but you don't really seem to be an observer who really knows quite exactly what's going on in financial markets. — BitconnectCarlos

If you know better, inform me then, I'm good to listen.

but the difference between us is that I'm less inclined to make these kinds of overarching judgments. — BitconnectCarlos

I've heard some opinions, so I'm throwing them out there to see if anyone can show me whether, they're true or not. Of course I would not say that every trader is like this, or every trader is like that, but I'm wondering if, over all, they bring more bad or more good to the market.

I'll ask you the question I asked earlier in this thread: What is the difference between buying a stock at $200 and selling it at $300 and buying a piece of artwork at $200 and selling it for $300? Why is one okay but not the other? — BitconnectCarlos

i wouldn't think that trading in artwork is any less immoral than trading in stock, or any commodity. Huge markups seem to be unacceptable no matter how you look at it. And that the buyer is willing to pay it doesn't justify the markup. Would it be acceptable to you if traders took control of all the produce from the farms releasing it to the people only if they would pay a huge mark up? The people would be really hungry, and willing to surrender large amounts of money for some food, after the supply was squeezed for just a few days.

There is however, a sense that if a person is wasting money on art, which is a luxury item, there's nothing wrong with trying to get as much money out of that person as possible. But just because the person has a whole lot of money, and may even have got it through immoral means, doesn't make it morally acceptable to use immoral means to get money from the person. It's kind of like stealing from a thief, it's not really acceptable. And there's still a victim, the person the first thief stole from, or in your example, the artist who didn't get paid the appropriate value for the work.

What about investments? Why should it be morally acceptable for people to take advantage of huge price swings, and even worse, manipulate the stock market attempting to force prices in one way or another to be able to take advantage of huge price swings?

Poker is a good analogy to use. What's the slant on poker players who consistently make money? They must be cheating, right? No, it's a skill and they're good at it. Same with trading. Institutional advantage doesn't negate that. — Baden

The reason why gambling is considered to be a vice, is not that some may cheat. It's more like some will take advantage of others. Do you think it's morally acceptable for a highly educated person who's engaged in the same trade as a lesser educated person, to take advantage of the lesser educated person? The apprentice gets paid a fair and reasonable amount, not taken advantage of for everything that the more highly educated person can get from the apprentice. To me, that seems to be the issue with trading, some will take advantage of others, and there's nothing to prevent this, just like in poker. You might think that so long as it's done within the boundaries of the law, it's ok. But why do they have laws to try and prevent people from taking advantage of each other, if it were ok to take advantage of others so long as you do it within the law.

There's no argument to be had where I'm still trying to explain the basics and you aren't interested to even listen. — Benkei

I'm listening but you haven't gotten anywhere. I asked how the traders make any money. You said "buy low sell high" and then you just get distracted, sidetracked into going on about all the good which they are doing for the market, bringing in their own money to create a big pot, increasing volumes. Of course this is easily debunked as attempts at market manipulation, but you seemed upset by that suggestion..

So, back to the question, how do the traders ensure that they can buy low and sell high, to make sure that they get paid. If it was only a 50/50 chance they wouldn't be hanging around there, and it can't be like a gambling casino where the table is slightly slanted toward the house, because regular brokers would all share the same slant. And if it were a matter of knowledge, the brokers would share that as well. So what produces the slant for the traders, to keep them hanging around, if it's not market manipulation through pools of money and volume control?

What is a rule if not an action that should be performed given a particular set of circumstances? — Harry Hindu

A rule is not "an action". It is a generalization which may apply to numerous actions. If you say that a particular action should be carried out in a specified set of circumstances, then to justify the "should" you might refer to a rule.

To say that there is no guidance, — Harry Hindu

You'd have to go back and read the thread, but I don't argue that there's no guidance, I argued that in the majority of instances of natural language use, we do not refer to any such rules. So I argued that rules are not fundamental to language use, they exist as part of specialized language use like math, logic, and writing. Therefore it's wrong to characterize language as a rule following activity. I discussed with Josh at one point, what type of guidance is employed at the fundamental level of language use, since it ought not be called a form of rule following. But this was just speculation, there is no real understanding here. What we can say though, is that it's not a matter of rule following.

I really dont get your aversion to using the term, "rule" when using language. — Harry Hindu

I avert it because I see it as an oversimplification which is simply wrong. And using such words which create "a picture", model, or representation, which is actually wrong, is misunderstanding.

Thinking that rules are always rigidly applied is a misconception if rules. Rules can also be like a guide and not necessarily a dictator. — Harry Hindu

Actually, the misconception is in thinking that such a situation can be described as rule following. If rules are not being rigidly applied, say they exist there to be consulted, and the person looks at the rules and decides whether or not to follow them at each individual instance of judgement, then we cannot say that rules are being followed, because the person often decides not to follow. We cannot even say that such a rule would serve as "a guide", because when the person decides not to follow, it provides no guidance.

What is glaringly obvious, is that there are no such rules which we consult during natural language use. When we speak in most ordinary circumstances, we speak the words which rapidly come to our minds, designed for the particularities of the circumstances, without consulting general rules. So this whole conception, that language use is based in some sort of rule following activity is a misconception..

The absurd conclusion of your summary of the argument is: "we cannot truthfully assert "rules are rules"." — Luke

Strawman, the conclusion would be "rules are not rules which are followed". There's nothing absurd about having a rule which is not followed. And if the general conclusion is, no rules are followed, this is in accordance with the fact that we are free willing human beings, and it is a false description to describe us as rule-followers. Of any rule, all that is required is one violation, anywhere, anytime, and we can correctly conclude that the rule has not been followed. Therefore the general conclusion is not absurd at all, it's a simple brute fact of human existence, that all rules are broken by free willing human beings.
"Rules are not rules which are followed", and that statement simply reflects the nature of freedom of choice.

The substitution is invalid because "rule" in the sense of "to follow a rule" has a different meaning from "convention". Perhaps you might think I'm begging the question.

