Life, evolution, god, time, etc (philosophy)

[fxmarkets]

Life, evolution, god, time, and a very big thermonuclear weapon etc (philosophy)

hmmm, I was reading 7'ths thread and the debate on trends, needs to be a past etc... this got me thinking of time, trading price, trend of price without time , is trend absolutely bound by time ,P+F, trading @ price, exiting @ price increase trend excluding time, just knowing the numbers etc.. does time exist anyway....... etc thinking about it and researched time theory in the browser , anyway came across this site which i havent finished reading but enjoying it.

Its a fanfare intro but not a heavy read...


Welcome to the full novel of Philosophy. A masterpiece of philosophical thought, from the beginning of creation, to the end of time, and everything in between. In this book you will find philosophy on the birth of creation, the crucible of time, the end of the world. This work also includes how the universe came in to being, how you can have a God, the birth of our planets and the construction of solar systems. We explore the extinction of dinosaurs, the theory of evolution and whether there is other life out there. Do UFOS visit Earth? Is there life on Mars? How do the Ten Commandments play a role in our lifes? All this and more we'll seek to discuss and debate.

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/pmcrowley/index.html

if anyone has any links to share of this nature please stick em on

cheers

Fx.

 

[TheBramble]

Tread carefully over there FX. The thread is populated by a MPD of the highest order. I'm not even sure I'm not him/her.

Watch out for the newbies who join the site, find the thread, and post articulately on topic - all on the same day. Now, THERE'S A TREND!!!

 

[fxmarkets]

Cheers for the heads up Bramble, but the thread did get me to think about trends and price in general and for me anyhow underlines that I tend to trade price based on intent and I guess the trend then "unwinds" (to borrow a phrase from the link site above) itself which at a point further on (using traditional or typical analysis) perhaps in price trend or price time trend (whichever camp we sit in), we can look back at and say its trended and the projection has ermm revealed itself.

 

[jimbo57]

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[TheBramble]

fx - they've got you - haven't they. Slipped you a mickey, offer you a boiled sweet? Happens all the time. One by one they try and stop us.

If you're up for a bit of naval gazing at this level can I heartily recommend "The Secret History of the World" - Laura Knight-Jadczyk.

Myself and another t2w member last Summer took upon ourselves the task of devouring this deprecatingly entitled piece with the purpose of deciphering the deeply esoteric clues and subtle nuances which we could then bend to bettering our lives and boosting our trading from the then uberTrader level to the truly overwhelmingly omniscient. Although I subsequently managed that through means I cannot divulge, that wasn't the way to do it.

While I managed to retain consciousness for the majority of the time I was reading it, I was so physically , mentally and spiritually unwell I was unable to complete the task. The other chap, poor lad, went too far, finished the book and has never been heard of since. Well, he has actually. He's playing banjo with a Blue Grass outfit and taken to calling himself Earl Scruggs. Nuff said.

Credit where credit is due. You never know what you know and you never know what you know how it's going to help you know what you know now or how that will help you in any way at all in the future then, back now. But having said that, I don't imagine, even the dampest spark in the trading keg wouldn't be able to ignite some enthusiasm defining what a trend is. How to recognise it and use it. Lordy! Jiler never had to deal with this.

But DO read this book. You can't have my copy because it's now safely locked away in my dedicated philatory (a philatory is a transparent reliquary ). It's dedicated to the gullibility of the masses, to the fact that self-fulfilling will always tend to self-defeating and the fact we do not trade free markets where prices send toward an equilibrium, but a rather more potent mix of unimaginable manipulations and global level hi-jinx based on undercurrents of duplicity and self-interest that are as staggering as they are obvious if you think about it hard enough.

Tie me down!!!!

 

[rols]

Cheers for the heads up Bramble, but the thread did get me to think about trends and price in general and for me anyhow underlines that I tend to trade price based on intent and I guess the trend then "unwinds" (to borrow a phrase from the link site above) itself which at a point further on (using traditional or typical analysis) perhaps in price trend or price time trend (whichever camp we sit in), we can look back at and say its trended and the projection has ermm revealed itself.

When is a trend not a trend, that is the question? A while back I spent some quality time with 3-line break charts in 7 different time frames. If one is in need of a trend then this is a sure way of finding one.

My conclusion? The trend is your friend until he stabs you in the back!


'Hindsight is always 20/20.' :cheesy:

 

[TheBramble]

When is a trend not a trend, that is the question? A while back I spent some quality time with 3-line break charts in 7 different time frames. If one is in need of a trend then this is a sure way of finding one.

My conclusion? The trend is your friend until he stabs you in the back!


'Hindsight is always 20/20.' :cheesy:

Scruggs!

Case in point. I was attempting to assist a reincarnated Victorian techno-deludo in recognition of trends on another thread and I picked an example at random. A stock I don't trade (too expensive) GOOG. I picked a trend from recent price action and he, quite rightly, seized on the fact that the trend ended! Gobsmack!!! So trends end too??? They don't just carry on and on for ever??? Aw chucks...

