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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

rshowalter - 03:24pm Jun 15, 2001 EST (#5209 of 5245)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MD5204: gisterme 6/15/01 2:13pm

gisterme: "That's true, Robert, in the eyes of SOME beholders. But any two might argue about which parts are beautiful to them and which are ugly.

Yes, but it is possible, if they are clear about the some assumptions, that they can say "beautiful this way" but "ugly that way."

Md 664 rshowalter 2/9/01 1:53pm

"disciplined beauty" fit in terms of "specific" bodies of fact and assumption -- one can call the same thing "beautiful" and "ugly" for clear reasons on the basis of assumption of specific facts and relations.

Here are some more details about the idea

I believe that "getting to beauty" is somehow what happens in our minds, by standards in our minds, when we "get to really be comfortable with an idea." And it seems to me that it is worth taking another pass at the discussion of beauty here. I'll call it

" An operational definition of Good Theory in real sciences for real people.

In " Beauty " http://www.everreader.com/beauty.htm Mark Anderson quotes Heisenberg's definition of beauty in the exact sciences:

" Beauty is the proper conformity of the parts to one another and to the whole."

SUGGESTED DEFINITION: Good theory is an attempt to produce beauty in Heisenberg's sense in a SPECIFIC context of assumption and data.

Goodness can be judged in terms of that context,

and also the fit with other contexts that, for logical reasons, have to fit together.

The beauty, and ugliness, of a theory can be judged, in terms of the context it was built for, and other contexts, including the context provided by data not previously considered.

For example -- Words, pictures and math have to fit together comfortably and workably, both as far as internal consistency goes, and in terms of fit to what the theory is supposed to describe.

Theories that are useful work comfortably in people's heads.

Both the "beauty" and "ugliness" of theory are INTERESTING.

Both notions are contextual, and cultural.

rshowalter - 03:25pm Jun 15, 2001 EST (#5210 of 5245)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Ugliness is an especially interesting notion. To make theory better, you have to look for ways that the theory is ugly, study these, and fix them. The ugly parts are where new beauty is to be found.

( Note: Dawn thinks "dissonant" is nicer than "ugly", and she's right, and I think that "ugly" is sharper, and closer to the human interest, and that seems right, too. So we're weighing word choices here. )

A lot of people think it is ugly to point out weaknesses, uglinesses, of other people's theories, or even you own..

But there's reason to do it: the ugly parts provide clues to new progress -- hope that new, more powerful kinds of theoretical and practical beauty can be found.

priorities:

"To make good theory, in complex circumstances, beauty coming into focus must be judged, and shaped, in a priority ordering - and even though the priorities may be shifted for different attempts at beauty, the priorities need to be remembered, and questions of "what is beautiful" and "what ugly" have to be asked in terms of these priorities.

aesthetics matters as a human motivation, and as an order of merit.

"Intellectual work, and scientific work, is an effort to find previously hidden beauty , and this is what moves people, and warms people. This need for beauty must be remembered, and not stripped away.

Even when there's no sympathy at all - it is often possible to say "this is beautiful if you actually believe these assumptions.

That's good for communication -- and for suggesting adjustments, and knowing why people care.

Some things are so misshappen, that they seem ugly almost any way you look at them -- unless everything is hidden - and that may be a reason things are hidden.

rshowalter - 03:34pm Jun 15, 2001 EST (#5211 of 5245)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MD5203 gisterme 6/15/01 2:10pm

gisterme:

rshowalter wrote ( rshowalter 6/15/01 9:14am ): "...But in terms of word count , hard thought, and the amount of human contact and checking to be expended, efforts need to be increased .... and increased very much..."

gisterme: What a strange thing to say. How do you reconcile that statement with your position about complexity? Do you choose volume over quality?

No, but sometimes, only after a lot of talking is it possible for ideas to clarify and condense. I'll have more to say -- but I think we'd agree that in the end, you want agreements that are simple, condensed, and very clear.

But often to get there, it takes a lot of focusing.

And often, if details are complicated, the work of description has to be, too.

The only way anybody ever feels comfortable with anything (or the main way) is by getting accustomed to it, and getting comfortable that it fits the facts and relations that it is supposed to. And that takes time.

And taking time enough to do a lot of matching, a lot of ways, is especially important when people come from different assumptions, or different points of view. Americans and Russians are VERY different culturally, and it is much too easy for them to take things for granted that cause serious problems of coordination - and even anger.

More following in a while . .

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