirituality, hocus pocus as if it was some magical (mystical?) mumbo jumbo. This typically comes from idiots and pseudo scientists/self-proclaimed experts who quickly want to label and package things neatly into boxes. Just your everyday reductionist BS that pervades our lives. No nuance, no insight, no subtlety, no acceptance of the abstract and the possible.....just living in prose. Utter Banality.
I have a hard time accepting intuition is a pure abstract that one is simply born with. I am firmly in the camp of believing that one's social & learning environment hones it. It is a an important tool for me. I mirror your thoughts on intuition, although I am less inclined with the math side of it. Being a physics student, I am happy when my intuition does not clash or contradict natural logic and rational thought. That's it. Your thoughts on intuition reminded me of this - Intuition -- Psychodynamics and the Science of Intuition
For one thing, this explains better INT"X" rather than just "J". Actually, today I believe my brain is evolving into a similar thought process too. Secondly, I use to scoff at the right brain types, the abstract thinkers, the artisans - believing vainly in the edge of the Rationals. No more - I often admire the artsy types for their abilities to think freely - my rational bit keeps me grounded - so this maybe the best of two worlds so to speak. You can be thinking and perceving at the same time without losing rational & logical thought.
Jung (famously) - "It is fashionable stupidity to regard everything one cannot explain as a fraud."
Mintzberg (less famously) - "It isn't possible to assess the use of intuition by purely logical processes. It is a subconscious process, which no one really understands, except by certain of its characteristics (such as the speed with which it can sometimes produce answers.) Thus the dismissal of intuition as an irrational process is itself irrational, just as embracing it as a process superior to formal logic is itself illogical."
Qualifier - it would be easy to get lost into detail with the stuff you covered, so i am going to use Occam's Razor principle here (imagine my pleasant sense of deja vue when I read this linking Occam's Razor to heuristics, bayes, probablity et al...)
I agree, some people focus trading on a narrow basis. Trading patterns in any market are a result of human beliefs. Beliefs are rational, irrational, instinctual, intellectual, mob driven, predictable, unpredictable....etc etc.......They come from every facet of human endeavour. Anyone that disregards this is missing the bigger picture. In fact, this I would say I abhor that sort of narrow approach - Every trade of mine is constantly evaluating "why" and "why not" together....right from entry to exit. It keeps me out of some simple trades but it also keeps me of trouble (which works for me)
All of this is reflected in everyday patterns. This again comes back to why I only trade EW. I believe on both an intuitive and rational level that human beings will always color the market with their beliefs (no matter how good the machines get). After all, machines are based on our collective learning and knowledge. I also would state that EW is one way of interpreting our belief systems (not the only way but one way that appeals to me holistically).
I would go as far as claiming that simple Bayesian thoughts, optimised by common sense heuristics and pattern recognition are all linked together in this....nothing violates the other. This is poetry to me....I cannot quantify it (yet). But it's there. It's such a pleasant thing to note that when I mentioned intuition and emotion, you followed that with Bayes with machine learning. And pattern recognition. I understand that you are talking about this is a general sense, more than just trading. And this is so true.....pattern recognition rules everything. Trading, our beliefs and responses to all sensory input. This is obviously why pattern traders have a powerful tool (if done well). Obviously with common sense money managemernt. otherwise its just illogical
Unfortunately, I have made zero progress reading about stuff that interests me (in trading and general) about neuroplasticity and genesis, as well as Pattern Recognition as I got sidetracked with a final effort in understanding market profile (both time and volume based) and other volume related studies in trading recently. Ultimately realizing, after much effort that my interpretation of EW already gives me a sledgehammer and the current popularity of this hot new(?) trend of using MP is just that, another trend that will lose its lustre as everyone adopts it (which is also why I said the bit about Occam's Razor in the beginning). Simplicity rules!
Wish I found running interesting, it was/is squash that always clicked me on, physical chess my old man calls it. And so relates to trading as well - anticipation, controlled aggression, sudden violence and frequently unpredictable.