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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 - 01:09pm Aug 27, 2002 EST (# 3995 of 3999)
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.

It seems to me that the SIMPLE numerical facts above cast a great deal of light on problems that have bothered ordinary people and philosophers for 2500 years and more. Problems that remain central to some of the most intractable, expensive, and emotionally wrenching problems people have.

When random search is involved, it is VERY helpful to narrow down the number of possibilities.

N! is VERY much bigger than (N/2) which is in turn VERY much bigger than (N/5)! which is VERY much bigger than (N/10)! . . . . and so on.

When random search applies to a system that has orderly relations in it – it is even more helpful.

I cited references I've read and used in MD3936-3945 rshow55 8/23/02 6:11pm , and headed each of these postings with this:

When I say that I think lchic and I are doing important work on "connecting the dots" - I mean "important, in my opinion, judging from what I know based on these references, some others like them, some thought and some experience."

One thing we've been trying to refine is a sense of "the odds" when people "connect the dots."

It seems to me that the insight that " when random search is involved, it is VERY helpful to narrow down the number of possibilities" is significant, and new in this sense. People have known simplification is essential. They haven't been clear about how HUGELY important it can be. And a sense for the size of the VERY in the statement that " N! is VERY much bigger than (N/2) " has powerful implications that I don't believe have been appreciated enough before.

Implications that I believe would illuminate and focus results and arguments in every one of the references cited in MD3936-3945 rshow55 8/23/02 6:11pm .

rshow55 - 01:10pm Aug 27, 2002 EST (# 3996 of 3999)
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.

People have plenty of reason to ask these questions:

How can people be so "smart", and know so much?

but also

How can people be so "stupid"?

They are related questions.

Part of the answer is that, because the odds of induction are so often strongly convergent, very fallible and sloppy "logic" can get very good answers, very often.

But not always. Terrible mistakes can happen, and do.

They'd happen much less, and do much less damage, if people did more sensible checking.

rshow55 - 01:12pm Aug 27, 2002 EST (# 3997 of 3999)
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.

Looking hard at the statistics of induction is worthwhile. That hard look lets us think about induction in a more orderly, hopeful way.

I have tremendous respect for the references cite in MD3936-3945 rshow55 8/23/02 6:11pm

But it seems to me that as far as human welfare goes, lchic's rhyme, widely taught, might do as much good as all those references put together. In part by summarizing much of what those references teach. With an added "sense of the odds" that hasn't been taught enough.

Adults need secrets, lies and fictions
To live within their contradictions

If children and adults understood that - we'd be more humane, and solve more practical problems.

Before adults would let children learn lchic's little rhyme -- they'd have to learn some things themselves.

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