Morale Settings Question

[Flaviusx]

My post fits and works but it is not "true," either, no. Truth is a metaphysical quality. Science is concerned with what can be tested and falsified. And any scientific claim is thus always provisional because the possibility always exists that it can be falsified or revised with new data. We accept these claims insofar as they fit existing data and experience, no more and no less.

I'm a fallibilist in the tradition of Pierce and Popper, with a healthy side dish of pragmatism, American style.

I'm formerly a lawyer as well, btw. I do not believe the law deals with truth as such, notwithstanding its occasionally ecclesiastical airs. The life of the law lies not in logic (let alone "truth") but experience, to quote Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. But this may be a difference between English and American jurisprudence.

[STEF78]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

My post fits and works but it is not "true," either, no. Truth is a metaphysical quality. Science is concerned with what can be tested and falsified. And any scientific claim is thus always provisional because the possibility always exists that it can be falsified or revised with new data. We accept these claims insofar as they fit existing data and experience, no more and no less.

I'm a fallibilist in the tradition of Pierce and Popper, with a healthy side dish of pragmatism, American style.

I'm formerly a lawyer as well, btw. I do not believe the law deals with truth as such, notwithstanding its occasionally ecclesiastical airs. The life of the law lies not in logic (let alone "truth") but experience, to quote Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. But this may be a difference between English and American jurisprudence.

Two lawyers arguing about truth and law (and in English...)

Sure we are in a wargamer world[:)]

And I'm not a lawyer

[mmarquo]

"Truth is a metaphysical quality. Science is concerned with what can be tested and falsified. And any scientific claim is thus always provisional because the possibility always exists that it can be falsified or revised with new data."

There is a difference between absolute truth and relative truth. The scientific relative "truths" are very dependent on:

1. Asking the Correct Question
2. Devising the appropriate experimental conditions
3. Measuring and Collecting Data
4. Analyzing the Data
5. Drawing the Appropriate Conclusion.

Truth is often provisional not because of malfeasant falsification of data, rather improvement and/or innovations of the scientific investigative process. As a scientist, I earned the right to be much more cynical and skeptic about "scientific truths" than any lawyer. [;)]

[Flaviusx]

Marquo, a provisional proposition that is accepted as fitting the existing knowledge and data by definition isn't "truth." To be sure, some propositions are stronger than others and backed by more data.

The moment science starts peddling "truth" it ceases to be science. That's just not the scientific way.

Falsification isn't about malfeasance. (Or not primarily, anyways.) It's about the philosophy of science, as per Popper, which emphasizes falsification over verifiability. That is to say, science shouldn't be concerned about proving things, but rather disproving things. Those propositions which cannot be immediately falsified and stand up to repeated testing are accepted provisionally as being fit and worthy. But only provisionally.

Propositions which cannot be falsified or tested at all are of course not scientific at all.

[bigbaba]

@ketza:

now this has nothing to do with the moral debate here but the main reason i lost against you was my own false planing. i created too many tank corps and this caused a nasty reduction of my motor pool although the dozend tank corps were more or less useless against you in 42.

because of the low motor pool numbers i had all this wonderfull and powerfull rifle corps with...just 12 or even lesser MP what made THEM useless for counter attacking.

the +10 german moral made it simply harder to push back german divisions in 42. the impact is not that important in 41 but the importance of the german "moral buff" increases year by year.

BTW: i made the MT test (leningrad scenario) twice and he is right. german divisions have it easier to increase their moral.

[Ketza]

Well I thought our game was very competitive and was surprised when it ended. That push I had for that last pocket pretty much was the end of my rope. I was going to consolidate after that as I was very concerned about AGC and AGN. Both were very weak with no reserves. The Finns were also a paper tiger at that point.

Of course I was not aware of your own situation but I wanted you to know it was one of the more interesting of my games and you were an excellent opponent.

[bigbaba]

same goes for you. i learnd a lot in our game. one lesson will be to use cavalery instead of tanks as a mobile reserve in 42 to save trucks. i should prefer MP 16 rifle corps over a dozend useless tank corps full of greenhorns who can not drive straightforward.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: sillyflower

ORIGINAL: Pelton



I will quote MT sillyfollower:

I admit I do put a lot of hours in to milking the supply (Morale) system for every drop of fuel (morale) I can find. But it is not cheating the system. It's just knowledge of how a system works and optimizing it. I do nothing that is not forbidden by the rulebook.

[font="Microsoft Sans Serif"]In other words put in the time me and MT have and figure it out for yourself[/font]

This comment has nothing to do with the issue in hand.

MT has always be open about what he does. As you have posted yourself, he never uses the exploits that he finds but reports them as bugs.

I will quote MT:

I admit I do put a lot of hours in to milking the supply (Morale) system for every drop of fuel (morale) I can find. But it is not cheating the system. It's just knowledge of how a system works and optimizing it. I do nothing that is not forbidden by the rulebook.

No one other then you is talking about and exploit.

Again less personal attacks, stick to the facts and not your fiction.

[mmarquo]

Flaviusx:

"That is to say, science shouldn't be concerned about proving things, but rather disproving things. Those propositions which cannot be immediately falsified and stand up to repeated testing are accepted provisionally as being fit and worthy. But only provisionally."

This is called hypothesis testing; most scientific experiments are designed to prove or disprove a hypothesis. The degree of confidence in the results can predetermined by how one powers the sample size and accounts for so-called "alpha" and "beta" errors. In the end we often accept a "p" value of <0.5; simply put most often we accept the possibility of a 5% error and refer to results as "Statistically Significant;" which our way of predicting the behavior of a population with a "normal" distribution. The "truth" is that under these predetermined conditions we predict behavior or outcome with 95% probability.

"Propositions which cannot be falsified or tested at all are of course not scientific at all."

Until someone develops a methodology to test the proposition, and this is how science advances.

[Flaviusx]

Marquo, some propositions are simply not testable or falsifiable. At all. At which point you're dealing with something which isn't scientific. (Logical positivists would say that such propositions are nonsensical, but that's too thin an epistemology for me.)

In the instant case, happily, and dragging this back on topic, Pelton is actually offering a testable claim, although he seems to think it is some sort of state secret.

[Joel Billings]

Some answers to the morale questions can be found here: tm.asp?m=3372617

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Marquo, some propositions are simply not testable or falsifiable. At all. At which point you're dealing with something which isn't scientific. (Logical positivists would say that such propositions are nonsensical, but that's too thin an epistemology for me.)

In the instant case, happily, and dragging this back on topic, Pelton is actually offering a testable claim, although he seems to think it is some sort of state secret.

Its not, but Stalin would make that claim or Mr. Obama [8D]