Dr. Evans Chat Guest on 7-25-09

For future reference...

Pasting into chat:

Right-clicking and choosing Paste certainly tricks you into thinking it's going to work, but it doesn't.

Ctrl + V does work. So does pushing the Paste button on my keyboard.
 
Working for me, using Firefox on a MAC.

Canceler said:
Pasting into chat:

Right-clicking and choosing Paste certainly tricks you into thinking it's going to work, but it doesn't.

Ctrl + V does work. So does pushing the Paste button on my keyboard.
Click to expand...
 
I am going to temporarily post an edited transcript of the Dr Evans chat, perhaps later tonight.
 
FLASH1296 said:
although when our moderator left after about one hour we lost the ability to communicate entirely.
Click to expand...
Flash explain. It was setup as moderated, which OBVIOUSLY should have been tested in a non-celep chat...
and then the moderator left before it was over and the chat was compromised? zg
 
When Dr. E. said good night people started to leave.
However, several of us were slow to leave.
I twice attempted to "say" something.
Each time I received an error message (not verbatim) to wit:
No moderator present. Messages can't be parsed.
 
Sage, there is a lot of good stuff on that Dr Evans chat. How did your summary go? That should make interesting reading, if available. :)
 
Katweezel said:
Sage, there is a lot of good stuff on that Dr Evans chat. How did your summary go? That should make interesting reading, if available. :)
Click to expand...
i'm not sure what summary you are referring to.
i did try and summarize my views on the chat and e-mailed Dr. Evans regarding my summarized views when it was believed that the chat transcript was not available.
it was later found that the chat transcript was in fact available, lol.

so anyway, here is a copy of a summary of my views on the chat as i e-mailed them to Dr. Evans.
i'll preface this summary with the admission that my recollection of the chat with respect to the chat participants reluctance to stick to the subject of risk intelligence was faulty on my part.
my e-mail summary views follow:

Dylan,

I don't think i can say enough times, thank you for taking the time and putting forth the effort in our chat facility.

I'm very sorry to inform you that there is currently no archiving of our chats. It is an issue that our site owner is considering but has not decided upon for future chats. I could have saved the chat had I known prior to your asking, by using copy and paste, however by the time you asked about 90% of the chat text was out of the memory of the chat program.

I'll summarize a few points about the chat that I hope will be of interest for you.

Probably you noticed how technical minded (in terms of blackjack strategy) the chat participants tended to be. The chat subject matter just seemed to drift into this or that mathematical sort of area, did it not? Such is the nature of the concerns of blackjack advantage players. Did you notice much conversation or questions regarding risk and uncertainty? I did not, but some responses were i believe indicative of a concern for those areas. Those would have been some of the more qualitative statements made, such as "i'm a blackjack warrior" sort of thing. I find the relative lack of chat concerning these areas interesting, especially when each and every one of us knew that your primary interest is centered around the question of risk, uncertainty, reward and the question of the hypothetical existence of risk intelligence. I believe this can be explained away, by realizing that for many advantage players risk, uncertainty and reward is just a part of the mathematics of their craft. It's like that being the case those questions are relegated away as impractical to worry about as long as you have the math right and your strategies follow the math. The question of the existence of risk intelligence is for many advantage players a 'non-factor', it's knowing the methods and procedures and a faith in them and the underlying math that is important. That said, there is more to this advantage play business that most advantage players pay scrupulous attention to. Matters that aren't discussed much. You see most of these players, play the game of blackjack like virtual robots, once they understand the parameters of a given game in a sense very much mimicking computer simulations in their style of play. There are however practical consideration that some may consider, such as the question of just how closely is it possible for a human to mimic the actions of a computer.

