From my blog: this month's "Something to Think About" ...

"If anything is possible, then is it possible that nothing is possible?"

https://zenmischief.com/2026/05/something-to-think-about-this-month-17/

#logic #thoughts #blog #zenmischief

Something to Think About this Month

Each month I offer you something to think about to get the brain working. This month …

If anything is possible, then is it possible that nothing is possible?

Icon, Likeness, Likely Story, Likelihood, Probability • 3

Re: Peirce List • Phyllis Chiasson

A more complete excerpt and the translator’s notes are very helpful here.

A probability (εικος) is not the same as a sign (σηµειον).  The former is a generally accepted premiss ;  for that which people know to happen or not to happen, or to be or not to be, usually in a particular way, is a probability :  e.g., that the envious are malevolent or that those who are loved are affectionate.  A sign, however, means a demonstrative premiss which is necessary or generally accepted.1  That which coexists with something else, or before or after whose happening something else has happened, is a sign of that something’s having happened or being.

An enthymeme is a syllogism from probabilities or signs ;  and a sign can be taken in three ways — in just as many ways as there are of taking the middle term in the several figures :  either as in the first figure or as in the second or as in the third.

• E.g., the proof that a woman is pregnant because she has milk is by the first figure ;  for the middle term is ‘having milk’.  A stands for ‘pregnant’, B for ‘having milk’, and C for ‘woman’.
• The proof that the wise are good because Pittacus was good is by the third figure.  A stands for ‘good’, B for ‘the wise’, and C for Pittacus.  Then it is true to predicate both A and B of C ;  only we do not state the latter, because we know it, whereas we formally assume the former.
• The proof that a woman is pregnant because she is sallow is intended to be by the middle figure ;  for since sallowness is a characteristic of woman in pregnancy, and is associated with this particular woman, they suppose that she is proved to be pregnant.  A stands for ‘sallowness’, B for ‘being pregnant’, C for ‘woman’.

If only one premiss is stated, we get only a sign ;  but if the other premiss is assumed as well, we get a syllogism,2 e.g., that Pittacus is high-minded, because those who love honour are high-minded, and Pittacus loves honour ;  or again that the wise are good, because Pittacus is good and also wise.

In this way syllogisms can be effected ;  but whereas a syllogism in the first figure cannot be refuted if it is true, since it is universal, a syllogism in the last figure can be refuted even if the conclusion is true, because the syllogism is neither universal nor relevant to our purpose.3  For if Pittacus is good, it is not necessary for this reason that all other wise men are good.  A syllogism in the middle figure is always and in every way refutable, since we never get a syllogism with the terms in this relation4 ;  for it does not necessarily follow, if a pregnant woman is sallow, and this woman is sallow, that she is pregnant.  Thus truth can be found in all signs, but they differ in the ways which have been described.

We must either classify signs in this way, and regard their middle term as an index (τεκµηριον)5 (for the name ‘index’ is given to that which causes us to know, and the middle term is especially of this nature), or describe the arguments drawn from the extremes6 as ‘signs’, and that which is drawn from the middle as an ‘index’.  For the conclusion which is reached through the first figure is most generally accepted and most true.  (Aristotle, Prior Analytics 2.27, 70a3–70b6).

Translator’s Notes

Reference

• Aristotle, “Prior Analytics”, Hugh Tredennick (trans.), pp. 181–531 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938.

Resource

• Theme One Program • User Guide • Appendix A

cc: Academia.edu • Cybernetics • Laws of Form • Mathstodon
cc: Research Gate • Structural Modeling • Systems Science • Syscoi

The Rainbow Warrior Affair
#Nuclear #Power, State #Secrecy, and the Slow Machinery of #Truth

On the night of July 10, 1985, the #harbor of #Auckland, New Zealand, looked calm. The water reflected the city lights. Crew members aboard the #Greenpeace ship #Rainbow Warrior were asleep after a long day of preparations. Nothing suggested that a Western #democracy was about to launch a covert #military #operation against a civilian vessel.

Then the #explosions came.

Within minutes, the #ship sank into the dark harbor water. One man died: photographer Fernando #Pereira. What initially looked like #sabotage soon evolved into one of the most revealing #intelligence #scandals of the Cold #War.

The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior was not only an #attack on a ship. It was an attack on visibility itself. Greenpeace wanted to bring cameras, journalists, and public attention to French nuclear testing in the #Pacific. #France wanted silence.

The #conflict between those two goals shaped everything that followed.

The Nuclear #Logic of the Cold War
To understand act of #terrorism, one must first understand the political #psychology of nuclear powers during the Cold War.

