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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 - 04:36pm Jun 28, 2001 EST (#6235 of 6242)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Some basic ideas about memory and information processing in the brain, reviewed in these forums, especially since December 20th 2000, will be given a serious hearing. If they prove to be facts, a major step in “breaking the code of the brain” will have been taken. Advances in neural medicine and cardiac medicine are expected.

A very completely documented example of a paradigm conflict impasse will be shown, and enough new understanding of these impasses will be provided so that such impasses can be much more efficiently resolved in the future. In my view, this may be the most important contribution of all. Major conceptual impasses are rare, but when they occur, new departures are possible. I believe that if arrangements are made so that these conflicts can be well resolved the net rate of scientific progress will greatly increase, at litle cost. Perhaps as much as double. If this were done, the sciences would also be more comfortable places for people to work.

If I’m wrong about these things, I may be reduced to a grease spot – and I’ll deserve to be. I don’t expect that to happen.

Are the good things in the bullets above worth the costs incurred in getting them? Viewed from Olympus, the answer is yes. But in human terms, the question isn’t so easy. What about the people who are actually involved? What if getting to the good outcomes asks people to do things that they cannot do? Or asks people to do things that violate their accepted moral standards and priorities? Or involves large injustices to real people, with real feelings and quite practical amounts of veto power? What if the good result requires a person, with obvious limitations and flaws, to violate accepted decencies and take unto himself powers that are socially forbidden? What if getting to the good requires wholesale violation of rules and patterns by which people order and must order their lives? What if some of the means to the good ends have been very awkward and ugly? In the case I’ve been involved with, all these questions apply. And it is my fault, in many cases, that thy do apply.

I’m trying to make my points, while avoiding these injustices. Just now, it looks like that can be done. I’ll be very lucky, luckier than I deserve to be, if that turns out to be possible.

One thing is clear. The presence of these forums, and people involved with them, has been an enormous help to me, and if I’m right, and due credit, a very great deal of it ought to be shared with THE NEW YORK TIMES, and especially the people involved in these forums who have devoted time to me.

I’m hoping to bring things to fruition, so that I can thank people, and apologize, more convincingly, and in more detail.

rshowalter - 04:46pm Jun 28, 2001 EST (#6236 of 6242)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

md2866 rshowalter 5/1/01 7:11am

"Since January 21, this forum has 2290 postings. (now, 3350).

I'm still hoping to get the neuroscience and math worked out - - - in a way that converts a messy, ugly history into something acceptable, and even pleasant, for all concerned. That's been postponed because of pressures on this thread.

In the matter of nuclear and conventional military balances, including the issue of missile defense -- there's reason to work for redemptive and detonative solutions -- because that't the kind that would be most beneficial, and most stable.

MD: 2865-2866: rshowalter 5/1/01 7:09am
MD3532-3533: rshowalter 5/8/01 6:51pm
MD: 4051-4055: rshowalter 5/17/01 3:05pm

(6 following messages)

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