The Tao Jones Averages

Author

Bennett W. Goodspeed

we try to understand running water by catching it in a bucket
remember to look for soft data, just because it’s not easily measured doesn’t mean it’s not important
predictions are often wrong because what is not taken into account

Taoism is all about how opposites are interconnected
yin and yang, long and short, life and death are fused into one, as each depends on its counterpart for full completion
when opposites supplement each other, everything is harmonious
opposites get their meaning from each other and find their completion only through each other

attain knowledge by adding things, attain wisdom by removing things
analexia: if something can’t be measured or analyzed, it’s not real
one has to return to childlike ways by unlearning the rules of man and society, and thus be free to
allow the unconscious mind to work effectively
Wu Wei means rolling with the punches, swimming with the current, and winning by attraction and attitude rather than by deed and compulsion

in government, one should “govern a large country as you would cook a small fish; lightly
the more laws are enacted and taxes assessed, the greater the number of law-breakers and tax evaders

controls the right side of the body, is analytically oriented
it reasons logically and sequentially and is responsible for our speech
adept at math, accounting, languages, science, and writing
like a computer, it is programmable and is nurtured by our highly analytic educational process
the properties of the left brain are not unique; man has developed computers that can duplicate those functions

controls the movements of the left side of the body, is unique
operates nonsequentially, is intuitive, artistic, has feelings
gestalt-oriented (sees the forest and not just the trees)
controls our visual perceptions
since it’s nonverbal, it communicates to us through dreams and “gut reactions”
provides and stores all of our nonverbal experience; a vast amount of input, certainly much more than we can verbally retrieve from our left brain

though we are told not to compare apples and oranges, we continually do so by translating them into numbers
in the process, we tend to lose track of their intangible properties such as taste, nutrition, and aesthetics
we continue to honor yang values by demanding credentials of anyone who asks us to look at what is new, rather than looking at the evidence itself

educational system emphasizes being “right” at the expense of being open
this teaches our youth to be still, to look to authority, and to construct certainties
it ingrains self-limiting behavior and promotes competition for the highest grades

teaching should not be done by describing and pointing out differences, but by example
what students need to learn is freedom, high expectations, awareness, patterns, connections, and creativity

“Whereas the young need some sort of initiation into an uncertain world, we give them bones from the culture’s graveyards. Where they want the real thing, we give them abstract busy work, where they need to find meaning, the schools ask memorization, and discipline becomes divorced from intuition, patterns from parts.”
we should teach creativity

just before a trend changes, there will be maximum agreement by experts and others that the trend will not end
to deal with discomfort of uncertainty, man tends to create a false sense of security by substituting certainty for uncertainty
irony is that the greater the uncertainty, the greater the similarity of predictions, as the experts “shout” together in the dark

a comedy is when the characters discover reality in time to do something about it; a tragedy is when the characters do not
stupidity well packaged can sound like wisdom

since vision is the most information rich of all senses, visual thinking is extremely important and powerful
in order to extrapolate what is missing, you need to use the right hemisphere, as it is by far the one best suited to deal with incomplete information
watch out for the man whose stomach doesn’t move when he laughs

to infer is to arrive at a decision or opinion by reasoning from known facts or evidence (e.g., from your smile, I infer that you’re pleased)
an inference can also be a matter of making connections between events that are not obviously related
General Patton observed the anomaly of cart tracks and made the connection that the Germans were low on gas; a rather creative and important leap
inferential thinking, however, is very much whole brained; the left brain stores up the knowledge acquired during the reading so as to provide a background against which the right brain can spot anomalies

crisis equals danger and opportunity
As crisis is comprised of danger and opportunity, those who sense change in the early stages will tend to have the most bountiful harvest

reading serves as a “radar screen” on which the anomalies, or clues of change, first appear
provides a feeling for what is normal, as one needs to know normality in order to recognize an anomaly
broad-based readings allow one to spot a change in one field that will impact another