Chapter

In the Middle of the Event

EXCERPT

I traded options for ten years, on the floor, both here in London and in Paris, so I have some direct knowledge of the market itself as a material and as a medium, and not a theory. On the other hand, I am an engineer by training, so I know a lot about probability theory, and after being a trader for ten years, for the next ten years of my career I created a company that specialises in pricing derivatives. It is a software company, and what we develop in the company relies very much on probability theory and on what Robin described earlier as the ‘metaphysical framework’ whereby, in order to model the unpredictable, first of all you have to identify the different scenarios that may take place. And, according to all of us here, this is the major weakness of probability theory and of the metaphysical thinking of possibility when confronted by the pure contingent event: that, in order to model something and to project it in thought, you have first of all to give yourself the list of scenarios and then simply assign probabilities to them…