But I can agree to your substitution if you insist, just to humour you. I don't see the point though, because it doesn't show that rules are not rules, as you claimed. It only shows that rules are not followed. And I already addressed this issue. Human beings are not rule-following creatures, as I described, we choose freely, with free will, whether or not to follow any given rule. We often choose not to. Therefore we cannot make the general statement that rules are followed, and we are left with the converse, rules are not followed, if we desire the general statement. See, it is false to describe human activities as rule-following activities.

You can deny this all you want, because it doesn't make sense to you that people could communicate with each other without following rules, but I think the evidence is very clear. So continue with your denial, if your illusion keeps you satisfied.

I think, "protocol" would be a more apt term to use when explaining how communication works.

It seems nit-picking to me. We all use reasons for our actions and thoughts. Arguing over whether or not we use the terms, "rule" or "convention" or "protocol" when these terms represent the reason we use some word rather than another, is trivial. — Harry Hindu

I think "protocol", which refers to something even more formal than "rule" is a step in the wrong direction. The point is that in the majority of instances when we use language, when we speak, the circumstances are very particular and unique. The combinations of words chosen are therefore specific to the particular circumstances, chosen specifically for that particular, unique situation. And in the majority of cases there is no evidence of any general rules or protocols being referred to for guidance. So it appears highly unlikely that we follow any sort of general rules or protocols when choosing words in the majority of natural language use.

Try substituting "rules" for "conventions and unspoken rules" in — Luke

The whole point of that deductive argument was to show that "rule" in the sense of rule-following, has a very distinct meaning from "rule" in the sense of unwritten rules. We discussed the difference between OED #1 and #2. So you're just providing further proof of my point, by showing the absurdity of making that substitution. If you're not doing this substitution thing to help demonstrate my point, but instead think that it somehow supports your position, then I believe you still haven't learned that equivocation is a fallacy in logic.

It seems to me you have a judgment ready and are hell bent on ensuring that you reach that preconceived conclusion. — Benkei

I wouldn't say "hell bent", but I do need some sort of an argument from you, to change my preconceived conclusion. I really haven't seen much from you as an argument. And I'm not even trying to change your preconceived idea, just laying out some opinions.

There are structural problems how our markets operate. You complain about the players and miss what's actually going on. — Benkei

OK, so my preconceived conclusion is based in a misunderstanding of what's actually going on. Do you claim to know what's actually going on?

Some of his responses to me also lead me to believe that he's never actually traded or used leverage so this discussion would appear to be entirely theoretical for him. — BitconnectCarlos

Wouldn't it be sort of hypocritical for me to actually be engaged in trading and at the same time expressing the opinion that it's inherently wrong?

For someone who's never really participated in this type of activity to then come down and basically say "the need for the trader has been eliminated" is just drivel to me. — BitconnectCarlos

So an observer's opinion is not worth anything? One must actually participate in the activity to make a judgement about it? Do you think that one must participate in murder, or theft, before judging that there is no place for these activities in our society?

Buy low, sell high. That's implicit in arbitrage. — Benkei

OK, so the trader buys on the CME low, and sells high on the SME, and makes some money. The person buying higher, could have bought lower, directly from the CME, so how is the trader not screwing that person?

The idea markets become less natural because more buyers and sellers (eg. Traders) enter it is something I don't even understand how you got there to begin with so I don't know how to reply to it. — Benkei

I don't care if you want to represent trading as a "natural" part of the market, we can represent greed and its associated activities of hoarding, stockpiling, monopolizing, and all sorts of other things which are morally wrong as "natural" too. The question is whether we ought to put modern day "trading" into this category of morally wrong.

But let's go back. What exactly is your problem with some finding out he can buy low in one market and sell higher in another? There's a willing seller in the first and a willing buyer in the second. Who's being hurt here exactly? This is all a trader does. — Benkei

If this were really "all a trader does", we could easily class the trader as providing a service which one ought to get paid for. The trader would purchase goods here, and deliver them over there, selling them at a mark up, to get paid for that service, like a common middleman. The problem is that with today's connectivity in the global market there is no such separation between here and there, every place has access to buy in any other place, so there is no need for the trader to purchase here and deliver over there. Effectively, the need for the trader has been eliminated, there is no longer any purpose for the trader in the market. One can hire a broker if required, and the trader's services have become obsolete.

However, the fact that there is no longer anything useful for the trader to do does not incline the trader to leave the market, because the trader still has all the knowledge of the system, and the skill required for making money in the market. So the trader has quickly found a new role, and that is to manipulate the market. This is done as you described, through transaction volumes. it's easy to see how an increased or decreased flow rate has an immediate effect in market prices, allowing some money to be extracted.

But investors, and the market in general, quickly become accustomed to such changes in volume, the market climatizes itself, and it becomes more and more difficult for the trader to extract money through volume manipulations. The magnitude of change in volume required for a trader to extract money becomes higher and higher, beyond the individual trader's resources, as the market has climatized itself to these individual actions, so the individual trader's capacity to manipulate the market has quickly been eliminated. Again, this does not incline the trader to leave the market, it inclines them to collude, to conspire, pool their resources in order to obtain the magnitude required to manipulate the market. .

If you believe that conventions are never followed - as the conclusion of your deductive argument implied — Luke

Oh boy Luke, this is becoming extremely dreadful. I think you need to read that post over. Not only have you demonstrated an inability to interpret a deductive argument, but also you didn't even remember what I wrote following that conclusion. When a person says "not all conventions serve as rules which we follow", and you represent this as saying "conventions are never followed", that's an inexcusably horrible straw man.

The conclusion indicates that we cannot make the generalized claim that conventions are rules which are followed. In other words, we cannot truthfully assert "conventions are rules". Therefore we ought not describe conventions as rules which we follow because this would be a faulty description. In no way does this imply "conventions are never followed". Furthermore, following that conclusion, I explicitly stated "there are some conventions which serve as rules that we follow".

