New York Times on the Web Forums Science

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?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

rshow55 - 07:45am Sep 4, 2002 EST (# 4166 of 4171)
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.

We don't agree on even very basic things about how human reason works when it works well. Or how it sometimes fails.

How can we know that one answer is better than another?

Landauer, Dumais, and co-workers made a big contribution - that had precedents, of course - but that made a big difference.

Landauer T.K. and Dumais, S.T. “A Solution to Plato’s Problem: The Latent Semantic Analysis Theory of Acquisition, Induction, and Representation of Knowledge” Psychological Review, v 104, n.2, 211-240, 1997 --- draft: http://lsi.argreenhouse.com/lsi/papers/PSYCHREV96.html

Even so, I'd have chosen a different title . . . something like - "a BIG STEP toward the solution of Plato's problem . . . "

Lchic and I are trying to clarify -- and simplify - - and generalize some of the basic points of Landauer, Dumais, and co-workers - and carry them further.

What's new is a clear sense of HOW VERY BIG the payoffs with simplification usually are -- how VERY likely checked sequences are to converge on useful (if imperfect) order. And how VERY large the number of checks often are.

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 cited in 3936-3945 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.

rshow55 - 07:46am Sep 4, 2002 EST (# 4167 of 4171)
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.

Here's a quote I like a lot:

"Unlike deduction, which, assuming its premises are sound, is certain, absolute, and airtight, induction is about mere probabilities; its success depends on how accurately you observe and over how many cases. . . . An Incomplete Education by Judy Jones and William Wilson Ballantine Books , NY --1987 p. 329

"MERE PROBABILITIES" - - - well, what are the odds? If the odds in favor of a proposition are a million to one in favor - for each of a number of steps -- and there are a lot of steps with those odds in favor - -end to end -- odds that multiply that's pretty good.

"Pretty good" is less than philosophical certainty -but enough to work with.

What are the odds that we can teach practically all students to read, and read comfortably - at much less cost than now, and much more effectively? That matters. Those odds look very good to me. (Remember, these "slow" kids watch television for recreation - and that takes fancy processing.)

rshow55 - 07:50am Sep 4, 2002 EST (# 4168 of 4171)
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.

Here's a basic point.

The connection between statistics and formal logic is crucial - and a central issue in psychology, neural modeling, philosophy, and a lot else.

The logical connection isn't fancy.

For 2500 years, up to the present day, many millions of educated people, consistently over many generations, have felt that the idea of the syllogism has been a profound, welcome clarifying discipline for thinking. So far as my knowledge goes, few doubt or discount the importance of the syllogism.

Here's a statistical statement:

1. People are probably mortal.

2. Socrates is a person.

3. Therefore, Socrates is probably mortal.

Shift to a probability of 1, and you get the classic syllogism form:

1A. All people are mortal.

2A. Socrates is a person.

3A. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

The connection between statistics and logic happens here. At this level, logic can emerge as a simple special case of statistics.

In other cases, of course, logic stands alone.

(3 following messages)

New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense