We got a mixed close today in US markets but manage to hold the trendline breaks in the SPX and NDX but with the latter closing under its important moving average again. In the end we were true to the monthly expiration parameters, but it was quite a struggle. I saw some brave people going out short, and some others proclaiming a victory for the bulls, but would call the close sort of neutral and need to really look hard at the situation for next week.
Hi Golden, I see now that you were talking about things that either transcend the natural world or are part of nature but beyond modern understanding. I was thinking of intuition in a more general way but realize that even the concept of a natural world leads to arguments about the definition of natural. Academics deal with such problems by relying on what is demonstrable, even though some are humble enough to refrain from insisting that everything must have an eventual answer based in what we call science – a thing that continuously overlaps and supplants things unexplained. That advancement in knowledge and that overlap, by the way, adds to questions about the difference between the physical and the immaterial. For the humble, the discovery of perceived order in the smallest of things leads back to the question of origins.
That intuition thing, whatever it may be, seems to be employed by nearly every creature on earth. In the case of humans, experience and/or expertise combine with this thing we categorize in the order of higher sense perceptions. It allows for judgement calls and predictions about what will probably happen before it happens. I believe we are using this in trading all the time. It might even be the essence of some kinds of trading. I am not necessarily talking about the supernatural or unexplained, even if that part is obviously intriguing. If we were not so fascinated with such things, after all, mentalists wouldn't be able to build substantial careers based in our curiosity of the unknown. Intuition could feel like something supernatural because we are not necessarily aware of all the information we are taking in day by day and year by year. We're using all kinds of input we didn't even know we had acquired. Skilled mentalists are aware of this and succeed by acquiring all kinds of information about us -- vibes we didn’t know we were giving off.
Please don’t take this as disrespect for the unknown or even the supernatural. That would be arrogant on my part. We’re not as smart as we sometimes imagine ourselves. Besides, most can relate to some of the things described above. We've all had our brushes with some weird stuff that makes you wonder. My guardian angel is probably demanding overtime by now. Heck, you may even notice that you think of things at nearly the same time as people you are close to…even if they are on the other side of the world at the time.
When it comes to the basis for that unexplained stuff, most cultures have fallen into at least one (and likely a mixture) of three or four modes of belief or, if you like, differing levels of respect for knowledge before the experience or ways of looking at the unexplained. Historically, we went from (a) believing almost every event was supernaturally driven; to (b) discovering the physics and later the (bio)chemistry/neurophysiology that mediates what we think we see; to (c) believing that that physical laws were ultimately caused by supernatural beginnings; to (d) believing (in some quarters) that everything will eventually be defined as ‘natural’. That's generalization that can be rearranged according to time and place, for there are vast temporal and cultural disparities to wade through. There is also an obvious circularity there that will be influenced by your personal cosmology or notion of origins. But quite a few modern cultures have gone with that middle ground, where they for practical reasons separate supernatural origins from physical "reality", and tweak things with a bit of divine intervention when everything gets seriously messed up. That is natural. It is hard to conceive of something coming from nothing. The hardest empiricists, however, hamstring the original metaphysics further with the idea that quantum equations show we don't need to rely on origins or beginnings to appreciate reality. Ironically, some among those in the high towers think the universe has a definite physical end. So…yeah, bring aspirin to that lecture.
Anyway, back to intuition or whatever that thing is. It is obviously poorly defined. The dictionaries often define it as without resort to reason on the spur of the moment, but I can’t find a hardened definition. It’s sort of like how ego is used. There is that natural feeling of self-importance that keeps us alive and trying for more…and then there's the classical psychoanalysis-related definition. Intuition in its popular sense is going to be predicated on discussions of knowledge after and before the experience. If you want to go there, the eggheads will first put you thorough the basics: arguments about what it is to know vs believe something. That leads to the question of what is real and what exists partially or completely in the mind. Those basics are an abstraction for the purposes of further mutually agreed basics to build on, rather than a practical solution for living. I mean, we all know what will happen if you walk out into traffic. When you wake up, the nurses will explain that cars are very real while you're doped up waiting for your psyche consult.