The underlying false assumption here is that rules compel us to follow them, as if they were laws of nature. Neither rules nor laws nor conventions force you to follow them; they will not rob you of your free will. — Luke

This is the crux of the problem. And I went over this with Josh earlier in the thread. Let's assume that these things which you call "rules" (and I'm trying to get away from this word so that we can distinguish these from true rules), act as some sort of guidelines for behaviour which we freely choose to either follow or not follow in our common activities. Then we cannot describe this behaviour as "rule-following behaviour", because the real nature of the behaviour consists of deciding whether or not to follow the "rules", and the actions resulting from both decisions. If you only allow into your description the part of that activity which is observed to be rule-following, then your description of the activity is deficient because it doesn't account for the other part which is not rule-following.

Language use is this type of activity, in which we have free choice to either follow or not follow the guidelines. So if you describe language use as an activity which follows those rules, your description is incorrect, because it excludes all that part of language use where people choose freely not to follow those rules.

Even if your bare assertion that people often act in ways outside of conventions and unspoken rules were true, people more often act in ways inside of conventions and unspoken rules. — Luke

To follow a rule means to stay inside that rule. If you do not stay inside the rule, then you are not following the rule. I think that's straight forward enough. Following a rule does not mean to act in accordance with the rule more often than not. Try telling the judge, I only murdered twice in my entire life, that should qualify as following the rule, so I think you should let me go free.

Do you honestly believe that conventions are not followed? — Luke

Yes, of course I believe that, I find it very obvious, and I'm dumbfounded that you refuse to face the reality of this situation. What I think, is that this whole way of describing human behaviour as fundamentally consisting of rule-following activity, is completely wrong at the most basic level. I believe we are fundamentally free willing human beings, making free choices, and this is completely inconsistent with your representation of human beings as creatures who are following rules in their behaviour. And I believe it quite obvious that the evidence supports my perspective, because we really are not very good at following rules, even when we try really hard.

I've already said that it may be necessary to make a rule explicit in order to judge whether a rule is being followed. — Luke

The point, which I've been repeating, is that "following a rule" is that judgement itself. The judgement that "a rule is being followed" is what constitutes "following a rule". It seems very clear to me that "X is following the rule" is nothing other than a judgement that X is following the rule.

Since "following a rule' requires a correlation between "the rule" and "the action", what else could make this correlation but a judgement?

Conventions, unspoken rules, and the unwritten rules of baseball are not impossible to be followed. These are all relevant rules. — Luke

Since you're having so much difficulty understanding this simple matter, I'll spell it out for you in the form of a simple deductive argument. First premise: to follow a rule means to act within the confines of that rule, and not stray outside of those restrictions. Second premise: people often act in ways outside of conventions and unspoken rules. Conclusion: conventions and unspoken rules are not rules which are followed.

Having said that, there are some conventions which serve as rules that we follow, like the rules of mathematics. But by the preceding deductive argument, not all conventions serve as rules which we follow. Therefore some conventions serve as rules which we follow, and some do not.

What I propose is that the only conventions which we can truthfully say that people follow as rules, are some of the ones which are expressed in language.

Our disagreement/discussion was never about the ability to judge whether or not a rule is being followed. — Luke

Don't you see that in order that a rule is being followed, such a judgement is necessary? How could anyone be following a rule if there was no judgement that the act is in accordance with the rule? You do understand the necessity for an interpretation of a rule, do you not?

I have shown this, several times. I linked to Wikipedia pages on Convention, Unspoken Rule, and the Unwritten Rules of Baseball, for example. You have provided no reasons for why these are not examples of non-explicit rules (that are followed). — Luke

I believe I explained the deficiencies of your examples. We're going around in circles, and I'm having difficulty getting through to you, but I'll try again. How does one judge whether these "unspoken" and "unwritten" rules are being followed unless the rules are spoken or written? Assertion, and appeal to authority (Wikipedia) does not suffice. The assertion that unspoken or unwritten rules are being followed is completely useless, or meaningless, unless we have the means for judging the truth or falsity of whether any rules are actually being followed.

And, when we do formulate these rules in a way, (expressed in language), so as we can make such a judgement, we find that there are many exceptions to the rules. Therefore we can conclude that it's false that rules are being followed in such situations. It's merely a convenient assumption, "unwritten rules are being followed", which when analyzed, we find to be false.

Maybe that helped, maybe not. Anyway, even if a rule needs to be made explicit in order to judge whether or not someone has followed a rule, this does not imply that a rule needs to be made explicit in order to be a rule. — Luke

I agree with you here, because we can define "rule" in whatever way we please. However, we are explicitly talking about rule-following here, and rule-following requires a judgement. So if there are some different types of "rules" which are non-explicit, and therefore impossible to be followed, these types of rules are irrelevant to our discussion.

What Wittgenstein describes in some of those quoted passages, is that we can make judgements which do not require a rule. But this does not imply that we can judge whether a rule has been followed without a rule. That would be contradiction.

But it's not a good analogy because they cause other people to do this simply by adding their money to the market. — Benkei

What? The traders don't make any money from the market, they actually add money to the market?

What? The traders make money in the arbitration of prices. It's literally in my post. — Benkei

I still don't see any reference to traders making any money. All I see is this.

Here come the traders, driving broker and transaction prices down because they add transaction volume...

...

The inefficiencies are gone so if the price of SME gold is higher, traders will buy CME gold driving prices up and selling gold at the SME driving prices down. — Benkei

See, you portray the traders as interfering with natural market trends, to heroically create equality in prices to ensure that no one get's unlucky in the market. But you give no indication as to how the traders get paid for these gallant efforts, so we have no means of judging whether or not the traders are actually screwing people, driving up the prices all around, to be able to extract some money for themselves. If the traders were doing this, they would really be screwing everyone on the demand side. And then, when they've driven the prices so high that there's a breaking point, they'll turn around and drive the prices down, screwing everyone on the supply side. In the end, everybody's been screwed by the traders. And that's not a matter of luck.

