Why the NASDUNG keeps going up

Gordon Fitch gcf at panix.com
Wed Mar 15 06:11:08 PST 2000


Speaking of rationality, I've been engaged in a discussion in one of the newsgroups which may touch on it. Here is part of it:

"Michael S. Lorrey" <retroman at turbont.net> wrote:
>|>|> >Anarchism, by its definition, means lack of overall leadership. You
>|>|> >assume that because one person posesses more property than another
>|>|> >person that the wealthier person is automatically the leader, and is an
>|>|> >absolute dictator. I seem to find that a lot of people on this news
>|>|> >group are making way too many incorrect, unwarranted, or unsupportable
>|>|> >assumptions. Under a Baysean market (or under a dialectic method) the
>|>|> >only way for there to be disagreements is because there is a lack of
>|>|> >information or one of the opposing parties is using incorrect
>|>|> >assumptions.
(... later ....)
>|>| I'm not familiar with a Frequentist Market as a term, but a Bayesian
>|>| Market is one where participants in a market transaction tend to
>|>| maximize their information about the transaction such that both sides
>|>| come to an equitable realization of the true value of the transaction. A
>|>| pseudo-Bayesian Market is one where the parties attempt to act as if
>|>| this is happening. A non-Bayesian Market is one where secrecy,
>|>| disinformatin, and ignorance are rife, which causes widely varied
>|>| estimations of the value of a transaction by different parties. The US
>|>| stock market prior to the crash of 1929 is a good example of a
>|>| non-Bayesian market.

After some epistemological complaints and other chit-chat, I wrote,


| > Value is in the mind of evaluators. There is, therefore, no
| > single "true value" although in the case of a widely- traded
| > commodity there is a kind of statistical mean of evaluation.
| > But the development of that mean requires that there be a lot
| > of communication about the class of the item in question.
| > If some people believe a class of items is worth more than
| > the going market price they'll begin buying it, but as they
| > do they'll communicate their belief in its value to the
| > market community in general. If the belief is delusional or
| > fictional, there'll eventually be a correction, and if it
| > isn't, the "correct" new evaluation will permeate to all
| > parties even though they may remain fairly ignorant about
| > what the nature of the newly discovered value is.

"Michael S. Lorrey" <retroman at turbont.net>:
| Given the current widespread use of the Black/Sholes equation in the
| calculation of risk in all such market trades, your assertion is
| baseless. The only delusional prices beleifs are by those who do not use
| this method.

What I'm curious about here is the terminology, to wit, Bayesian and Black/Sholes. The fellow I'm conversing with has said a number of very odd things, and for all I know his theoretical world is one of the delusions in play. If so this message, while unenlightening, may at least prove amusing.

Gordon



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