Neatly (without him realising it I'm sure as his 4-hourly Thorazine syringe-driver was just kicking in) he demonstrated the defining point of the trading of a trend. It's your friend, until the bend at the end!

The very fact that the end of the trend manifests itself is the signal to most trend traders to exit.

What more do you need from any trading system?

My own personal approach for exit is when ALL the price action is below the trend line. Others will I am sure adopt different slants (arf!) and to be sure, I exit too early on some occasions and too late on others by adopting this ruse. But as trend trading goes, it wins long term.

What the hell am I doing? I am for once off-topic discussing valid trading principles....

Too much time on my hands this morning. But there is a purpose to this all...I'm sure

 

[rols]

I heartily recommend "The Secret History of the World" - Laura Knight-Jadczyk.

I heartily recommend this book too - makes a very good door stop.

If you'd like to buy my copy at a throw-away price then please PM me.

 

[chump]

Trend & Reality

Investment time

 

[TheBramble]

Spooky. They're all GANN angles - except one.

 

[chump]

Really ?
Seriously , I know nothing much about Gann angles..what you have there is simply my view on sustainable growth and returns over a secular trend that would encompass the typical investment period available to anyone who does not have visions of immortality.
Throwing in what happens to the unitiated who believe all the speculatory & so called investment hogwash

 

[TheBramble]

Really ?

No. Just trying to send all the GANN-ites into a frenzy....

 

[chump]

Lol

 

[frugi]

It is convenient for sure, but does not likely reflect the importance of certain periods and the unimportance of others, simply giving them all equal weight.

Quite how you weight the momentous events on the time axis, and make other longeurs disappear I don't know, but I suspect that any attempt to do this with a conventional chart might lead to a picture of near total randomness...

Any ideas?

Jimbo57,

We can use volume bars which do not print in linear time, rather they depend on activity.
Momentous events (which usually but not always entail high activity) could cause a flurry of bars while, say, the lunch doldrums may only yield one or two.
But this probably isn't what you were after?

 

[TheBramble]

Time is the one that has always intrigued me.

Most of us look at a chart that has time extended linearly backwards and forwards across the x-axis, whether its a bar chart, candlestick or whatever. Yet as individuals our memory of time is far from linear - for example major events in our lives can seem less distant than perhaps they are by linear measures, and large periods of time, perhaps where nothing really happened just 'disappear' etc. These variations in linearity, perceived or not, then have an impact on how we might behave in future.

Given that markets are no more than a collection of individuals, all with their own warps in their perceived time linearity, perhaps representing past time on a chart (to observe a trend for example) in a linear form is not at all the correct representation - indeed it could be argued it is precisely wrong. It is convenient for sure, but does not likely reflect the importance of certain periods and the uninportance of others, simply giving them all equal weight.

Quite how you weight the momentous events on the time axis, and make other longeurs disappear I don't know, but I suspect that any attempt to do this with a conventional chart might lead to a picture of near total randomness...

Any ideas?

Frugi's (quite inappropriately on-topic) response made me look again at your post jimbo.

Doesn't PnF do exactly what you (and Frugeshilde) are suggesting? It pretty much ignores time as a linear construct on the X-axis and only prints a 'X' or 'O' when something significant (chartist's own definition of significance) occurs.

Same with a tick chart. It crams as many moves as it needs to onto your screen quite heedless of the passage of linear time in which those pulses occurred. Lots of trans, lots of pulses per unit of time. Low trans rate, fewer pulses per unit of time.

It is this very tick pressure I bend to use as a proxy for volume when trading FX.

edit: Plus some chart packages will allow the use of candle-volume bars. These provide a significantly different 'take' on the action and have the added bonus of completely flambargrasting any indicators you may have been foolish enough to leave on your charts.

 

[jimbo57]

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[TheBramble]

I think the point I was maybe clumsily trying to get across, and speaking as a swing/position trader (rarely if ever looking at anything less than a thirty minute chart, and more ususally daily and weeklies), is that I suspect (with no shred of proof) that the markets for the most part are purely random, and it is through arificially imposing linear time forms on them that we then get into all the hocus-pocus of trends blah blah.

The markets are only 3.46% random Jimbo. And I don't think we artificially impose a linear time form on the markets - we have a linear time form imposed upon us. Imposed upon us by our willing acceptance as useful, the model of time as a linear series of events. Helps avoid all that awkwardness of everything happening at the same time (although it may do [or have!]).

Going back to my original example of momentous life events (marriage/divorce/kids/family deaths etc) these are peceived invariably as much closer to the present than they are when measured in years etc. We also have the ability to effectively black out or blot out periods of tedium sometimes to the point where we can actually no longer remember them (the older I get the more this happens- scary). Now given the markets are just people, and we are all the same, then surely markets can do the same thing...and I still don't know how to represent that.!