So what I see, is that your equality between different places, Chicago and Singapore, is produced at the cost of inequality at different times. The traders make the world into one equal market in its spatial extensions, at the price of having that global market swing up and down violently in its temporal extension, in order for the traders to extract some money. Is there any means for a compromise between these two, or do you simply believe that spatial equality at the cost of temporal instability is the best situation?

Before that, you had made the absolute claims that "a rule must be expressed in language" on page 10, and that "rules cannot exist without language" on page 8. — Luke

We were talking about "rules" in the sense of "rule-following". Obviously when you define "rule" in some other way, which is not consistent with this use, then i would not adhere to that claim about what "rule" means. That's why equivocation is a fallacy.

I should have looked more closely at your #1 and #2 definitions, which I had assumed drew the same distinctions between explicit and non-explicit rules that I was trying to point out to you with the Google definition that I posted earlier. However, this is not the distinction between them. Your #1 definition of rule is: "a principle to which an action conforms or is required to conform". This is very similar to the Google definition, and likewise allows for the principle or rule to be either explicit or non-explicit. I was probably quick to overlook this because your definition #2: "a prevailing custom or standard; the normal state of things" is close to what I had in mind when it comes to non-explicit rules. — Luke

To "follow a rule" is a judgement. I'm still waiting for you to show how such a judgement can be made when the rule is not expressed in language. Until then, all your assertions, and google references, which assert that someone could be following a "non-explicit rule", have no import.

Since you seem to have such difficulty understanding, let me explain very clearly what I am asking for. To copy another person's actions, to mimic, is not to follow a rule, because a "rule" is a generalization concerning numerous actions. Therefore the "rule" must exist independently of the actions it may describe. Now, if someone is said to "follow a rule", this implies that a judgement of accordance has been made between the person's actions and the rule. Can you explain to me how that rule could exist in some form other than in language, which could allow it to be referred to, in order for that judgement to be made?

What do you mean by a "context"? If a context isn't a rule, then you can't mean any of the OED definitions of "rule". Do you think language ever gets used in the context of "a prevailing custom or standard; the normal state of things"? It seems fairly obvious to me that this OED definition #2 of "rule" has at least some part to play in the teaching of language, the meanings of our words, and the contexts in which those words are used. — Luke

"Context" is a rule? Use your dictionary Luke. Sometimes you seem to have extreme difficulty with the English language. "1 the parts of something written or spoken that immediately precede and follow a word or passage and clarify its meaning". "2 the circumstances relative to something under consideration".

Notice that each of these refers to something particular, the particular position of a word amongst others, or the particular circumstances which are relevant to a subject of consideration. A "rule" is a generalization, it does not refer to a particular situation. To describe a context as a rule is to make a category mistake. Therefore, language never "gets used in the context of 'a prevailing custom or standard; the normal state of things'" because to say this would be to make a category mistake. You would be claiming that the particular circumstances (context) are something general, a prevailing custom. Quite simply, "a prevailing custom", or "a normal state of things" is not a context, it is a generalization.

There's a delicious irony here: you demonstrate that you have understood my point that a rule can be defined as either #1 or #2 - as explicit or understood - but you refuse to explicitly state that you were wrong. I have no interest in "moving forward" with "our inquiry", thanks. — Luke

It appears you never read what I wrote. I repeatedly said that you can use "rule", or define it however you want. There is no rule which dictates how "rule" must be used or defined, that was my argument. You were the one arguing that such rules of usage exist.

The issue though, is that we were discussing a specific context of use, "rule-following". This specified context provides us with limitations.as to how we can accurately interpret "rule". If you now want to argue that you can give "rule" whichever definition you want, #1, #2, or any other random definition, in reference to that particular context in which it has been used, then the actual context of that particular usage gives me grounds to judge your proposal as right or wrong. Notice that I am not referring to a rule to make this judgement, I am referring to the particular context.

The point of my post was to explain the need to go into such philosophical endeavours without any preconceived notions, without any assumed understanding of the basics, because these preconceived basic principles constitute prejudice.

In my analogy of learning a trade, we are instructed to forget any understanding which we might already assume to have concerning that trade, and learn the proper procedures, starting from scratch. This is to ensure that we do not bring any bad habits with us into the vocation.

So it is as you say, if the atheist (or the theist for that matter) refuses to drop their fundamental prejudice, before embarking on a philosophy of religion discussion, we cannot even get to the point of agreeing on the subject matter.

Since religion seems to be an emotional subject, it appears like most people cannot drop these prejudices, so philosophy of religion discussions, amongst the undisciplined, tend to be very bad.

Now without a large segment of traders, as a US person you will only access the CME because brokers don't offer any alternative and certainly not at prices that would make sense for a retail investor. Good for you because price happens to be lowest at the CMEbut that's a matter of luck. But if you're a Singaporean, you're being screwed. And for the Singaporean to set up an investment account in the US is also prohibitively complex and expensive. — Benkei

I don't see how this difference in price between the CME and the SME is significantly different from my analogy of paying more for milk at the corner store compared to buying it at the big box store. Remember, I don't see anything inherently wrong with such price differences. I wouldn't say that the person buying milk at the corner store is getting screwed. Nor would I say that the person in Singapore who has to pay more for gold than the person in the USA is getting screwed.

There's a wide variety of different reasons for such differences in price which don't constitute getting screwed, such as being closer to the source of a resource makes that resource cheaper for you. There is nothing inherently wrong with the same commodity being different prices in different parts of the world. And, as I said already, I think that all the traders do, in creating price equality, is screw anybody they can.

There are no losers here... — Benkei

Yes there are losers here, the traders. The traders don't make any money in your scenario. But in reality the traders do make money, and it's at the expense of the others. So unless the traders aren't making any money, and are losers themselves, there are others who are losers, those who get screwed by the traders' desire to make money.

it all just tells how rotten the whole system is. — ssu

I'll agree to that.

Meaning, you don't agree that there is something called 'spiritual literacy'? — Wayfarer

No, I thought I was clear in the post. I don't agree that when teaching a course on the "basics" in some field, you should expect the students to already have some understanding of the basics.

