Society/Culture When everyone's an expert

[medusala]

Strange as it may seem I've embarked on a program to get rid of all my beliefs. It's proving harder than i initially expected.

Have you come across this chap? Very interesting.

http://www.thehedgefundjournal.com/...uperiority-of-models-over-human-judgement.php

James Montier discusses the superiority of models over human judgement

What could baseball, wine pricing, medical diagnosis, university admissions, criminal recidivism and I have in common? They are examples of simple quant models consist-ently outperforming so-called experts. Why should financial markets be any different? So why aren't there more quant funds? Hubristic self belief, self-serving bias and inertia combine to maintain the status quo.

 

[cancat]

Have you come across this chap? Very interesting.

http://www.thehedgefundjournal.com/...uperiority-of-models-over-human-judgement.php

James Montier discusses the superiority of models over human judgement

What could baseball, wine pricing, medical diagnosis, university admissions, criminal recidivism and I have in common? They are examples of simple quant models consist-ently outperforming so-called experts. Why should financial markets be any different? So why aren't there more quant funds? Hubristic self belief, self-serving bias and inertia combine to maintain the status quo.

What's a quant model?

 

[evo]

I suppose there is still the human element when deciding how to apply the quant models.

fool proof systems are very rare. Especially in trading.

 

[medusala]

What's a quant model?

Basically a black box which you feed data in to which then produces investment decisions.

 

[Nasma]

Well it's a fair bit more nuanced than Nasma has made out. It is the most discussed issue in the history of man - filling libraries.

I didn't mean to suggest that that's all there is to the debate, but that those sentiments are commonly expressed - and unhelpful.

 

[medusala]

500ug of lysergic-acid-diethylamide would achieve about the same result but much, much faster

What about that stuff we talked about the other day? (they give it to heroin addicts, forgotten the name). My mate gave me the impression it was helpful to change beliefs a bit like hypnosis in overdrive.

 

[skipper kelly]

Well it's a fair bit more nuanced than Nasma has made out. It is the most discussed issue in the history of man - filling libraries.

Yeah. I was kind of after a view of more recent history but anyway, cheers.

 

[Nasma]

Strange as it may seem I've embarked on a program to get rid of all my beliefs. It's proving harder than i initially expected.

What do you mean by belief in this context? And how are you going about removing beliefs?

 

[evo]

What do you mean by belief in this context?

You actually put it quite well: identification with your thoughts or ideas.

And how are you going about removing beliefs

stop doing it.

 

[evo]

I'm not sure it is possible to lose your beliefs. But I reckon it is possible to change them - thus changing your identity. This can either be something you choose for yourself or something that is impressed upon you externally by something like hypnosis or brainwashing.

Maybe 'your' identity was an illusion all along.

I like this bit from David Hume (the whole page is worth reading):

http://www.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/web publishing/TreatiseI.iv.vi.htm

For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are remov'd for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. And were all my perceptions remov'd by death, and cou'd I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate after the dissolution of my body, I shou'd be entirely annihilated, nor do I conceive what is farther requisite to make me a perfect non-entity. If any one, upon serious and unprejudic'd reflection thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I can reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continu'd, which he calls himself; tho' I am certain there is no such principle in me.

 

[medusala]

Sounds like you are Dice Man fan Evo.

 

[bit_pattern]

What about that stuff we talked about the other day? (they give it to heroin addicts, forgotten the name). My mate gave me the impression it was helpful to change beliefs a bit like hypnosis in overdrive.

Ibogaine.

Although I think that would just install a whole set of new beliefs

 

[medusala]

Ibogaine.

Although I think that would just install a whole set of new beliefs

The chap who took it had another guy a few weeks later. His attempts to give up old beliefs/activities did not succeed very well.