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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 - 03:32pm Oct 8, 2003 EST (# 14680 of 14684)
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.

11186-7 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.4cbkbgyRMql.1225895@.f28e622/12737

We connect a lot of dots. Make a lot of guesses. Reject a lot of muddles. Come to clarity about a lot of things. For such reasons - the native Engish speakers reading this thread will agree - usually to great precision - about the meanings and associations involved with more than 50,000 words and more than 100,000 definitions of these words.

To appreciate the numbers just above - try to count to 10,000 - as a physical animal - yourself.

The idea that "things can be similar in some ways, but different in others" ought to be common ground. To an astonishing degree - it isn't.

Almarst often makes some analogies between Bush and Hitler. There are some similarities. There are also similarities between Hitler and every person on the NYT masthead - and similarities between Hitler and every person who has ever exercised power at any level, about anything. There are also differences. Both the similarities and the differences matter in the specific ways they matter - not others.

Pattern: Every ______ is similar in some ways, and different in others.

The blank in the pattern above could be filled by the words

fight

act of communication

episode of sexual intercourse

human being

vertebrate

living thing

physical object

or any other definable word or notion.

In only a relatively few cases would such a pattern be a false statement.

The notions that people are able to use well, or at all, are characterized by patterns of order, symmettry, and fit to purpose (harmony) - and practically always what orders, relates, and fits in one way does not in most others.

For example, as Bronner points out, people are the same, yet different. There's no contradiction involved with that - and there would be less tension about the point if people were more clear about the fact that life is as complex and interconnected as it is.

One can talk about the criteria of order, symmettry, and fit to purpose that apply to a set of circumstances as "dimensions." A lot of people have done so over the years. In some ways the analogy to physical dimensions (x, y, z, t) is useful and clarifying. In some other ways these "classificatory dimensions" are very different from physical dimensions.

I've been hoping to make both the analogies and the differences clear - and this thread has been largely motivated and structured by my efforts to clarify these analogies and differences between classificatory and spatial dimensions.

"Things are the same in some ways - different in others."

Everybody knows that - in ways that matter - of they couldn't live.

Some people (librarians, for instance) are clearer than some other people. On occasion, we'd be able to solve more problems if we were a little clearer about these things. Especially when stakes are high and our emotions are very much involved.

We should all be clearer than we are. There are some basics that a four year old should be able to hear - and a six year old should be able to fully understand - that people don't clearly know now. This thread has been trying to get these ideas more condensed, more clear.

Some ideas, after a while, become perfectly clear. And are exactly true in a clear context. I think it should be possible to perfect some basic ideas about human reasoning to that extent - and think it is worth the effort to do so. Sometimes - counting cases - or getting a sense of numbers of cases - is useful in such a process of focusing.

11188-91 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.4cbkbgyRMql.1225895@.f28e622/12739

Are these points platitudinous ? I'm not disputing that. But they are important - and very often handled very badly - in ways that cause unn

jorian319 - 03:32pm Oct 8, 2003 EST (# 14681 of 14684)
"Statements on frequently important subjects are interesting." -rshow55

People "connect the dots" - find patterns

There's always more yellow ones in a box than red ones.

rshow55 - 03:37pm Oct 8, 2003 EST (# 14682 of 14684)
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.

Are these points platitudinous ? I'm not disputing that. But they are important - and very often handled very badly - in ways that cause unnecessary muddle.

Of course we can find areas not covered - and areas of disagreement.

Of course we can find differences between people and groups - and emphasize them.

Of course we can set up patterns that "go around in circles" or diverge explosively.

It would be easier to avoid doing these things by accident if the basic "platitudes about grammar and classification" were better understood. And easier to avoid willful evasion and misinformation.

At this simple level of generality - people ought to be logically competent.

Today, most people are not.

That makes of muddles and fights that ought to be avoidable.

If I'm emphasizing the point to a degree some find unpleasant - I'm doing it because I think it is important - and may even be useful for people professionally associated with The New York Times Co.

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