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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 - 11:23am Sep 4, 2002 EST (# 4173 of 4187)
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.

There are reasons why these "obvious" things are hard to see - but important to remember. Plato's problem is connected to the difficulties of these "obvious" things - and the ease with which people often do "difficult" things, too.

Watching television is plainly a much more difficult logical act than doing symbolic logic at the level Bertrand Russell was able to do it. Yet easier, too.

We need to be clearer than we are about why. For practical and political reasons - including reasons of morality, comfort, and survival.

Here's an "obvious" fact. In our world, for basic reasons, an enormous fraction of the probabilities we face are essentially 0, or essentially 1. Looking at ratios of factorials, such as N!/(N/2)! , gives a basic reason why.

Knowing more about "the odds of that" in a statistical world where many things are causal can tell us a lot about how people can be as smart and beautiful as they are - and yet as stupid and ugly in other ways.

The information carries both hopes and warnings. And it can be learned.

I'm moving as carefully as I can - in part because I feel "under fire."

lchic - 02:30pm Sep 4, 2002 EST (# 4174 of 4187)

JoBurg - Powell Speaks up on Mulgabe - heckled by activists - Tops bbcWorldnews

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2235353.stm

Kyoto - Russia ratifies

The treaty needs a majority of greenhouse gas producers - responsible for 55% of 1990 worldwide carbon emissions - to sign up before it can be implemented.

Russia's involvement would take it past that level, even without the US.

The 1990 figures showed the US producing 36% of carbon emissions, and Russia 17%.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2233220.stm

lchic - 02:55pm Sep 4, 2002 EST (# 4175 of 4187)

Creativity (7)

Reading Dasgupta (1994) one is struck by the depth of discussion entered into regarding 'creativity'.
WRT creativity in the sciences Dasgupta argues there is 'natural' and 'artificial' scientific creativity.

Natural science may be chasing down a truth - as did Showalter here: Equation for Neural Conductance and Resonance Dasgupta notes Kuhn (1962) 'the scientist solves puzzles within the framework or confines of a given paradigm - and revolutionary science, during which an entire paradigm may be supplanted by another. (p8)

~~~~~~~~~

Artificial science will involve the development of artefacts - as advocated by Showalter here - to devise, develop and use flashcards, within a system, for pre-readers would involve artificial-scientific creativity. 'the invention of forms that are to satisfy some requirements of purpose'

He notes (p9) 'there is scarely any philosopy of the artificial sciences that, one may claim, has originated from the realm of traditional philosophy'.

He asks 'what kind of reasoning underlies the design process' ... do practitioners in the artificial sciences frame "hypotheses" in the sense of the word that is understood in the natural sciences?
(He acknowledges Sciences of the Artificial / Herbert Simon as a major figure.)

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