Everyday Is A New Chapter

Everything in nature is governed by cycles. Every morning we wake up in a different body with a different mind. We are not the same person that we were yesterday, the day before and tomorrow. What happens today will differ from that yesterday, the day before and tomorrow and nothing stays the same in this world. (It doesn't matter who we were a decade ago, a year ago, or even yesterday... what matters is who we are today, and will be tomorrow!)

Every race is unique unto itself, once run never to be run again in the same manner. Each race has its individual merits and each race is a different puzzle.

Nothing is absolute. All things are subjective.

Warren Buffett - Best Lessons from Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett - Best Lessons from Warren Buffett

“The art of handicapping is based on information. The key was having more information than the other guy – then analyzing it right and using it rationally.”

Mike Turner - Lessons from Warren Buffett…Part 2

No matter how sophisticated our choices, how good we are at dominating the odds, how good our handicapping is, and it does not matter who we know and who knows us - randomness will have the last word.

When betting on horse racing, we must know that losing bets are part and parcel of betting and we must be mentally prepared for it (bumper harvest as well as drought ). It is best to have small wins to allow us to sustain play, than expecting to hit the jackpot. It is an enjoyable way to make a living if we bet in moderation and it can act as a business that can last a lifetime.

A punter who takes little risk in his betting would have very few disastrous outcomes. And because of that, he also doesn't get wildly rich in a short space of time. But he is wealthier according to the probabilistic method of accounting than someone who has taken a big risk by betting big and have his bet paid off. On the average of lives he could have led, he is extremely rich.

By contrast, the high-risk punter may only make it once in many lifetimes. Even in the lifetime that he struck it rich, there is a high chance of him suffering a blow-up - an unexpected movement in the market which more than wipes him out.

No matter how sophisticated our choices, how good we are at dominating the odds, randomness will have the last word.

Courtesy of Aaron Bornstein 07/10/05

Courtesy of Aaron Bornstein 07/10/05

An engineer, a mathematician, and a physicist went to the races one Saturday and laid their money down. Commiserating in the bar after the race, the engineer says, "I don't understand why I lost all my money. I measured all the horses and calculated their strength and mechanical advantage and figured out how fast they could run..."

The physicist interrupted him: "...but you didn't take individual variations into account. I did a statistical analysis of their previous performances and bet on the horses with the highest probability of winning..."

"...so if you're so hot why are you broke?" asked the engineer. But before the argument can grow, the mathematician takes out his pipe and they get a glimpse of his well-fattened wallet. Obviously here was a man who knows something about horses. They both demanded to know his secret.

"Well," he says, between puffs on the pipe, "first I approximated all the horses as identical spheres..."

Altruism is an Illusion

Altruism is an Illusion

The definition of altruism:-

Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.

The principle or practice of unselfish concern for or devotion to the welfare of others ( opposed to egoism ).

Altruism is the selfless helping of others. However, biologists, philosophers, sociologists and psychologists have been telling us for some time that there is no such thing as altruism and imply that it is self-interest and not actually the benevolent helping of others. This page looks at the differing underlying selfish reasons why we help others.

Biologists, philosophers, psychologists and sociologists have all held that "altruism" is never what it seems. That all apparently selfless acts are self-centered is known in the sciences as 'universal egoism', which according to the prominent psychologist Richard Gross, "is the dominant ethos in social science including psychology. [...] Sociobiologists consider that acts of apparent altruism turn out to be acts of selfishness in disguise". There is such agreement amongst psychologists and specialists that it seems "altruism is an impossibility"1.

If altruism is an illusion, merely a label that covers peoples' confusion over why they behave in a good way, then what are the causes of behaviour that seems selfless?

Biologists, sociologists, philosophers and above all, psychologists, have held to the "universal egoism" theory; that all apparent altruism is really selfishness in disguise. Most arguments for altruism are based on ignorance of the underlying reasons for behaving good towards others or are purely semantic in nature, not logical.

People behave altruistically for a number of selfish reasons. We are programmed genetically to behave in a way conducive to the sociability of the species: This unconscious species-instinct is the closest thing we have to true selfless altruism. In nearly every other conscious sense, altruism is an illusion. We behave well because social good behaviour fires off pleasant neurochemicals in our brains (the pleasure reward), because consciously or unconsciously we want others to see us as a good person (the social reward) or to feel good about ourselves (for pride and self-esteem). Altruism is image and illusion.

Richard Dawkins, the great evolutionary biologist, argues that we should educate people about the true nature of altruism. He is the author of "The Selfish Gene", and says that when we understand our motives better, we are better equipped to behave well, and overcome the ethnically-biased altruism that we are born with.

Altruism is an Illusion

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The Selfish Gene -Richard Dawkins

The Selfish Gene -Richard Dawkins

Prediction in a complex world is a chancy business. Every decision that a survival machine takes is a gamble, and it is the business of genes to program brains in advance so that on average they take decisions that pay off. The currency used in the casino of evolution is survival, strictly gene survival, but for many purposes individual survival is a reasonable approximation. If you go down to the water-hole to drink, you increase your risk of being eaten by predators who make their living lurking for prey by water-holes. If you do not go down to the water-hole you will eventually die of thirst. There are risks whichever way you turn, and you must take the decision that maximizes the long-term survival chances of your genes. Perhaps the best policy is to postpone drinking until you are very thirsty, then go and have one good long drink to last you a long time. That way you reduce the number of separate visits to the water-hole, but you have to spend a long time with your head down when you finally do drink. Alternatively the best gamble might be to drink little and often, snatching quick gulps of water while running past the water-hole. Which is the best gambling strategy depends on all sorts of complex things, not least the hunting habit of the predators, which itself is evolved to be maximally efficient from their point of view. Some form of weighing up of the odds has to be done. But of course we do not have to think of the animals as making the calculations consciously. All we have to believe is that those individuals whose genes build brains in such a way that they tend to gamble correctly are as a direct result more likely to survive, and therefore to propagate those same genes.

We can carry the metaphor of gambling a little further. A gambler must think of three main quantities, stake, odds, and prize. If the prize is very large, a gambler is prepared to risk a big stake. A gambler who risks his all on a single throw stands to gain a great deal. He also stands to lose a great deal, but on average high-stake gamblers are no better and no worse off than other players who play for low winnings with low stakes. An analogous comparison is that between speculative and safe investors on the stock market. In some ways the stock market is a better analogy than a casino, because casinos are deliberately rigged in the bank's favour (which means, strictly, that high-stake players will on average end up poorer than low-stake players; and low-stake players poorer than those who do not gamble at all. But this is for a reason not germane to our discussion). Ignoring this, both high-stake play and low-stake play seem reasonable. Are there animal gamblers who play for high stakes, and others with a more conservative game?