"they accomplished the rarest of military feats"

[coberst]

“they accomplished the rarest of military feats”

 

The people, who made up Israel and considered for centuries to be non fighters, were surrounded on three sides and facing a far superior enemy “accomplished the rarest of military feats”, they shattered the enemy forces “within a given time and with an absence of blunder”.

 

Fighting that began in May of 1948 ended in January 1949 when an armistice was signed. The IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) realized that they had “won a state but not the peace”.

 

The major surprise was the performance of the “espresso” generation; given this name because they were considered to have discarded the traditional Jewish ideals while lazing about drinking espresso in the local cafes. It was this generation that, when challenged and well led, performed this “rarest of military feats”.

 

From what I have read there is a small (35%) absolute difference in the intellectual potential between extremes in normal humans. When we examine specific individuals we can detect a gigantic difference (1000%?) in accomplishment. When we compare Winston Churchill with the others we see this difference and when we compare the Israeli nation in this situation with other nations we see this difference.

 

The difference is illuminated not only when comparing one person with another or one nation with another but it is startling in the difference in accomplishment of humans in matters of technology versus matters of ‘reasoning together’.

 

We live in two very different worlds; a world of technical and technological order and clarity, and a world of personal and social disorder and confusion. We are increasingly able to solve problems in one domain and increasingly endangered by our inability to solve problems in the other.

 

Science solves puzzles. The logic of the paradigm insulates the professional group from problems that are unsolvable by that paradigm. One reason that science progresses so rapidly and with such assurance is because the logic of that paradigm allows the practitioners to work on problems that only their lack of ingenuity will keep them from solving.

 

Science uses instrumental rationality to solve puzzles. Instrumental rationality is a systematic process for reflecting upon the best action to take to reach an established end. The obvious question becomes ‘what mode of rationality is available for determining ends?’ Instrumental rationality appears to be of little use in determining such matters as “good” and “right”.

 

There is a striking difference between the logic of technical problems and that of dialectical problems. The principles, methods and standards for dealing with technical problems and problems of “real life” are as different as night and day. Real life problems cannot be solved using deductive and inductive reasoning.

 

In summary:

 

Humans differ greatly in achievement even though potential as measured by intellectual capacity is small.

 

Humans perform grandly in matters of technology but are wimps in performance in matters of ‘reasoning together’.

 

I find this to be a puzzlement? Do you have any answers?

 

Quotes “Practicing History” Barbara Tuchman

[coberst]

I think that character is a major factor in determining what accomplishments a person and perhaps nation might achieve. I think that the nation displays character just as does an individual person.

 

I mother tells her son “you must change your attitude”. How does a boy change his attitude?

 

I think that attitude is much like character so I will speak about character especially intellectual character. How does a person change their character either ‘normal character’ or ‘intellectual character’?

 

What is character? Character is the network of habits that permeate all the intentional acts of an individual.

 

I am not using the word habit in the way we often do, as a technical ability existing apart from our wishes. These habits are an intimate and fundamental part of our selves. They are representations of our will. They rule our will, working in a coordinated way they dominate our way of acting. These habits are the results of repeated, intelligently controlled, actions.

 

Habits also control the formation of ideas as well as physical actions. We cannot perform a correct action or a correct idea without having already formed correct habits. “Reason pure of all influence from prior habit is a fiction.” “The medium of habit filters all material that reaches our perception and thought.” “Immediate, seemingly instinctive, feeling of the direction and end of various lines of behavior is in reality the feeling of habits working below direct consciousness.” “Habit means special sensitiveness or accessibility to certain classes of stimuli, standing predilections and aversions, rather than bare recurrence of specific acts. It means will.”

 

“Were it not for the continued operation of all habits in every act, no such thing as character would exist. There would be simply a bundle, an untied bundle at that, of isolated acts. Character is the interpenetrating of habits. If each habit in an insulated compartment and operated without affecting or being affected by others, character would not exist. That is conduct would lack unity being only juxtaposition of disconnected reactions to separated situations. But since environments overlap, since situations are continuous and those remote from one another contain like elements, a continuous modification of habits by one another is constantly going on.”

 

My understanding of character and the quotations concerning the nature of character are taken from “Habits and Will” by John Dewey http://www.alexandercenter.com/jd/johndeweyhabits.html.

[CraigD]

I find this to be a puzzlement? Do you have any answers?

How can one not? For these are some celebrated and seminal dicotomies!

Humans differ greatly in achievement even though potential as measured by intellectual capacity is small.

Drawing primarily from mathematicians and algorithmists in the mold of Church, Searl, and Turing, and later, Minsky and Penrose, I believe this disparity is a measuring relic.

 

In “Society of Mind”, Minksy observed that when mental function is working properly, we tend to dismiss it as trivial. I believe this applies not only to individuals, but to societies. Hence, when measuring “achievement”, there is a tendency to discount common abilities, such as to walk over a variety of surfaces, throw and catch, operate automobiles, and have irrational opinions, while giving great weight to uncommon abilities, such as rigorous reasoning and advanced math. We also discount what “common sense” or “wisdom”, unless articulated in a very formal way, such as by as essayist or academic philosopher.

 

So, while there may be little variation across the human population in the gross neurological qualities that cause us to have minds, our formal and informal, empirical techniques for measuring achievement focus only on a small portion of cognitive ability. Were we to evaluate achievement in objective, neurological-computational terms, the difference between it and objectively measurable mental capacity would be eliminated.