The religious/spiritual are not going to teach anyone the "basics of spirituality". Apparently, one has to learn this somehow on one's own, there's no school for it.
The religious/spiritual don't stoop to the level of newbies and the otherwise "spiritually illiterate". — baker

What kind of school is that, if they're not going to teach you the basics? When I took basic philosophy in university my professor did not expect anyone to already have any understanding of the basics. It seems very odd to have a course professing to teach the basics, but the professor expects the students to already have an understanding of the basics.

Would you say that Christianity is fundamentally Platonic? — frank

I would say that there is a lot of influence from Neo-Platonism in Christianity, but this needs to be differentiated from Platonism.

So should people only be paid if they provide services to others? Should winning poker players not be paid? Do you believe gambling should be banned? What about passive income from investment? What about someone who just wants to sell a collectable item? — BitconnectCarlos

Gambling is a known vice, so it is something we ought not do. Whether it needs to be banned, I don't know. Likewise, I don't know if trading needs to be banned, I just identified it as inherently wrong, just like gambling is. Investment is providing something, so I don't see anything inherently wrong with being paid for that. So is selling a collectible object providing something.

The benefit for you as a market participant is clear, you know you're not paying too much thanks to speculators and traders because any price differentials were already arbitrated by them. — Benkei

As I said, it is not clear to me how this is a service. If my analogies don't work, then clearly I don't understand the situation, and simply repeating yourself won't release me from my misunderstanding. How does buying from a trader guarantee that I'm not paying too much? To me, the opposite appears to be true. The trader is an unnecessary middleman getting paid for doing nothing, therefore guaranteeing that I am paying too much. That the trader guarantees I won't pay too much, is just the illusion of the deception which the trader casts as part of the scam. You need to justify this assumption as the truth, to defend the trader.

For instance, when you're trying to give a class on 'basic use of computers' you expect the students to know what a mouse is, what 'click' means, what 'save' means, what 'a file' is, and so on. Otherwise you can't even start the class. Spiritual literacy is somewhat similar, comprising basic understanding of some key ideas, of 'how things work' in one or another of the living spiritual traditions. In a secular culture, a lot of that has died off, which is obvious from the kinds of arguments and statements that are made about it. I can generally spot the spiritually illiterate (who are numerous) from a sentence or two. — Wayfarer

I strongly disagree with this. If you're giving a "basic" course, you need to start from the very bottom, teach the most fundamental principles. It is a serious mistake to assume that the student already understands the fundamentals. This is especially important in philosophy, because these fundamental principles form the premises upon which the rest of the conceptual structure is build. And, the beliefs which come to us naturally concerning these things vary widely from person to person, as the participation in this forum shows. So if the professor of "basic" philosophy does not teach the fundamental principles, but instead takes it for granted that the student already understands these, when it is evident that the understanding which different people have varies widely, there will be significant consequences of misunderstanding, and rejection of the taught material which proves to be inconsistent with the preconceptions of the student.

So for example, as I described in the other thread, the atheist will approach philosophy of religion with the preconceived notion that gods are imaginary beings, and the theist will approach the same field with the preconception that God is a real existing being. You can see that these two distinct types of preconceptions would result in a significant difference to how one "understands" the material. So the proper approach for the professor can only be to remove all such biases and start from scratch.

There is a common understanding of what it requires to learn a technique, a trade, which is applicable as a simile. The self-taught individual will always develop some bad habits. So when a person has the desire to proceed into a trade, a vocation, as a career occupation, it is necessary for that person to release all previously acquired habits, and learn the profession from the very beginning, the very basics, from the professionals. This is necessary in order that no bad habits be allowed. In some occupations bad habits amount to inefficiencies, or deficiencies in the goods produced, in some cases they are extremely dangerous. .

They bring liquidity.. — Benkei

OK, if you want to get technical, traders do offer something. The question though is whether this offering is as I described, "creating the illusion that they are providing you with a service, only to take advantage of you". If this is the case, then they're more like scammers.

What's wrong with different people paying more, or less, for the same product, depending on the circumstances? For instance, if I set out to bake bread and I find that I'm low on milk, I'll zip out to the corner convenience store and buy some milk, at a much higher price than if I went down to the big box. Likewise, when I'm sitting at home in this pandemic, I'll go online and order goods to be delivered in a week or so, and pay more for them, just to avoid having to venture out into the city.

In both these cases, the local store, and the online delivery, someone is providing me with a service, for which I will pay, making the same product cost more. However, the possibility for me to get out and shop around for a lower price still exists if I am so inclined. How does the trader, by making sure that the price is the same everywhere, provide a service to me? Isn't the trader just taking the difference for oneself, thereby bringing the lower prices up to match the higher, and this is the way to the equality which is being offered by this type of trading? Then the person who is willing to do the extra legwork to get the lower prices cannot, because the trader has removed that possibility, by pocketing whatever would normally constitute that difference.

What purpose? — Luke

For the purpose of of this philosophical inquiry into the nature of language. How the obvious escapes your apprehension I cannot fathom.

Now that you have finally acknowledged that a rule can either be explicit or non-explicit, as per your own OED definitions #1 and #2 of the word "rule", then you must also acknowledge what I have been telling you for five pages: a rule does not have to be explicit. — Luke

Do you understand equivocation? We cannot use both definitions #1 and #2 for a logical proceeding. We must choose one or the other, or produce another, as required for our purpose.

So, we've been talking about "rule-following". As I explained, this use of "rule" is consistent with definition #1 and not consistent with definition #2. Do you agree that we can move forward with our inquiry by using definition #1, and rejecting definition #2 as irrelevant?

If all trades were like that, we'd go to the market place, trade our wares, and go home with what we needed. The world would be a beautiful place to live in. However, traders hang around the market place, without bringing any wares, looking to do something beneficial for themselves. Are they like dogs begging for scraps? No, they're more cunning than beggars, creating the illusion that they are providing you with a service, only to take advantage of you.

