How To Think Correctly

[SOCRATES]

Would it be fair to say that you can only think about what you know? Would it not be better to learn about the markets before you trade?

Yes, quite so.

You see if of course, if you are not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once ~
All at once and nothing first ~
Just like bubbles do when they burst.

 

[SOCRATES]

When people lose , an often heared phrase is , you have to be philosophical about it , you never hear this said to winners . As for Socrates , we see more and more these days care in the community wasn't such a good idea , or have you been using Matrons phone card again?Why is it you don't hear builders or shopkeepers asking why thier subconcouse makes them lose , those businesses aren't zero sum games , businesses where it's accepted that the best tend to do well, the not so good , not so well , but not psychologically impaired , mind you reading some of socrates diaohrea i now give in , some of you guys are psychological losers .( present company ( blades included ) accepted!

I have read what you have written.

I must tell you that the insolence of the vulgar is in direct proportion to their ignorance,

and that they are apt to treat everythng with contempt that they do not understand.

Instead of serially spreading offensive graffitti, like I have observed you doing in several threads, your time would be better spent in getting yourself an education.

 

[darkwanderer]

Why do people think they need to trade?

 

[starspacer]

Even Gluons are Quick

I’m sure Henry, at the molecular level is quite quick.

After all, every human is an ancestor of the quark/gluon soup. It’s just that some have crawled from slime during low tide in the gene pool and their minds seems to be orthogonally parked in a parallel universe.

 

[andycan]

Why do people think they need to trade?

why not?
why do people have ambition?
why do people strive for a better life
why do people make trading mystical?

 

[starspacer]

Why do people think they need to trade?

Because a few moments may be our pleasure but never our theme.

 

[sandyg]

Why do people think they need to trade?

Two reasons come to mind.

1. They feel the urge to spend money and stay active.

2. They think by keeping at it one day they would have mastered or find a system ie the Holy Grail. :cheesy:

 

[counter_violent]

Will you be taking this lying down then Henry ?

I see Socco is spoiling for some banter, alas it's quiet tonight, nobody is biting !

 

[starspacer]

Two reasons come to mind.

1. They feel the urge to spend money and stay active.

2. They think by keeping at it one day they would have mastered or find a system ie the Holy Grail. :cheesy:

The trading fool arouses expectation, especially if he succeeds or fails the first time. He meekly avoids contradicting others, learns nothing and gently slips toward an apathetic soup of ignorance. Ignorance leads to doubt, doubt leads to fear and he thus avoids the fruit of intellects who seek to protect him from a life of trading torment (because it promises too much).

 

[darkwanderer]

Is the downfall of the masses therefore down to laziness, and not fear and greed? It's ok having ambition, but you've got to have the will to see it through. This takes patience and concentration. Any idiot can trade and get it wrong, then give up. The few learn to get it right, they learn the importance of not trading, and waiting for the right moment.

 

[starspacer]

Is the downfall of the masses therefore down to laziness, and not fear and greed? It's ok having ambition, but you've got to have the will to see it through. This takes patience and concentration. Any idiot can trade and get it wrong, then give up. The few learn to get it right, they learn the importance of not trading, and waiting for the right moment.

Yes, partly so. This is especially necessary as the masses suffer the misfortune of their intelligence telling them where to direct their weapons of discontent, hatred and envy. It is this folly of the highest order which the few have to guard against. This is why these onlookers see more of their own reflection in the physical world. They cannot escape its boundary and are thus enslaved in a permanent loop of trading misery.

 

[andycan]

Is the downfall of the masses therefore down to laziness, and not fear and greed? It's ok having ambition, but you've got to have the will to see it through. This takes patience and concentration. Any idiot can trade and get it wrong, then give up. The few learn to get it right, they learn the importance of not trading, and waiting for the right moment.

maybe it is lazyness i dont know,speaking for my self everything i have ever learned regarding trading i have proven to be true through my own hard work and not someone telling me this is the right way to do it or becasue it is written therefore it must be true nonsense
to have the will to see it through is a question of character you either can or you cant plain and simple
and you are right any idiot can trade but the importance here is trading correctly
and very few achieve it
but waiting for the right moment in itself does not prove anything how many here have said publicly or privately
'i know/knew thats a low/high,i should have bought/sold
so why didn't they?