 

In the above, I’ve concentrated an atypical sort of achievement, assuming controls for biasing factors such as wealth and social prominence. The common usage of “achievement”, however, does not make that distinction. Thus, the sort of achievement described as “greatness” may depend on such factors as coincidence (Napoleon is said to have attributed the great part his success to his “luck” in being in the right geographical and social position, at the right time), or the financial and social support of family members and friends (few would argue that the “greatness” of George W. Bush or John “Jeb” Bush would have occurred had they been secretly switched at birth with the sons of a working class families).

 

So, in its usual usage, achievement must be seen as, with rare exception, largely or mostly due to complicated, multi-generational, social and economic factors, with neurologically based cognitive ability playing at most an enabling or disabling role (eg: had G.W. Bush declined into severe alcoholism in the 1980s, rather than, as is alleged, giving it up on his 40th birthday, it is unlikely that anyone would today consider him a high achiever).

 

Recognizing the significance of social factors in individual achievement is a good segue into the second dicotomy

Humans perform grandly in matters of technology but are wimps in performance in matters of ‘reasoning together’.

For this question, I find 2 macromemes illustrative:

 

Alfred Korzybski was an engineer, who, personally horrified by WW I, which he considered to be a breakdown of government, asked a question something to the effect of “why are we so good at building bridges, yet so bad at building governments?” His conclusion was that the disparity resulted from the difference in the working language used in each field. Engineering language is precise and mathematical, while the language of governing is vague, evocative, and nuanced – in short, much like the “natural” language most people use most of the time. Specifically, in Korzbski view, engineering language tends relate words to objective qualities and quantities in a one-to-one way, while in natural language, words tend to have many meanings. His solution was General Semantics, which, briefly put, seeks to make natural language more like engineering language.

 

Later in the 20th century, as the electronic computer made it possible to experiment with very complicated, yet precise and deterministic algorithms, the idea that the difference between building bridges and organizing societies was as simple as one of language fell into disfavor. Feedback, described in various schemes including the dramatically named Chaos Theory, in the central feature of this macromeme. Self-reference is among the ultimate feedback scenarios. Society is intensely self-referential, with nearly every individual agent containing within their mental machinery a model of the whole of society.

 

My digest of all this is that the Chaos Theorists are right, while the General Semanticists are not. This is not to say that GS isn’t a legitimate field of study offering profound and interesting insights into language, but that it’s unlikely to be of much use in addressing the “reasoning together” problems behind war and other social dysfunctions.

 

IMHO, If we are to ever show the same competence in solving social problems and avoiding war that we’ve shown in engineering, I think it will come from the complimentary disciplines of neurology and computer science. When social phenomena can be reduced to physics, social problems will be physics problems, and potentially tractable.

[ughaibu]

Interesting. It suggests the challenge of finding something that all members of the site can agree on, excluding paradoxes on the lines of 'there is nothing we can all agree on'.

[coberst]

I am somewhat dazed at the quality of response. I am unable to speak at the moment but I suspect this will quickly pass.

[coberst]

Craig D

 

Says—“IMHO, If we are to ever show the same competence in solving social problems and avoiding war that we’ve shown in engineering, I think it will come from the complimentary disciplines of neurology and computer science. When social phenomena can be reduced to physics, social problems will be physics problems, and potentially tractable.”

 

First I want to thank you for putting a good deal of thought and effort into your response.

 

To make our problem of ‘reasoning together’ more tractable it appears that you feel we must convert the problem into a puzzle. We must make objects of subjects so that our ability in the natural sciences can be used to solve our problems in the social sciences.

 

I wonder if we had put as much effort into developing a rational ability to deal with communicative action problems as we have put into instrumental style problems perhaps we could do much better. Is it possible that because there is no money in it that we do not place enough effort into such matters as we do when there is a pay off close at hand?

[UncleAl]

From what I have read there is a small (35%) absolute difference in the intellectual potential between extremes in normal humans.

If the average White European has an IQ of 100,

 

Sub-Saharan Blacks average 70 IQ

North American Blacks average 80 IQ

Mexicans in the US average 90 IQ

Asians average 110 IQ

Jews from the Pale of Settlement average 112 IQ - almost a full standard deviation above the norm.

 

Work out the populations for standard deviations. One sigma is 15 IQ points. The top 0.1% in Black African intelligence is equal to an off-the-shelf Jew on the average. This is curious because Ashekanzic Jews who trace their ancestry back to the Middle East typically have 3-5% Black ancestry according to strongly conserved racial allel frequencies. Sephardic Jews are of average overall intelligence.

 

http://www.jewfaq.org/ashkseph.htm

 

IQ makes little difference at the top of the bell curve. The mob is not required to be particularly smart, just loyal and hard-working. The difference matters when brains are irreplaceable - math, science, engineering, computers, law, accountancy, medicine. If you are on an operating table and a scalpel is descending sharp side first, social advocacy is suicide.

 

Curiously, that is true of society as a whole. Stupidity cannot create a desirable future no matter how you redefine it or in what vast quantities you (re)produce it.

Fighting that began in May of 1948 ended in January 1949

They were tightly interfaced with Ashkenazic Jews fled from Hitler's extermination program. Perhaps tattooed forearms were strongly motivating for choosing a desirable future.

[pgrmdave]

Uncle Al, cite your sources.

[UncleAl]

Uncle Al, cite your sources.

Start with the "Bell Curve" and references therein. If you want a contemporary example of color-coded intelligence,

 

http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/immig.htm

 

Special summer "tutorial" classes have given them a list of correct answers. 4000 still can't pass the test on multiple tries. Who suspected stupid could be so stupid (or racially discrminatory)?