PhilosophymagazinePhilosophy and Science for the Third Millennium The Efficient Frontier An Essay by Christopher Bek |
|
Summary—The Efficient Frontier examines the notions of God, option theory, portfolio theory, faith, reason and Arab math—finally arriving at the inescapable conclusion that all roads of sound decisionmaking lead to the efficient frontier.
God is a mathematician. —Sir James Jeans
We can never see
around our own corner. —Fredrick
Nietzsche Mozart
is too simple for beginners and too difficult for experts. —Vladimir
Horowitz You think when you understand one, you understand two, because one and one is two—but do you understand and? —Jalal
al-Din Mohammad Rumi Modern
man has acquired the willpower to carryout his work proficiently without
recourse to chanting, drumming or praying.
He is able to translate his ideas into actions without a hitch, while
primitive man was hampered by fears and superstitions at each step along the
way. Yet in maintaining his
creed, modern man pays the price in a remarkable lack of introspection. He is blind to the fact that, with all his rationality and
efficiency, he is possessed by powers beyond his control that keep him
restlessly on the run. —Carl
Jung
The Bernoulli Form elucidates the notion of Platonic Forms in describing how a motley crew of Forms—including Delphi, forecasting, integration, utility, optimization, efficiency and complementary—come together to form The Bernoulli Model.
The Method of Moments elucidates the notion of Platonic Forms in describing how a motley crew of Forms—including Delphi, forecasting, integration, utility, optimization, efficiency and complementary—come together to form The Bernoulli Model.
The Efficient Frontier
The Unpardonable Sin charges all honourables and doctors in Canada with heresy, child abuse and the unpardonable sin that Christ spoke of—which is the deliberate refusal to follow the light when seen.
The Uncertainty Principle contrasts Einstein with Heisenberg, relativity with quantum theory, behavioralism with existentialism, certainty with uncertainty and philosophy with science—finally arriving at the inescapable Platonic conclusion that the true philosopher is always striving after Being and will not rest with those multitudinous phenomena whose existence are appearance only.
Twenty-Eight is a Perfect Number argues that the Canadian Government is systematically violating its citizens and—in that I am the unchallenged Canadian Sovereign and have formally requested intervention from the United States Government—the Canadian people now have the means and legal right to remove the Canadian Government. A Formal Patient congratulates Alberta Health and Wellness for insisting on the accountability of due process in declaring individuals to be formal patients—and argues that I am being considered a formal patient as the result of an absence of due process elsewhere in Canada—and that I should not be considered a formal patient but that I should be declared disabled on account of being outside the cave of behaviorism.
Singularity identifies the trigger of the looming paradigm shift from the three-dimensionally conscioused Everyman to the four-dimensionally conscioused Superman as the 1935 Schrödinger's Cat though problem—which proves that consciousness is real.
The Great Cosmic Accounting Blunder compares the two physical fixedpoints in the universe—lightspeed and Planck’s constant—and argues that we have been guilty of double counting up until now and that in fact there is but one fixedpoint—which, as it turns out, is the boundary of the universe.
The Unified Field Theory counts down the Euclidean hits from five to one in categorically nailing the vast majority of this little thing I like to call cosmic pi. At this point in spacetime I would like to pay special tribute to my excellent wingman Albert Einstein (1879–1955).
Closing
the Liars Loophole
identifies the malignant cancer within the healthcare system and
society as the outwardly focusing behavioral psychological model, which
denies the existence of consciousness—while the inwardly focusing
existential model makes consciousness and the soul primordially important. |
The
French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-62) originated
option theory with his famous wager regarding the questions of existence and
ultimate nature of God. His argument came during the Renaissance in response to those
unwilling to believe in God strictly on faith and authority.
Pascal argued that living a simple life which seeks to understand God
represents the option premium which then allows for the possibility of
salvation should it turn out that God does exist.
Some critics have argued that God might well reserve a special place
in Hell for those who believe in Him on the basis of Pascal’s wager.
But in fact the exact opposite is true.
Those who believe in God strictly of the basis of faith are setting
themselves up for failure for the reason that their conception of God is
based on a static snapshot that is, by definition, not subject to reason.
The Devil is the one who seeks out those who blindly follow.
A true God most certainly wants to be constantly challenged by both
faith and reason. Kevin Spacey tells us in the 1996 movie The Usual Suspects
that the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he
doesn’t exist. And now we
know the second greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the
world we can know God by faith alone.
Option
Theory. Option theory is the decisionmaking methodology whereby
decisions to invest or not are deferred with the purchase of options.
For example, a drug company might enter into a relationship with a
university for the purpose of gaining access to research projects. Analyzing the strategic value of such projects is difficult
as the result of the prolonged developmental phase of pharmaceuticals as
well as the complexity involved in predicting the future market.
Relationships are structured
such that the company pays an up-front premium followed by a series of
progress premiums until the company chooses to either purchase the research
at an agreed-upon price—or discontinue the progress premiums, thereby
forfeiting any future option-to-purchase rights.
The
Heart of Risk. Risk analysis originated in 1654 when Pascal and
another mathematician named Pierre de Fermat solved the problem of how to
divide the stakes for an incomplete game of chance when one player is ahead.
The problem had confounded mathematicians since it was posed two hundred
years earlier by a monk named Luca Paccioli who coincidently also introduced
double-entry bookkeeping. Their
discovery of the theory of probability made it possible for the first time
to make decisions and forecasts based on mathematics.
Just like questions of the existence and nature of God, the
serious study of risk originated during the Renaissance when people broke
free from authoritian constraints and began subjecting long-held beliefs to
philosophic and scientific enquiry.