I believe another area i observed about the chat is the 'fissure' between opinions about the importance or lack of importance regarding emotions and advantage play. This i believe can at least in part be explained by two scenarios. You have a type of advantage player that plays with his own money and you have a type that plays with others (investors or team mates) money. The latter i believe tends to play dispassionately while the first type pays at least some attention to their emotions. It isn't difficult to imagine some wisdom in either point of view, imho. Utility is apparently different for the two types, while methods of attack on the uncertainty of the gamble are very similar, but may have some subtle differences.
The matter of risk apparently is viewed differently while the desire for reward is similar. This may or may not result in different ways that advantage methods are employed by the two types. What i believe may be of interest to you, is that the more passionate player may attempt to employ 'street smart' efforts in their strategic play while following the script of computer-like advantage play. That difference is what i meant by saying in the chat you may be 'barking up the wrong tree' by what I sense as a concentration of your scientific observations on the advantage players who purely mimic computer simulation play with little or no passion.
Have you ever heard it said that in the working world, it's a good thing if the worker can find enjoyment in their work? Point being, my observations have been, many of the dispassionate type of robotic players loath the casinos and find little joy in what they do, it's all about making the money while at the same time not caring so much if they lose money, while on the other hand the more passionate player probably does enjoy what he's doing and cares both about money lost and money gained.
here is a link, that i think you may find interesting:
http://www.wilmott.com/blogs/paul/index.cfm/2007/5/21/Blackjack-podcast

Well, I've read some of your articles on your website and as i stated in the chat, i found them most interesting. I mean you have this wide range of interests and thoughts regarding stuff such as prediction markets, robotics, human intelligence, human emotion, decision making and medical areas such as evolutionary psychology, placebo effect and how doctors interpret medical diagnosis. I believe you are interested in the hypothesis of risk intelligence in part because a deeper understanding of such intelligence could help doctors interpret the 'vagaries' such doctors might have to deal with regarding the probabilistic nature of medical diagnosis's. I believe you may find this link interesting, it touches on this problem with diagnosis's. http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_donnelly_shows_how_stats_fool_juries

Additionally, i'd like to clarify my remark in the chat regarding your read on Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan. I posted my remark about reading the book again, part in jest (jesting is perhaps never a wise thing to do on the internet, sorry about that :), but partly because I wonder if you perhaps don't appreciated your and Taleb's similarity for an appreciation of the concept of being 'Street Smart' with respect to your hypothesis about risk intelligence.
Just me maybe, but I must say i see the concept of "Steet Smart' as what perhaps should be the pillar of your hypothesis. I mean, little as I know about your field, but it would seem to me that when you want to understand anything with regard to risk intelligence, your going to have to look into what is a matter of archaic underpinning bits of knowledge that eons ago our ancestars learned about with respect to dealing with risky situations, information that has been handed down over the ages. It would also seem that the validity of such information, may have lead to the success of the bearer of that information and thus may have over the ages an evolutionary root in our genes, hence a genetic and intellectual underpinning for risk intelligence.

This is again in part why I believe to some extent you may be 'barking up the wrong tree' in your focus on expert gamblers. I'd narrow the focus to consistently successful gamblers of all stripes, and perhaps widen the focus to types of people who succeed in extremely risky endeavors, such as soldiers, auto racers, motor cycle racers, rock climbers, market traders, ect.

Just my opinion on the gamblers, the thing about them is, the experts using just pure math, may not really need to use any form of intelligence beyond that of a computer. Well, we know a computer at this point in history hasn't even the intelligence of a grasshopper. Point being though, there may very well be gamblers who use what perhaps i mislabel as the more archaic form of intelligence that may actually be risk intelligence.
That would be in my opinion, the street smart stuff.

Consider, having read Taleb's The Black Swan, the concept of the ludic realm and the realm of the world outside of casino walls. Black swans, virtually don't happen inside of casinos for gamblers. But black swans do happen outside of casino walls for the rest of us.
The thing is though, application of expert gamblers methods in the ludic realm is fine, outside the casino walls, though, it can spell trouble. It can be an unintelligent way to deal with risk. Probability is pretty much a product of our understanding of the constraints found in the ludic realm. The rest of the world may or may not be ammenable to probability. It's a matter of whether or not black swans can appear in the domain in question. Point being, risk intelligence should be able to deal with not only ludic domains but those in which the black swan dwells as well.

Well, Dylan, just me blabbing on and on. I hope I didn't bore you.
I'm just really a regular sort of guy that just enjoys these sorts of topics about gambling, uncertainty and risk. Maybe just take anything I've said with a grain of salt, lol.
Just would like to also say i enjoyed very much your article in this link:
http://www.dylan.org.uk/arbitraryape.html

When ever you get a chance i'd be interested to see a referance or a link to the paper you referenced where a study was done of expert gamblers in your youtube video.

I'll not bother you any further in any way, but I shall follow your exploits over your web site as i find it all profoudly interesting.
Thank you again, for everything.

very best regards,
sf
 
Thanks Sage. And thank you for your initiative and endeavors in bringing an interesting guest to the chat. Good work.
 
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