What do you mean "the trader requires payment?" — BitconnectCarlos

Would anyone persist in an occupation without making any money? That's what I mean, to support the existence of traders, the traders must make money, or else they'd all leave the market place knowing that there is no money to be made there..

The trade doesn't happen unless there is a buyer and a seller, both of whom believe that he has done something beneficial for himself upon doing the trade. — BitconnectCarlos

The belief that he's doing "something beneficial for himself", is the belief that he is going to make money.
So the trader believes that he is going to make some money. Now what is the service that the trader provides, for which he believes he will get paid? If he's not providing any service, then why should he would get paid? And if he believed that he shouldn't get paid, because he's not providing any service, then he wouldn't be there trying to do "something beneficial for himself".

I think that trading is inherently wrong. The trader doesn't provide any sort of service to anyone, yet the trader requires payment.

If you want to say 'everything is manipulation' that's on you and it kinda of blurs the distinction between actual misdeeds and normal buying and selling. — BitconnectCarlos

I think, having a blurred distinction is one step better than having misdeeds sanctioned by regulations, and passing as normal.

Roger thinks that herd immunity works by the people with antibodies vacuuming up, and killing all the viruses so that they can't infect others.

However, if a whale simply decides to buy or sell today and traders get stopped out when they were using high leverage then it's hard to feel bad for them because they willingly went out of their way to take on this additional risk. Traders or investors or whatever you want to call them need to go out of their way to use leverage. Most exchanges don't even offer it. — BitconnectCarlos

The issue is not whether we ought to feel bad for the little fish getting crushed by the whale, the issue is the little fish pointing the finger of blame at the whale, and accusing the whale of wrongdoing. If one whale makes a sudden move which injures thousands of little fish, all those little fish are going to point a finger of blame at the whale, regardless of whether the whale was doing wrong, or the little fish were living dangerously. And that's a lot of fingers.

Now we cannot remove this attitude of pointing a finger of blame, it's human nature that if we can readily pass the fault to someone else, then obviously it wasn't my mistake, someone else caused this deprived situation. But it does create a real problem because casting blame around in a stormy sea is only conducive to creating further disturbances rather than calming things down. And those disturbance will only hurt more little fish. So the only way to avoid this nasty scenario is to have rules which prevent these situations from coming about in the first place.

It's not always market manipulation either. Some traders or "investors" set their stop losses too close to the price and when it hits those "investors" get "forced to sell" just on normal market swings. — BitconnectCarlos

Do you expect me, or anyone else to believe this? What constitutes "a normal market swing" in today's environment? Manipulation is the norm. There is no such distinction to be made, between normal market swing, and manipulation.

That doesn't answer the question. You clearly disagree with the dictionary definition which states that a rule can be either "explicit or understood". You already agreed earlier that our disagreement was over whether or not rules must be made explicit: — Luke

I thought the implication was clear. That I disagree with a proposed definition does not mean that I think it is incorrect, it simply means that it's not a definition I would use for this purpose.

That is, unless you can explain how "explicit or understood" means only "explicit". — Luke

It's very clear to me, that a rule can only be properly understood if explicit. I asked you for examples otherwise, and you haven't yet produced any. Your examples of habitual behaviour were clearly not instances of understanding a rule. So I'll maintain my proposition as most likely true, until you produce the evidence required to support your dispute.

What do you mean by "Your use"? I posted a link to a Wikipedia article. — Luke

I think you need to pay more attention to what you are saying. Clearly you used "conventional". Here's what you said:

There are conventional ways to use a hammer. These conventions are not explicit, but implicit rules. In case you missed it, a rule is "one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of activity". — Luke

Oh? What does the OED definition #1 say? — Luke

We could argue dictionary definitions forever, without getting anywhere, for the simple reason that dictionary definitions do not constitutes rules for usage in natural language use. There are no such rules. And, you are grasping at straws insisting that I must adhere to your dictionary definition, in order to prove that one must follow rules to use language.

Don't blow a gasket, sweetheart. I never mentioned the word "agreement".

You asked how can a rule be public if it is not explicitly stated. I indicated my answer by linking to the Wikipedia article on conventions. It appears you do not disagree that conventions are public, nor that conventions are not explicitly stated. Perhaps you disagree that conventions are rules? Your argument appears to be that conventions cannot be rules because it isn't necessary to follow conventions. But how are explicitly stated rules any different in that respect? Rules are made to be broken, as they say.

If there is any sort of agreement in conventions, then "This is not agreement in opinions, but rather in form of life" (PI 241). Google defines "convention" (in the relevant sense) as: "a way in which something is usually done." Is this a rule? Well, I'd say it is "one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of activity", so yes. — Luke

Conventions are agreements, they are not rules. And even if they were, they are not necessarily followed, as I indicated in my last post. We cannot exclude the unconventional as not part of language use.

What's nonsense is your relentless twisting of words and meaning. The dictionary definition of the word "rule" states that a rule can be either "explicit or understood". According to your own personal defintion of the word "rule", you want to exclude the "understood" and leave only the "explicit". — Luke

No, but I'm still waiting for an example of how a rule could be understood which is not explicit. This mode of arguing by dictionary reference really doesn't make any sense. All you need to do, is refer to OED #2, which states "a prevailing custom or standard, the normal state of things.". But all this means, is that you and are are talking about different things, one described by #1, the other described by #2.

You want to talk about the part of language use which conforms to such customs and traditions, I want to talk about the part of language use which is unconventional. The problem is that you don't even recognize the existence of this part, insisting that language use necessarily conforms to such traditions.

Let's sort out what a rule is first, and then we can discuss rule following. — Luke

No, let's not, because we will never sort out "what a rule is". We will not ever sort this out, because it always depends on how the word is used, in context. Otherwise, I will refer to definition #1 "a principle to which an action conforms or is required to conform", and you will refer to definition #2 a prevailing custom or standard; the normal state of things", and we will always disagree as to "what a rule is".

The problem is that you do not seem to apprehend the fact that we cannot use definition #2 when we "discuss rule following". When we say "rule following", definition #1 is implied, not definition #2, because to judge whether a custom or standard, normal state of things is being followed requires that the custom or standard be described in words, and this becomes the "principle" referred to in definition #1.