Greek
Geometry. The Greek Thales (625-546 BC) launched philosophy and
mathematics after having amassed a fortune by first forecasting bumper olive
crops and then purchasing options on the usage of olive presses.
According to Plato (427-347 BC) true or a priori knowledge
must be certain and infallible and it must be of real objects or Forms.
Mathematics is thus the systematic treatment of Forms and
relationships between Forms. It
is the science of drawing conclusions and is the primordial foundation of
all other science. Saint Augustine (354-430) carried forward Greek thought from
the failing classical world to the emerging medieval, Christian world—a
project that came to be known as the medieval synthesis. For twelve hundred years the flame of philosophy and science
lit by Augustine burned ever so lowly under the agonizing oppression of the
Church. Copernicus published On
the Revolution of Celestial Orbs in 1543 mathematically proving the
theory of heliocentricity. And
then by inventing and using of the telescope, Galileo (1564-1642) was able
to provide the empirical validation of heliocentricity—for which the
Church sentenced him to life in prison.
The French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes (1596-1650)
shared Galileo’s views and envisioned the masterful strategy of presenting
these revolutionary ideas to the Church in such a way that the Church
believed the ideas were their own. His
heroic plan succeeded and the philosophic and scientific Renaissance of the
seventeenth century was born.
Arab
Algebra. While the Church was jumping up and down on everyone’s
head for over a millennium, Arab mathematicians like Muhammad al-Khwârizmî
(780-850) were carrying the ball in founding algebra and algorithms.
An algorithm is the procedural method for calculating and drawing
conclusions with Arabic numerals and the decimal notation.
Al-Khwârizmî served as librarian at the court of Caliph al-Mamun
and as astronomer at the Baghdâd observatory.
Both the terms algebra and algorithm stem from the God,
Allah. According to Arab philosophy, mathematics is the way God’s
mind works. The Arabs believe
that by understanding mathematics they are comprehending the mind of God.
In fact the core of their religion lies with the belief that people
must submit to the will of God—meaning mathematical arguments.
Analytic
Geometry. The Latin version of al-Khwârizmî’s work is
responsible for a great deal of the mathematical knowledge that resurfaced
during the Renaissance. In
fact, the notion that mathematics and God are the same thing was adapted as
the foundation for the Renaissance by thinkers like Descartes, Pascal,
Fermat, Newton, Locke and Berkeley. Then,
in what John Stuart Mill called the single greatest advance in the history
of science, Descartes conceived analytic geometry by synthesizing Greek
geometry with Arab algebra. The
significance of this founding of modern mathematics is best understood in
light of the fact that mathematicians from that point forward had two
complimentary and fundamentally different ways of viewing the same Forms.
Einstein first introduced relativity theory in 1905 as a simple set
of algebraic equations, yet the theory was ignored until four years later
when Minkowski presented a geometric view of relativity as characterized by
the four-dimensional spacetime continuum.
The
Cartesian Method. In addition to founding modern mathematics,
Descartes also found modern philosophy by tearing down the medieval house of
knowledge and building again from the ground up.
By employing the method of radical doubt, Descartes asked the
question—What do I know for certain?—to which he concluded that he
certainly knew of his own existence—cogito,
ergo sum—I think, therefore I exist.
Based on the natural
light of reason, Descartes formulated his famous Cartesian method which
is—Only accept clear and distinct ideas as true—Divide problems into as
many parts as necessary—Order thoughts from simple to complex—Check
thoroughly for oversights—And rehearse, examine and test arguments over
and over until they can be grasped with a single act of intuition or faith.
Descartes rightly believed his method would guarantee certain and
infallible knowledge. Initially,
one faithfully or intuitively senses truth, which is followed up by
constructing rational arguments and then intuitively capturing completed
arguments. In other
words, faith leads us to reason and then reason leads us back to faith.
The
Markowitz Model. In
1952 a twenty-five year-old graduate student named Harry Markowitz studying
operations research at the University of Chicago strung together three
algorithms—forecasting, integration and optimization—ie. method of
moments, matrix algebra and linear programming—in developing
portfolio theory as a way of constructing optimally efficient portfolios
that maximize reward for a given level of risk—with the efficient frontier
being constructed by optimizing for all levels of risk. The Bernoulli Model. In 1690 the Bernoulli brothers set the roadmap for efficiency analysis by finding the curve for which a bead could be slide down in the shortest time. The Bernoulli Model upgrades the three algorithms of The Markowitz Model—forecasting, integration and optimization—with—intertemporal riskmodeling and decision trees, Monte Carlo simulation and the Camus distribution, and genetic and hill-climbing algorithms—and adds the Delphi process, utility theory and the complimentary principle. The approach essentially provides an efficiency workshop for realizing the vast potential of The Cartesian Method. The Orb of Efficiency. The Delphi process identifies first-order values that rise above cost-benefit such as allowable downside risk exposure. The second-order objective is to ensure portfolio risk-reward efficiency. The efficient frontier represents the best that one can do in terms of maximizing expected reward for each level of expected risk. It depicts the panoramic fruition of the highest forecasting and decisionmaking intelligence for the organizational portfolio. And while the end result is sufficient enough reason for conducting the exercise in the first place, the process of going through the analysis is often worthwhile in and of itself. Conclusion. Starting from the realization that the very definition of the word religion means a reconnection with reality—we know that most organizations, religious or otherwise, rest on unchallenged preconceptions. The whole point of applying option theory and following through on the efficient frontier is a recognition of the fact that not only situations but our conception of situations changes as we go. To think like a mathematician then is to—as Socrates rightly asserted—follow the argument wherever it leads. |
|
|
|