Re: [asa] A parable of three investors

*David, do you do business deals?*

I used to, but then I became a law professor and my ability to do anything
practical and useful has atrophied.

On 10/28/06, Glenn Morton <glennmorton@entouch.net> wrote:
>
> >>>A little more serious: the problem with this as an analogy is
> that securities and commodities markets are established by people according
> to certain predetermined legal rules. Those rules function as sort of
> epistemic presuppositions concerning what is "true" about the market in
> question. Given those presuppositions, one can look at historical data and
> discern patterns that will likely obtain in the future. One such pattern
> may be that companies with high p/e ratios tend to be riskier investments
> than those with low p/e ratios, or that commodities tend to serve as a hedge
> against bear markets. But these are just tendencies, which may or may not
> obtain with regard to any given investment, or which may be overriden by
> other factors (such as "destructive" technologies or unforseen world
> events). So, even owning all the important presuppositions, the best one
> can do is suggest opportunities and risks regarding the future of the
> markets. There is no real positivism in investing.
>
> Trying to port this over to Biblical interpretation doesn't work because
> the argument is precisely about the presuppositions. We aren't given
> predetermined legal rules about how to interpret the text. We have to
> develop those rules based on experience, reason, history, etc. The question
> about how to relate different sorts of extrabiblical evidence to the text is
> a question about presuppositions, not a question of a applying a
> known principle derived from more foundational presuppositions (such as
> the principle that companies with higher p/e ratios tend to be riskier
> investments). Moreover, as with investing, even when the relevant
> presuppositions are reasonably clear, the principles derived from them
> usually are guides rather than firm rules. Sometimes the Googles of the
> world turn out to be good investments despite conventional wisdom about p/e
> ratios.
> <<
>
> Talk about not being able to follow a parable. ITS A PARABLE! However,
> this illustrates that you want the parable to be accurate and historically
> or scientifically true. Why wouldn't that desire flow to the Bible itself?
> Are we better off if everytime we gave a choice, we chose an intepretation
> of the Bible which makes it false
>
> Why do you want THIS parable to be true, but NOT the stories of Genesis?
> This is curious indeed!
>
> Below brought me into contact with some of John Maynard Keynes sayings. I
> found this one which seems to be ignored by most christian
> apologists--something my PARABLE was griping about. Keynes said:
>
> "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? "
>
> It is precisely this inability on all sides of the apologetical question
> that drives me mad. Facts don't matter, beliefs do.
>
> A couple of more comments. The market, my friend is irrational and
> unpredictable. Legal rules are not what I am speaking of here anyway. No law
> tells the market or a company stock to go up or down. John Maynard Keynes
> wrote:"The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."
>
> I also would recommend this quotation from Keynes, *"**Words ought to be
> a little wild for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking."* *New
> Statesman and Nation* (15 July 1933)
>
> As to postivism, yes there is. If you make the right choice you get
> rewarded. If you don't, you don't. The positivists wanted verification.
> The market gives it in abundance. Kuhn wants falsification. The market gives
> that as well.
>

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Received on Sat Oct 28 22:45:14 2006