 

[darkwanderer]

People deal with fear and phobia in different ways, the unknown brings upon fear, it can't be helped, it's a primevil saftey mechanism within us all. Not taking a trade that fits the set up says volumes about the trader and thier methods.

 

[starspacer]

People deal with fear and phobia in different ways, the unknown brings upon fear, it can't be helped, it's a primevil saftey mechanism within us all. Not taking a trade that fits the set up says volumes about the trader and thier methods.

The foolish, as you rightly say, continue to have their fears and phobias and will continue to replenish the pockets of the wise. They ignore sage advice if it is not to their liking and will consequently never be reborn to achieve trading mastery.

As its end approaches, the Pheonix builds a nest on top of the highest mountain, sets it on fire, and is consumed in the flames. In a similar way, the master trader retires into silent contemplatation for he has achieved his own majesty.

 

[CYOF]

Yes, quite so.

You see if of course, if you are not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once ~
All at once and nothing first ~
Just like bubbles do when they burst.

Socrates, I like your posts and don't really see why there are arguments with others, as this is just time wasting and does not benefit anyone.

To get a better understanding of how you trade, and what markets, you might give an overview or post some links to existing details.

Here is a very good description of what your alias means, and may give some insight into where you are coming from - please correct me if I am wrong?

Socrates was a man of knowledge but not that much knowledge. As a freshman in high school you probably knew more than Socrates. But, Socrates was a wise man. He had wisdom because he knew only one thing: that he knew nothing. His "job," so to speak, was to question the Athenian youth. It was not enough to know something. You had to know why you knew it. And this, of course, brought him to the greatest question of all: what is knowledge? What can we know? Well, for Socrates, again, his knowledge consisted in the realization that he knew nothing. This Socratic irony leaves us rather high and dry but I think there is a greater issue at stake here.

For Socrates, perhaps the highest virtue can be summed up in the phrase, "Know thyself." In other words, of all the things in the phenomenal world, there is not one so important as yourself. To know yourself means to be aware of what it is that makes you who you are. And in this respect, the one thing which reveals this knowledge is history. But people do not live alone, they live in society. And it is in society that the individual comes into contact with other individuals, all of whom are on the same quest, in varying degrees. So, for Socrates, knowledge of self does not hinge upon reflection or introspection, but conversation, hence the Socratic dialogue.

The Socratic dialogue implies that instructor and student meet on an equal footing. Dialogue means conversation between two or more people. And what is the point of Socratic dialogue? Improvement. Self-improvement of the instructor and self-improvement of the student.


I trust you do not take offence at this post, as I can assure you that none was meant.

My alias, CYOF, by the way, stands for Control Your Own Finances.

Regards,

 

[SOCRATES]

Socrates, I like your posts and don't really see why there are arguments with others, as this is just time wasting and does not benefit anyone.

To get a better understanding of how you trade, and what markets, you might give an overview or post some links to existing details.

Here is a very good description of what your alias means, and may give some insight into where you are coming from - please correct me if I am wrong?

Socrates was a man of knowledge but not that much knowledge. As a freshman in high school you probably knew more than Socrates. But, Socrates was a wise man. He had wisdom because he knew only one thing: that he knew nothing. His "job," so to speak, was to question the Athenian youth. It was not enough to know something. You had to know why you knew it. And this, of course, brought him to the greatest question of all: what is knowledge? What can we know? Well, for Socrates, again, his knowledge consisted in the realization that he knew nothing. This Socratic irony leaves us rather high and dry but I think there is a greater issue at stake here.