Recency is an interesting topic in its own right, but the point you make about the market being comprised of people falls down in relation to the ageing process. As people get older, time seems to much slower with less happening, precisely because for most people as they get older (not us traders of course), less different things do happen to them. It's the difference that makes the difference and allows us to erect mental markers which we subsequently use to assess and evaluate our own personal passage of time. And everyone does have their own rate of time passing. And that passage of time itself is a variable from a subjective point of view depending upon the context the individual finds them self in.

Sunny day, holiday, exploring new places, meeting new people doing new things. Lots of new things. Passage a real time (Earth round Sun) the same. Subjective experience of Time quite different.

Rainy, grey, miserable day in an office with nothing but more same old same old to deal with. Passage a real time (Earth round Sun) the same. Subjective experience of Time very, VERY different.

Markets - if we can consider them as an entity - have no self-consciousness, no awareness of the passage of time or events in and of themselves as external to them because there is no 'them'. My point being, linear time is a useful concept and model for us to use, but markets run fast and markets run slow - only when compared with the passage of linear time. They do have their own rates of passage of time, and to measure them we need a constant yardstick - linear time. To slow down or speed up action by use of PnF, candle-volume or bar frequency linked to activity, we assume the market time is prevalent and should take precedence over linear time. This doesn't work. Or at least, my research into this has not shown that using anything other than linear time provided any consistent edge.

Damn, it's gone all serious again....

 

[jimbo57]

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[trendie]

Frugi, Bramble, thanks for the responses.

Looking at the chart you put up Frugi, this gives more bars during periods of high activity, and thus, if you like, effectively extends the time frame further back for these periods - this is almost precisely the opposite of my intention (as I think you suspected), Re P+F Bramble, I have never used them and therefore cannot constructively comment - I will have a look though.

I think the point I was maybe clumsily trying to get across, and speaking as a swing/position trader (rarely if ever looking at anything less than a thirty minute chart, and more ususally daily and weeklies), is that I suspect (with no shred of proof) that the markets for the most part are purely random, and it is through arificially imposing linear time forms on them that we then get into all the hocus-pocus of trends blah blah.

Going back to my original example of momentous life events (marriage/divorce/kids/family deaths etc) these are peceived invariably as much closer to the present than they are when measured in years etc. We also have the ability to effectively black out or blot out periods of tedium sometimes to the point where we can actually no longer remember them (the older I get the more this happens- scary). Now given the markets are just people, and we are all the same, then surely markets can do the same thing...and I still don't know how to represent that.!

Thanks again for the responses.

But isnt memory mostly (neuro)chemical?
Momentous events are momentous only because we have been affected deeply by them, emotionally. These emotions, are chemical-reactions to events, paricularly fear, which has an evolutionary advantage.
When we remember, we are re-invoking the emotions that went with them. If those emotions were strong, the memories seem "closer" to us, because we are remembering the feelings as well.
If I am phobic about spiders, and you are not, my negative memories of spiders will appear "closer" because I relive the dread, and the fear, and the panic (body responding chemically to memory), and the memory seems therefore more vivid to me, than for you.

Your post reminded me of those "magic memory" techniques, where you re encouraged to create bizarre and vivid stories to remember obscure facts. ( Richard of York Gave Battle....... )
( Oh Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me. Right Now Sweetie = OBAFGKMRNS = star-types )
( ABSCHoP = Katharine of Aragon, etc )

re: markets; thats an interesting one. markets appear to have memories, as they are the sum total of human traders.
But then again, a 100-pip rise in a stock could mean a 100-pip loss for one trader, and a 100-pip gain for another. You would think that the market should be emotionally nett neutral.

 

[rols]

Well, I am not sure if this is serious or not!

A linear timform imposed on us by our willing accepatnce that it is useful? Is it, or is just the best we can manage or cope with without too much thought?

Learning to 'tell the time' is imposed on all kids here, but it isn't about learning to tell the time, it is really about learning to read a watch face - that's not the same thing . I disagree entirely with your idea that age makes the subective judgment of time passage slower - on the contrary it makes it quicker mainly though a sense of proportionality : eg a 60 year old man passes a year it is only 1/60th of what has gone before, for a ten year old it is 1/10th, six times bigger or slower if you like for the child.

In these days of virtually 24 hour markets in many instruments, the concept of a 'day' or a year etc for that matter is meaningless....it is a continuum (however you spell it) defined not by 'real time', the earth turning etc, but by events and market action and no more. If we can get away from the need to chart a bar (daily etc) but represent the market in another way, if we need indeed to represent it at all, we will inevitably be closer to reality, what is rather than a representation of what has been

Again markets do have a self consciouss - it is the collective self conscious of the participants - without them, or at least two of them, it doesnt exist. Again I would argue that imposing a linear time frame on them is certainly convenient as you say, but is equally almost certainly wrong.

I think we differ on this one...

Please continue to where you already know you're taking us....