the mathematics of persistence

[darkhorse]

Quote from murdog:


I would think an honest appraisal of one's self, including the obvious facts of success and failure would be enough to tune people in, but looking around it sure seems to me that people keep falling into the same traps over and over again. They are either way too high on themselves, or they languish in the world of self doubt and end up paralyzed.

At what point can you know what you know, and yet have a good enough picture of what you don't know to keep everything in perspective. It's tough to know what you don't know, although not impossible.

Yep, the hidden path. Reminds me of this quote from the Balavagga:

"The fool who knows that he is a fool is for that very reason a wise man; the fool who thinks that he is wise is called a fool indeed."

Which leads to another great quote (can't remember the source unfortunately):

"To be humble it is not necessary to shrink or stoop, but rather stretch to your full height against the backdrop of a much larger reality."

We are all fools to some degree, and the greatest master has plenty to be humble about. Any discipline worth its salt contains enough hidden riches to last a lifetime.

p.s. maybe paralysis is better understood as a choice in and of itself -- a choice rooted in ego at that.

 

[Thunderdog]

Quote from darkhorse:

"...the fool who thinks that he is wise is called a fool indeed."

I wonder how many ET birds were hit with that stone.

 

[darkhorse]

For anyone with further interest: this book -- a third of the way through now -- is phenomenal.

 

[marketsurfer]

Quote from hypostomus:

I, myself, am more thankful for the persistence of mathematics.

me too.

 

[bighog]

I am going to buy that book. On top of one of my tv's i have a Hare and a tortoise.....

it is to remind me of the results of the race....

 

[chewbacca]

Quote from darkhorse:

For anyone with further interest: this book -- a third of the way through now -- is phenomenal.

thanks dude, your posts in this forum in paticular are really insightful.

 

[RandomEvents]

Some statements raise some obvious flags:

Everyone is born with an empty wallet and no skill.

So if a new born child is put through the exact same regiment as a Michael Jordan, Warren Buffett, or Yo-Yo Ma then they too will possess the same extrodinary skills? I doubt it.

The processing is autonomous and subliminal, but you can encourage it.

This is a contradiction. If something is autonomous it cannot be altered by an outside force.

There is no persistence without discipline. But self-coercion is fools' discipline. A devitalizing force at heart, it will eventually burn you out. Far better are the attractive forces of love, desire, and fascination.

This is all fine and dandy, but when will I know that I'm using self-coercion? Is knowing really possible because I'd really like to know so I can catch myself and decide (at will) that from this point on I'm going to use a loving force instead of a devitalizing one.

Ain't gonna happen...

 

[dandxg]

RandomEvents, I can tell you don't believe in NLP, that's fine, but I am living proof it works. I used to work in telecom sales, when the going was good ,but you still had to have skill. I modeled the best in the sales dept and guess what, I made president's club twice. No, believe it or not, I am not trying to toot my own horn, I am just trying to explain that if you model success you can have similar results, not the same, but similar. Right now I am modeling a pro trader of 22 years and getting some mentoring and my trading is improving 1000% in the last couple of months. Why do think prop firms exist?

That post by Darkhorse is one of the best I have ever seen on this forum, the Confucius of Elite Trader, lol, seriously though a great post Darkhorse!

 

[nitro]

Quote from darkhorse:

...
How about becoming an expert? Within their areas of competence, experts have many more categories of awareness than novices. The perception of subtleties is what Michael Jordan, Warren Buffett, and Yo-Yo Ma have in common. Not only have experts gathered many "elemental" facts about their field; they have linked them to one another to produce a vast array of "relational" facts.

In simplest terms, a relational fact is the knowledge gained when you combine two elemental facts. To picture this, draw two dots and connect them with a line. The dots represent elemental facts; the line, a relational fact.

Add new dots, connecting each to all the others. With three dots, you'll have three connecting lines. With four dots, six lines. With five dots, ten; etc. Every new dot compounds the number of connecting lines. Likewise, every new piece of information compounds the pool of available relationships.

With a knowledge base of one hundred elemental facts, you have at your disposal about 5000 potential connections. Double your knowledge base and you will increase the potential connections to nearly 20,000. Learn a thousand things and the potential connections approach half a million.

It is these latent relationships that the mind processes in its search for insight. The processing is autonomous and subliminal, but you can encourage it. Each day use your powers of observation and reasoning to learn some new thing about your field. Reflect on its connection to what you already know. Reflection compounds knowledge.

With a sufficient knowledge base, you can start to build a portfolio of noteworthy work—problems solved, know-how acquired and applied. To the extent that your growing portfolio is valued by others, your income is likely to increase. This, in turn, can accelerate the growth of your financial base.

The power of dollars and of facts is collective, not individual. Before either can generate really large returns they must reach a critical mass. Mass grows as the accumulating returns on your past efforts are enhanced by the on-going contributions of your new efforts—in short, as you persist.

While I do not disagree with this statement, there must be something deeper going on. If all there was to do was to form relations, a database or a neural network would rule the world by now.

"One of the more inspiring messages from this book is what de Quincey calls "the Four Gifts of Knowing." He takes us on a journey to explore the Scientist's Gift of the senses, which reveal the forms of physical reality; and then to the Philosopher's Gift of reason, which we use to analyze data gained through our senses. But these ways of knowing are not enough if we wish to explore the domain of consciousness. Next, he introduces us to the Shaman's Gift of feeling and altered states, which works by engaging and participating with the world around us. Finally, he takes us into the paradoxical realms of the Mystic's Gift of sacred silence, where we transcend and integrate all the other ways of knowing through direct experience.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/15...103-7692625-6455044?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

It is very difficult for me to recommend books like this because I am primarily a scientist and approach the world philosophically. But I can tell you that every success in achieving expertise I have ever had has been through the synthethis of the approach (explanations) given in this book. I only came to this realization recently...

There is something about people that trancends a mechanistic ontology. Eventually one may "explain" the "Shaman's Gift of feeling and altered states" and the "Mystic's Gift of sacred silence" through science and philosophy, but that science may look more like mysticism than science as we know it today.

Even scientists are complaining about our endless reductionist approach to knowledge and that we need to look at emergent properties:

"...He proposes turning our attention instead to emerging properties of large agglomerations of matter. For instance, chaos theory has been all the rage of late with its speculations about the "butterfly effect," but understanding how individual streams of air combine to form a tornado is almost impossible. It's easier and more efficient, says Laughlin, to study the tornado...."

and

"...In many cases, the whole exhibits properties that can't be explained by the behavior of its parts. As Laughlin points out, we use computers and internal combustion engines every day, but scientists don't totally understand why all of their parts work the way they do."

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/046503828X/ref=pd_bxgy_img_b/103-7692625-6455044?_encoding=UTF8

Perhaps the books that started it all:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/01...103-7692625-6455044?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

and closer to the spirit of the article you posted

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/04...2625-6455044?_encoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155


Godel is always in the middle of it all...

There is no persistence without discipline. But self-coercion is fools' discipline. A devitalizing force at heart, it will eventually burn you out. Far better are the attractive forces of love, desire, and fascination. These are rejuvenating; their objects, energizing. The wise recognize this and harness them to travel to the City of Good Luck.

Oh so true.

nitro

 

[darkhorse]

Quote from RandomEvents:

Some statements raise some obvious flags

Indeed they do.

I have been foolish, teacher, but I am learning.