For Socrates, perhaps the highest virtue can be summed up in the phrase, "Know thyself." In other words, of all the things in the phenomenal world, there is not one so important as yourself. To know yourself means to be aware of what it is that makes you who you are. And in this respect, the one thing which reveals this knowledge is history. But people do not live alone, they live in society. And it is in society that the individual comes into contact with other individuals, all of whom are on the same quest, in varying degrees. So, for Socrates, knowledge of self does not hinge upon reflection or introspection, but conversation, hence the Socratic dialogue.

The Socratic dialogue implies that instructor and student meet on an equal footing. Dialogue means conversation between two or more people. And what is the point of Socratic dialogue? Improvement. Self-improvement of the instructor and self-improvement of the student.


I trust you do not take offence at this post, as I can assure you that none was meant.

My alias, CYOF, by the way, stands for Control Your Own Finances.

Regards,

I am not offended at all...in fact...rather pleased...but you have to understand that it is Thursday and the markets are running, so I will take the opportunity to reply tomorrow evening after the close of business and throughout the weekend if you don't mind.

 

[CYOF]

I am not offended at all...in fact...rather pleased...but you have to understand that it is Thursday and the markets are running, so I will take the opportunity to reply tomorrow evening after the close of business and throughout the weekend if you don't mind.

You are of course correct to not frequent the T2W site when you are trading the markets - common sense I would say

Looking forward to your reply.

Regards,

 

[CYOF]

In case some readers are wondering what the Socrates post is all about - here is my thinking on it.

We all are trying to succeed at trading - in other words, we want to make money on a consistent basis in the markets.

Throughout life, most of what we have learned has been acquired through experience - no human is born with the ability to walk - as far as I am aware at least.

Every experience has to have a cause and effect - to learn how to walk (the effect) we must learn how to move our muscles (the cause).

To make money consistently in the markets (the effect) we must buy at one price and sell at a different price which realises a profit (the cause).

But, we forgot to mention that in order to walk, there is an elaborate structure within the human body that allows this to happen. In reality, the majority of us will ever only have a very broad picture of what this structure is ( bones, sinews, nerves, blood, heart, brain ,etc, etc), but there are a few that will have acquired great knowledge into the workings of the human body, so much so that they can actually carry out repair jobs that will leave the majority saying - how can they do that!

Trading the markets may be no different. They majority will always have a broad overview, and there will always be the few that have acquired the vast knowledge that enables consistent winning. The crux comes with the question - how can they do that!

In our walking example, it is very plain to see that the surgeon knows what he is doing as the results (someone with the ability to be mobile once more) are clearly there to see.

In trading, the results seem to never appear -so this can only leave the observer with one conclusion - this Trader does not know what he is talking about.

This is where one must be observant and read between the lines. Just because someone does not post their results, does in no way mean that they do not know what they are talking about.

If we go back in History and look at Socrtates (the real one that is ) we find that Socrates was executed and left no writings of any sort behind. However, his star pupil Plato, went on to leave many writings, most of which were inspired by Socrates.

Did Socrates know what he was talking about, even though we have no writings of his to review - well if you think Plato did then it implies that Socrates did!

Conclusion: Do not take everything you read at face value. Be prepared to look more deeply into what you are reading, for writing can reveal a true reflection of ones ability. If one is not aware of this fact then one may never go beyond the - how can they do that!

 

[SOCRATES]

It is a complicated matter but I will keep it as simple as possible, OK ?

Socrates the Greek Philosopher of antiquity, lived in a society that existed in and around 400 BC.

In that society that existed then there were parallels with the society we are experiencing and living in today, though many will not consciously realise it.

You could say that nothing really changes in the affairs of man.

The paralells that tenuously exist are marked, very marked but only if you carefully put your attention on them as a result of becoming distictlly aware of them.

In today's society there is a relentless drive to dumb down people just like there was just tnen, Curiously, now in the 20th Century only the areas of Philosophy, Drama, Mathematics and Art of that period are recognised, whereaa everthing else partaining to it remains, for the most part, ignored.

In every society there are ruling classes, and in Socrates's day these ruling classes, an absolute minority , held sway and manipulated the public to remain as ignorant as possible in order to ensure effective government.

