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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 - 12:01pm Nov 1, 2002 EST (# 5439 of 5441)
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.

rshowalter - 09:44am Feb 4, 2001 BST (#96 )

I'll call it, for now:

An operational definition of Good Theory in real sciences for real people. "Partnership output of a Dawn Riley and Robert Showalter.

In "Beauty" http://www.everreader.com/beauty.htm Mark Anderson quotes Heisenberg's definition of beauty in the exact sciences:

"Beauty is the proper conformity of the parts to one another and to the whole."

SUGGESTED DEFINITION: Good theory is an attempt to produce beauty in Heisenberg's sense in a SPECIFIC context of assumption and data.

Goodness can be judged in terms of that context, and also the fit with other contexts that, for logical reasons, have to fit together.

The beauty, and ugliness, of a theory can be judged, in terms of the context it was built for, and other contexts, including the context provided by data not previously considered.

Words, pictures and math have to fit together comfortably and workably,

both

as far as internal consistency goes,

and in terms of fit to what the theory is supposed to describe.

Theories that are useful work comfortably in people's heads.

Both the "beauty" and "ugliness" of theory are INTERESTING.

Both notions are contextual, and cultural.

Ugliness is an especially interesting notion. To make theory better, you have to look for ways that the theory is ugly, study these, and fix them.

The ugly parts are where new beauty is to be found. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

( Note: Dawn thinks "dissonant" is nicer than "ugly", and she's right, and I think that "ugly" is sharper, and closer to the human interest, and that seems right, too. So we're weighing word choices here. )

A lot of people think Bob Showalter is ugly. He's always pointing out weaknesses, uglinesses, of other people's theories.

But the reason Bob gives (which is maybe, from some perspectives, a rationalization, but may be right in onther ways) is that the ugly parts provide clues to new progress -- hope that new, more powerful kinds of theoretical and practical beauty can be found.

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS OF OUR PARTNERSHIP. I think it is beautiful.

And I think my partner is beautiful.

rshow55 - 12:02pm Nov 1, 2002 EST (# 5440 of 5441)
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.

rshowalter - 09:58am Feb 4, 2001 BST (#97)

Here's a part were I did more work than she, though she was indispensible:

To make good theory, in complex circumstances, beauty coming into focus must be judged, and shaped, in a priority ordering - and even though the priorities may be shifted for different attempts at beauty, the priorities need to be remembered, and questions of "what is beautiful" and "what ugly" have to be asked in terms of these priorities.

She has been completely indispensible, and mostly responsible, here, and has been a world intellectual leader, here, for years:

Intellectual work, and scientific work, is an effort to find previously hidden beauty , and this is what moves people, and warms people. This need for beauty must be remembered, and not stripped away.

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