Dear Doug,
You gave an excellent general rule as an observation which
I think has a great deal of merit. You wrote:
In general terms, when
there is a strong disagreement between two parties, they can interact at a
number of different levels. The interaction can continue at a given level
semi-stably for an indefinite period. But if one side escalates, the
other is liable to escalate as well until some new balance of interaction is
reached.
The resort to local
violence in a situation where the attacker has overwhelming force may seem
tempting, as it will almost certainly result increased local advantage.
But that destabilizes the much larger situation such that it is not reasonable
to assume that the there will be no wider effect.
I believe it is a doctrine of military thinking to
always attack with overwhelming force, or at least with more force and more
weaponry than the defense has. But the danger of the defense escalating
beyond the offense’s capabilities is clearly a good statement of the
general rule you offered.
Can we put those kinds of thoughts into FOL to satisfy
the logicists cravings, so that we all pull together in this thread? If
you could offer this rule and fact set as axioms and –uctions, there
might be some progress in this direction.
In particular, can we model the alternatives open to
each side as both IDEF0 statements somewhat more detailed than just the English
version you offered, and then relate the structure of the IDEF0 model so
represented in terms of axioms and –uctions that use the terminal symbols
of IDEF0 to represent your concept, i.e., ICOMs, activities, contexts and
decompositions?
That could be a very useful example to build
upon.
Thanks,
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of doug foxvog
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2012 8:41 AM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Self
Interest Ontology: Emotions in animals
On Wed, January 4, 2012 10:29, John F. Sowa said:
> On 1/4/2012 12:40 AM, doug foxvog wrote:
>> The attackers of Ft. Sumter
must have perceived the attack to be
>> in their short-term self interest.
> It most definitely was in their self interest.
I referred to the attack on Ft. Sumter,
not to secession. Secession was
in the self interest of the Southern power brokers, to
maintain control
of the institution of slavery (which was not under
immediate threat)
and economic benefits therefrom (which were somewhat
threatened) -- as
you point out below.
The majority of the Southern states had already
seceded before the attack
on Ft.
Sumter. No war had
started. If this situation could be maintained,
it would definitely have been in the interest of the
Southern elite. A
lack of war would have been in the interest of almost
everyone in the
South.
The attack on Ft. Sumpter
changed the situation between a disagreement
between two governments (a long established one and
one that claimed to
have seceded) to a military conflict. This was
definitely NOT in the long
term interest of the side that did not have a large
manufacturing base
that could produce weapons of war nor relations with
other nations that
could support it.
At the time of the attack, the US had
withdrawn some of its forts and
troops from the southern states (including one of the
two harbor forts in
Charleston).
The people of Charleston had blocked supplies to
Ft. Sumter
by land, hoping that that the troops would also be
withdrawn from that
fort. But the US was sending a ship to
reprovision the fort (presumably
including ammunition and possibly additional cannon).
The successful attack on the small fort before it was
resupplied
eliminated a local irritant, but set in motion much
larger events to
the great detriment of the cause which the attackers
supported.
In general terms, when there is a strong disagreement
between two parties,
they can interact at a number of different
levels. The interaction can
continue at a given level semi-stably for an
indefinite period. But if
one side escalates, the other is liable to escalate as
well until some
new balance of interaction is reached.
The resort to local violence in a situation where the
attacker has
overwhelming force may seem tempting, as it will
almost certainly
result increased local advantage. But that
destabilizes the much
larger situation such that it is not reasonable to
assume that the
there will be no wider effect.
There was a similar situation in the early 1990s, in
which the three
small Baltic republics seceded from the USSR, although
several Soviet
military bases remained in the republics. Estonia
demanded that the
USSR
remove its troops & base, but the USSR refused. Some people in
Estonia
were pushing the new government to attack the small bases,
capture the Soviet troops, and send them home. I
saw this as very
similar to the situation at Ft. Sumter
-- secession had happened,
there was tension between the parties, and there was
local opposition
to the maintenance of a military base of the country
from which the
new country had seceded. I contacted the new
governments in each of
the three republics, and compared their situations to
that of the CSA
and Ft.
Sumter. I tried to
convince them that it would not be in their
self-interest to try to remove the military bases that
they considered
foreign by force. I don't know if my letters had
any effect, but the
three countries let the military bases be, there was
no war, and the
countries' secession was eventually accepted by the
former ruling
government.
> The monetary value
> of all the slaves in the South was greater than
the assets of all
> the banks and other financial institutions in the
entire nation.
-- doug f
> ...
> To keep this thread close to ontological issues,
I suggest that
> we adopt that question as the guiding
principle: Cui bono?
>
> That principle can be used to detect unconscious
motives, even
> in plants and animals that don't have conscious
rationalizations.
> I recommend a recent PBS documentary based on the
book "Botany
> of Desire. A plants-eye view of the
world":
>
> http://www.pbs.org/thebotanyofdesire/
>
> It starts with the old observation that bees and
flowers co-evolved
> to serve their own self interests over a period
of about 160 million
> years. It then goes on to discuss how
plants and people have been
> manipulating each other to serve their self
interests. It focuses
> on four species: apples, tulips, cannabis,
and potatoes.
>
> John
=============================================================
doug foxvog
doug@xxxxxxxxxx http://ProgressiveAustin.org
"I speak as an American to the leaders of my own
nation. The great
initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop
it must be ours."
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
=============================================================
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