If you make it back to class after that, you’ll hear more about the nature of reality and perception. This was simpler in the Classical era BC and got weightier much later, when Descartes described a fireside dream and explained to some queen that all he really knew was that he was here. In more modern times, that is seen as another abstraction for the purposes of figuring even more stuff out. That notion got messed with and tweaked later, but we still use the concept for movies like The Matrix. Then there is the argument between hard empiricism and the possibility of synthetic knowledge (intuition?). Again, here is that separation of a priori from the here and now. So, intuition resides in the latter category. You know…stuff you figured out before the moment it happens. A persistent adherent to natural causes will of course note all those little things we notice without fully realizing what we apprehended.
Whatever it is, we seem to use it all the time. Take the new vaccines as an example. Most people are not a full bottle on acquired immunity, much less the kind created by intentionally administered, partially or totally killed pathogens. The lay public know even less about how our systems use fragments of mRNA to prime us for the real thing. If you are scared about taking vaccine, you could either get a particular kind of education for years to build your confidence, and then get even more confidence by watching people's immune systems react to exogenous junk in a clinical setting for even more years. This virus will probably not be an issue by the time you graduate, but you’d probably find most of your colleagues are not nutters or venal misanthropes as you begin to respect the process and protocol.
Or you could just use your intuition about the nature of human society, the character of vaccine researchers and their past record as it relates to the companionable nature of humans in general. You could think of all the checks and balances within our networks of trust. Your intuition, if it leads you to find the vaccine is right for you, is far from just a matter of blind trust. You recorded a series of data points over the course of your life and stored them up. Your basis for placing a calculated trust in certain people and institutions is the result of a general intuition about the balance of human intent and motivation. It is further based in your knowledge of human history but particularly the history of your own society -- for instance, the western tradition of authority vis-a-vis a dependent body of free citizens. You could of course cherry pick examples of unintentional and even intentional harm done in the name of science, but you may end up overwhelmed by how much overall good has been done, starting with the sometimes-overused antibiotics that removed us from centuries of untold misery. When you finally take the jab, you are making a semi-informed judgement-call about both the intention and the expertise of those who designed and promoted the vaccines. You are making a judgement about capacity for well-meaning error, too, in that you're assuming that people educated in that area are ultimately people just like you but probably got harassed a lot on the playground or dunked headfirst in toilets for not giving up their study notes. In essence, you are trusting in their humanity and assuming they fear bad consequences and are double and triple checking everything as they try to live up to a formalized ethical code and the precedents that govern their field of expertise. Maybe you still need more hard evidence in the form of more people having had the vaccine before you take it, but inevitably you will decide based partly on intuition.
Maybe some are using their intuition when they that cryptocurrency is another temporary offramp from an organic reality that we will do nearly anything to avoid, even if it is one heck of a trade. Dazed has written extensively on this. My intuition totally agrees. Not saying we don't have good reason to in some cases remove ourselves from the state of nature, but we sure have some funky ways of doing it.
Anyway, all this goes for trading as well. You are sitting there looking at a pattern take shape. It may be a small pattern on a chart, or a big pattern of human behavior. It may be a mix of the two. You have looked at that puzzle come together piece by piece a few before, even as you are aware that each occurrence involves a new spin on things. But you are not playing a game of absolutes. Rather, you are relying on probabilities. Sure, there is a morphing thing going on that involves changing external inputs, but you are absorbing them all in some way or another. So, I do believe you’re using this thing called intuition on multiple levels to navigate your trades. There are things you didn’t know you saw. They get stored in that mental library and get accessed later when a cue stimulates an uncategorized/unused memory. Notes are helpful though. So yeah, I think we use our intuition in trading, but it sometimes gets mixed up with a sense of destiny or a strong point of view about what should happen, the latter being a source of torment in the age of high-stakes monetary policy. I won’t step on the notion of destiny because it is an important part of our human essence. I guess all we can do is keep in mind that this is the natural world, and, for our account's sake, we remember on this plane we also rely on our intuition to keep us out of trouble…for we are all subject to time and chance. I will have you know, Golden, that thinking about this ramble cost me a few trades today. I expect a donut delivery through the food slot at the bunker soon. Thanks for reading and have a lovely weekend.
Not saying we don't have good reason to in some cases remove ourselves from the state of nature, but we sure have some funky ways of doing it.