In today's society there are distinctive parallels despite the west being under the umbrella of so to speak .....Democracy.

In his day there existed, for the ordinary citizen, only prospects of very basic education whereas today, things look a little different on the surface but underneath the results are quite similar in the sense that an added complication of today's environment includes subltle miseducation, in which it might well be argued is a consequence of the dumbing down process further assisted by ramifications of hidden vested interest too numerous and complex to discuss here.

But I digress.

Socrates was sentenced to death by an appointed court and his sentence was to die by taking hemlock.

He was charged with Impiety.

He was accused jointly of disrespecting the gods and of corrupting the young, these were the charges laid against him with a forseen outcome even before the trial commenced.

It happened that Socrates was rocking the boat in a way that hidden vested interests did not want the boat rocked, because it interfered with their plans, and with the status quo.

He rocked the boat because whereas everyone else accepted as given, he challenged. But he challenged in a way that threatened the very heart of hidden vested interest, which was to keep the crowd dumbed down, docile, and ignorant.

His discourses posed a threat to this idyllic scenario that the ruling elite enjoyed and benefitted from both directly and indirectly.

Then of course, when he encouraged ordinary people to raise their levels of awareness and for them to begin to question and to logically deduce and reason...and furthermore to encourage them to apply the consequence of this activity and as a by product criticise and embarrass the administration....well....that could not be tolerated at all and this led to his trial.

His defence he conducted himself, single handed, and was argued on grounds of logic, morality and reason.

His prosecuters were not interested in logic morality and and the application of reason because it directly interfered with their plans,.... with their agendas and ultimately, with their well guarded and hidden privliledges, so of course this could not be tolerated...not tolerated at all.

He was sentenced to death by unanimous concensus.

The method by which he was to die was for him to take his own life by drinking hemlock, a deadly poison.....but....an escape clause was offered...

Plato the Philosopher was his student...he pleaded with his mentor to accept the alternative, and recant.

Socrates refused.

He resolved to drink the poison and take his own life to prove a point and to show the world in years to come how it is better to die honourably for a cause he believed in and could prove rather than live in dishonour, and how he expected generations to come to understand his moral viewpoint. Unfortunately for him, he underestimated humanity and expected too much.

Of course there is a lesson in this to be learnt when we learn what next transpired.

Socrates had been adamant all his life that people should be brought to logically deduce and reason for themselves and to act in accordance with that logical deduction and reasoning within a framework of morality.

But Plato his successor now picked up the opposite banner.

He argued that it did not matter if people could not be brought to logically deduce and reason and act in accordance with that logical deduction and reasoning and within a framework of morality....he argued it was perfectly alright for people to do exactly as they pleased provided they enjoyed it.

In consequence of this a new age of t;ugidity arrived, whose descendant is with us to this day and haunts all deep thinkers.

For this reason, I adopted Socrates's name in his honour as a nick for this website, but I assure all of you I will not repeat his folly, as I have used his model to learn how it is best to try but not to try all the way as it only leads to self detriment.

The argument is that people should be given what they need and not necessariy what they want.:cheesy:

This particularly applies to the newbies, the vulnerable, the gullible, the inexperienced, the disadvantaged, the ignorant, the foolish, the reckless, and ultimately the stubborn.

But as what people invariably need is strong medicine they are either unwilling or unable to take, one must learn from the lessons of the past and allow everyone to have what they want ultimately as it is their own choice.....and so be it.

 

[SOCRATES]

Before I go...

Why did Plato pick uo the opposite banner ?

The only reasons could have been convenience, cowardice, convention or conformity, or to seek popularity with the masses.

Why am I telling you all this ?

Because Socrates in his day established the Principle of Socratic Logic.

Logic is the basis of all thinking leading to reasoning and the ability to act in accordance with what is correct, provable, reliable, moral and just, that is why.

Now many people persuade themselves they are thinking when in fact they are not thinking at all.

They are probably daydreaming or musing or hoping or wishing, or other variatiations of a theme not connected to really incisive thought.......none of which is included in How to Think Correctly.