So, we cannot talk about "rule following", and assume definition #2 without equivocation. Do you agree? And do you agree further, that any sense of "rule following" implies an explicit rule, as the "principle" in definition #1? This is because "rule following" implies a separation between the rule and the activity which is judged to follow the rule, so the rule cannot exist within the activity itself, and must exist somewhere else. Where else could the rule exist if not as expressed in language?

I can make a very crude guess that every spoonful of Brains and Onions that I ate contained about two hundred million Gigabytes of useful data, not counting the onions. — Ken Edwards

What makes you think that this was "useful data" after the calf was dead?

Sometimes these words can actually become visible to the naked eye. In fact you are looking at them right this minute. — Ken Edwards

What do you think causes some words to become visible to the naked eye?

If the space that an object occupies is defined by the object's gravity, we see that objects overlap each other in space. The moon's gravity is effective here on earth, and so is the sun's. So it's really a matter of how you define the boundaries of an object. This is evident as well, in your competent example.

No of course not. Buying a house is a different issue. I — BitconnectCarlos

It's really not a different issue, look at the crash of the housing market in the USA, 15 or so years ago. It's well documented that this crash was caused by traders. More and more money was needed to support the traders until the mortgages were worth more than the real estate itself. What happens when you owe more for your house than your house is worth? Bankruptcy.

When you use leverage you must know there's always a chance of being forced to sell. — BitconnectCarlos

Sure, but an investor never expects to be forced to sell at a loss. And when this appears to be forced by the activity of traders there's likely more hard feelings, because now there's someone other than oneself, to blame. That's where the problem lies, in the fact that there's someone to blame. Blame implies wrongdoing. To admit to myself, I made a bad investment, I lost money, is not a big deal. To think that some traders cheated me out of my investment is a big deal. Notice it's "to think that some traders cheated me...". When people start to point fingers at wrongdoing, then the truth or falsity of this or that particular instance doesn't even matter anymore, just like for the Trump supporters who thought that they got cheated out of the election.

Perhaps, but I think I implied that this is debatable. Would you say that someone who takes out a mortgage to buy a house does this only because they plan to flip the house?

Roger Roger, let's all of us healthy individuals get out there and vacuum up all those viruses out of the environment and into our lungs, to make it more safe for the less healthy.

TLDR: If you're using margin you're speculating so if you get stopped out or liquidated don't come crying that "speculators take money from investors" because by using margin you're speculating. — BitconnectCarlos

All investing is speculating, so this is not a real distinction. There is however a real distinction to be made between investing and trading. While both are speculating, what is speculated on, differs.

That money is going to come from other traders. — BitconnectCarlos

I think that this is demonstrably false. If the money came from other traders, there would be an equality between traders making money and traders losing money. A trader losing money could not make a living, and would be gone from the market. But on top of this, all the losing traders, would have to be bringing into the market place all the money required for the winning traders to be making their living. So there'd be an endless supply of losing traders coming in with money for the winning traders.

In reality, a lot of the money comes from investors who are forced (for one reason or another) into selling at a loss. As you say, when the market drops, you don't lose anything unless you sell. So when the market dips, an investor doesn't lose money, until the company goes out of business, or is bought out or something like that, or else is forced to sell for some other reason.

However, there is the issue of margins, which was mentioned earlier in the thread. An investor might think that taking a margin is a smart and profitable way to invest. But if we consider the reasons why an investor would sell when the market is down, the call to cover the margin when the market does drop from an unforeseen event, is reason number one.

You might argue that once a person is into this category of investing using margin, that person is not an investor anymore, but a trader, and that may be true. Still, you cannot avoid the fact that huge market drops are perpetuated by traders then, and there is still a significant number of investors who are forced to sell low, due to prior commitments or whatever other reason, and companies are forced out of business, and the loses from these investors are supplying a lot of money to the traders.

Are you saying the dictionary definition is incorrect? — Luke

I'm saying that the the dictionary definition does not qualify as a "rule". Having said that, you can use "rule" however you want, there's no rule telling you how it must be used. But sloppy use of words is conducive to misunderstanding. That's the point. So, we can see that as language evolved, human beings produced rules, logic, and understanding was facilitated.

There are conventional ways to use a hammer. These conventions are not explicit, but implicit rules. In case you missed it, a rule is "one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of activity". — Luke

You can insist that "convention" implies "rules being followed", but that's just fallacious logic, unless you define "convention" in a way which only begs the question. The reality of the situation is that "conventional" is used in numerous different ways, and you are arguing by equivocation. Your use is most consistent with my OED definition #6 "following tradition rather than nature". This does not even imply "agreement", as in definition #1. So even to claim that "conventional" as you use it, implies "agreement" is fallacy by equivocation.

Furthermore, if we proceed to assume that "conventional" implies agreement, as your fallacious, deceptive, equivocal argument would lead us to believe, we still must address the fact that "agreement" to a rule does not imply that the rule will be followed. So even if there were agreements concerning how one ought to use a hammer, as the equivocal, argument would imply if it wasn't fallacious, this does not mean that the activity of using a hammer can be described as people adhering to that agreement. This is because people have free will, and they often simply decide not to adhere to their agreements, for various reason. This is a very important part of moral philosophy, there is no necessary relation between agreeing to something, and actually adhering to the agreement, the act of adhering to is completely separate from the act of making an agreement. So when it appears like someone is adhering to an agreement, we cannot conclude that an agreement has been made, because we do not have that logical relation. All we can conclude is that there is an act of "adhering to", but this is completely distinct from making an agreement.

So, we can see two completely different types of fallacies involved in your argument. First there is equivocation in the meaning of "conventional". If we let that get past us, then we have an is/ought separation, whereby "what ought to be" does not necessitate "what is", because people have the freedom to do what they ought not do. So if we work backward, from a description of "what is", in your example, "there are conventional ways to use a hammer", we do not have the necessity required to assert that "what ought to be", in this case an assumed rule of how to use a hammer, has caused this situation of "what is".

