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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

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rshow55 - 01:03pm Apr 7, 2003 EST (# 11193 of 11193)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Cynthia Lanius points out that

"Cats, canaries, or kangaroos are similar if they are alike in some way. In geometry though, similar means something very specific. Geometric figures are similar if they have the same shape. I don't mean two rectangles or two triangles, but really the same shape. For example:

" . . . The two squares are similar.

" . . . The two rectangles are not similar.

" . . . But the two rectangles below are similar.

http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/fractals/self.html

People and animals can recognize the similarities in cats, canaries, or kangaroos, and can also distinguish between different cats, different canaries, different cats, and different kangaroos.

It isn't clear or accepted how people come to recognize these simularties or these differences. But a great deal is known. People do it very fast. The process of forming classifications, and identifying differences involves a lot of text and many examples. In most cases, everybody does it in essentially the same way. People can express a great deal about the differences and similarities that they have in their heads through language - but not everything.

And virtually all of the logic involved is unconscious.

There's too much of this processing to attend to - so it has to be unconscious.

But if we don't recognize that "there's a lot below the surface" we can get stumped unnecessarily - and get into fights we might otherwise avoid.

In history, and especially the history of sciences - the biggest - ugliest - most intractable of these big fights are called paradigm conflicts.

Other conflicts are similar in important ways.

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