I am glad to see that this thread has been cleaned up and there is an attempt to continue this very fruitful discussion. I would like to ask all of the participants to be tolerant to each other. After all, any discussion needs variety of view points to become meaningful. My favorite thinker - one of the Fathers of Cybernetics - William Ross Ashby (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ross_Ashby ) in his ground breaking work "An Introduction to Cybernetics" has established 'The Law of Requisite Variety". In this astonishing discovery he proved that for any system (biological, political, technical, trading system etc.) the stability could be only achieved if the "complexity" of the system is greater or at least equal to the "complexity" of the environment that this system operates in. This law has far reaching consequences. It is continuation of his work that has motivated me for the past 35 years in my research and development of automated systems (not just trading systems, but other systems such as control systems for remote objects etc.) The logical extension of 'The Law of Requisite Variety" led me to rediscovery of randomness and its impact on everything around us. It has fascinated me for years and led me to quite a few discoveries related to the human behavioral patterns. The purpose of my posts on ET has always been and always will be my internal desire to share the fascination and excitement that I constantly experience in my research work.
I will be glad to share here my points of view that are, I have to admit, not commonly accepted. However, if some of you should become interested in "new Randomness" I promise you will be amazed how much it will expand your mind.
My college and a friend, a retired UFT prof. Burk Brown (
http://www.aakkozzll.com/ ) has written in his web site the words that might help you to appreciate where I am coming from.
"A revolution in thought has occurred in our knowledge of human behaviour that ranks in importance with names such as Einstein, Darwin, and Newton etc. It has no comparable hero, it defies common sense to the same extent that the fourth dimension is not accessible to our senses, and appears on no list of the greatest discoveries in the history of man. Unfortunately the revolution in thought is essential to all, is accessible to very few, only after extensive and lengthy training, and these few have been singularly unsuccessful, and frustrated, in their inability to share with all that which they have perceived. One is reminded of the situation described in Platoâs Allegory of the Cave, Abbottâs Flatland, and The Blind Men and the Elephant"