This was already answered by the quote. Our disagreement is over whether or not rules must be made explicit. You are trying to change the topic. — Luke

Yes, that describes the disagreement. Intention is relevant because following rules is an intentional activity. I am not changing the subject. There is a very real, and relevant question of how can a person follow a rule if that rule is not explicit. If you want to characterize following-a-rule as something which is not an intentional activity, then it is you who is changing the subject. I suggest that this is the case, you want to change the subject, yet give the new subject the same name. That is done for the purpose of equivocation. The new subject, is perhaps what is named in my OED under the #6 sense of conventional, as "following tradition", and you want to give it the name of "following-a-rule", and I see no other reason for you to be doing this, other than for the purpose of equivocation.

It's ironic that you accuse me of drawing precise boundaries. Your attempt to exclude unwritten rules is an attempt to restrict and censor the dictionary definition. Otherwise, by all means, tell me how I've misinterpreted. — Luke

This is nonsense. How could a dictionary definition qualify as an "unwritten rule"?

I've already explained to you your misinterpretation, but I'll briefly describe it again.. An individual cannot judge oneself to be following a rule, because this just means "I think I am following the rule" which is not necessarily a case of following a rule. Therefore the judgement of whether or not a person follows a rule must be made in reference to the rule as existing in a public setting, not a rule as existing within one's mind. Such a public rule could only exist as expressed in language.

This is explained in the part between 199 and 206 which you left out for some reason:

202. And hence also 'obeying a rule' is a practice. And to think one
is obeying a rule is not to obey a rule. Hence it is not possible to obey
a rule 'privately': otherwise thinking one was obeying a rule would be
the same thing as obeying it.

You don't seem to be apprehending the significance of this passage, which Banno brought to my attention, (I'll thank him for that), years ago when I debated the private language argument with him at the other forum. Under no circumstances does having a rule within my mind, and believing that I am following that rule, necessitate the conclusion that I am actually following a rule. This means that the rule cannot exist within the mind. If the rule does not exist within the mind, it must exist outside the mind, if there is any such thing as a rule whatsoever. If the rules exist outside the mind, then the only form that they could have, which would be intelligible to us as rules which we could followed, is as expressed in language.

Your picture of the honest investor is that of an investor who doesn't understand markets. Back in the 17th century Dutch traders would post horseback riders at the southern tip of Holland to look out for incoming ships. These horseback riders would ride all the way back to Amsterdam and inform whoever hired them of what ship was returning and how deep it was running in the water. I don't see a fundamental problem with investing to have an information advantage over other investors. There's nothing unfair about the practice. — Benkei

All this does is paint the picture of the difference between investing and trading. What I was talking about is the situation where the rules in the market place are set up such that traders can more readily take advantage of investors. This is not a matter of some investors having an information advantage over other investors, because the information which is useful to the trader (prediction in market volatility) is completely different from the information which is useful to the investor (prediction of a company's success). And if traders make money, that money must come from someone. So it's a matter of traders being engaged in a completely different activity from that of investors. And "taking advantage of", means that the traders treat the investors unfairly, because they know that the rules of the market place will allow them to do so.

It is true that the past, especially the ancient past, is utterly remote from our own hyper-technological and post-modern culture. But part of the point of scholarship is to imaginatively try to inhabit those other worlds. Actually one of the Pali scholars I read talked of the 'Pali imaginaire' - that being the imagined world of the ancient Indian Buddhists, with its gods and daemons, heavens and hells, morality tales and stories. If you immerse yourself in those studies, you can learn something of those worlds, even if of course you remain grounded, or stuck, in your own time. — Wayfarer

The line between the believed to be true world, and the believed to be imaginary world is not so easy to define for the outside observer of different cultures. So when your scholar spoke of "the imagined world", it could have really been a believed to be true world, which the scholar described as an imaginary world. But describing it as an imaginary world, if that culture believed it to be the real world, would show a misunderstanding, as a lack of recognizing how the culture related the apparent imaginary world, to the real world, as an assumed real representation.

We see this is commonly in atheist representations of religion in general. God for instance is represented as imaginary. But unless you can put yourself in the position of seeing God as real, you are surely not understanding the religious position. Often the atheist will refuse to recognize that God could be understood as real, because this possibility is seen as a threat to the atheist position. But this type of atheist cannot produce a valid argument against the theist position, because the proposition that God could be believed to be real cannot be accepted, so that atheist is not even getting to, and therefore incapable of arguing against, the perspective by which God is seen to be real.

Speculation actually fulfils an important role in market function leading to a more efficient allocation of money between borrowers and lenders and better "price" discovery. There's nothing bad about it and it actually serves an important function. — Benkei

It is in a very real sense bad, because it gives the experienced traders, and those with access to specific tools, unfair advantage over the inexperienced and honest investors. The honest investor believes that the rules which govern speculation are in in place to create a fair market place, when actually the rules are strategized to create the illusion of a fair market while providing better predictive capacity to those with the desire to speculate and trade. Predictive capacity in the market, which the rules create, is nothing other than the capacity for traders to take advantage of investors.

It's more obvious in a market for goods, like say grain. If we imagine a bad harvest, a speculator will buy up part of the harvest to profit from the expected shortage. This drives up prices and means consumption of grain will become more rationalised (do more with less, don't buy more than you need, buy alternatives, etc.). — Benkei

You think that this is good, to allow speculators to hoard the necessities of life, only to dole them out on principles of who's willing to pay the most for them, with complete disregard for any consequences of these actions, other than how much money I can make?

My simple and blunt solution to all this bullshit is to reintroduce liability for shareholders. — Benkei

How could this deal with the problem of short sellers who actually hold the stock for a negative period of time, in the attempt to drive down the prices for the sake of personal profit?

If ontology studies "being", as wayfarer says, and being is what is, at the present time, then doesn't relativity, which makes the present an illusion, render "ontologically real" as an oxymoron?