After the United States used atomic bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, nuclear weapons became symbols of strategic prestige and geopolitical survival. Possessing the bomb meant entering an exclusive club of global influence. France joined that club in 1960 under President Charles de Gaulle.

For French political elites, nuclear independence was not merely military policy. It became part of national identity. France viewed its nuclear deterrent — the force de frappe — as proof that the country remained a sovereign world power independent from both #Washington and #Moscow.

But nuclear #weapons require testing.

France first conducted tests in colonial #Algeria. After Algerian independence in 1962, Paris moved its testing program to French #Polynesia, especially the #Mururoa and #Fangataufa #atolls in the Pacific #Ocean.

To #Paris, these remote islands seemed strategically ideal.

To environmental activists, they became symbols of colonial #arrogance and ecological #violence.

Greenpeace emerged directly from this historical moment. Founded in #Vancouver in 1971, the #organization pioneered a new form of political #activism: media-centered confrontation. Instead of fighting states militarily, Greenpeace used images, ships, and public spectacle. Activists understood that modern #politics increasingly depended on #television and emotional #symbolism.

In this sense, the Rainbow Warrior was more than a ship. It was a floating camera and cameras threaten secrecy.

Why France Saw Greenpeace as a Strategic #Threat
By 1985, Greenpeace planned to protest French nuclear testing directly at Mururoa Atoll. The Rainbow Warrior was expected to transport activists and assist Pacific #island communities opposing the tests.

French intelligence services feared international humiliation.

This fear is important. Governments rarely conduct covert operations because they are physically weak. They do so because they fear symbolic weakness. Nuclear powers depend heavily on credibility, prestige, and deterrence. In the logic of Cold War #geopolitics, allowing activists to disrupt military testing risked projecting vulnerability.

The French external intelligence service, the #DGSE (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure), therefore received orders to neutralize the ship.

The operation was given the #codename Opération Satanique.

The name itself reveals the strange theatricality often surrounding covert operations. Intelligence agencies frequently cloak violence in bureaucratic language, technical terminology, or symbolic code names. Such language creates psychological distance between planners and consequences.

It transforms people into “targets.” Ships into “objectives.” Deaths into “collateral effects.”

The Architecture of a Covert Operation
The attack on the Rainbow Warrior was sophisticated but not flawless.

French agents entered New Zealand under false identities. Combat divers secretly attached limpet mines to the hull of the ship while undercover operatives monitored the harbor area. Another agent, Christine #Cabon, infiltrated Greenpeace itself months before the bombing. Posing as a volunteer, she gathered internal information and transmitted it to Paris.

The operation reveals four classic mechanisms of covert state power:

1. #Infiltration
Intelligence agencies often penetrate organizations by exploiting openness and trust. Greenpeace depended heavily on volunteers. That #vulnerability allowed Cabon to enter the group with relative ease.

The strategy resembles modern #cyberwarfare. Instead of hacking computers, intelligence services inserted a human being into the system.

2. Plausible Deniability
Operations are designed so political leaders can deny direct involvement. Orders are often transmitted orally. Written evidence remains minimal.

This structure creates distance between decision-makers and operational violence.

In public, leaders appear uninvolved. In private, command chains remain understood.

3. Controlled Narratives
After the bombing, French officials denied responsibility. #Defense Minister Charles #Hernu publicly insisted that no French service had carried out the attack.

The first official investigations minimized state involvement.

Such reactions are common after intelligence scandals. Governments initially attempt to control information flow long enough to stabilize political damage. Historians repeatedly encounter this pattern across different countries and eras.

4. Sacrificial Containment
When #evidence becomes overwhelming, lower-ranking officials are often sacrificed to protect higher political #authority.

In the Rainbow Warrior #affair, DGSE chief Pierre #Lacoste and Defense Minister Hernu lost their positions. President François #Mitterrand, however, remained politically untouched and won reelection in 1988.

The structure resembles a firewall in computer systems: expendable layers absorb damage before it reaches the center.

The #Mistake That #Broke the #Operation
Despite careful planning, the operation failed because of an almost banal #error.

Witnesses observed suspicious activity near a rented van and noted its license plate number. This small #observation enabled New Zealand investigators to identify two French operatives: Alain #Mafart and Dominique #Prieur.

Their arrest transformed the bombing from #rumor into #international #crisis.

New Zealand reacted with unusual determination. Prime Minister David Lange rejected French attempts to frame the affair as a regrettable misunderstanding. He insisted that state #terrorism had occurred on New Zealand soil.

His response mattered historically because it challenged a powerful Western ally publicly and directly. Small states rarely confront nuclear powers successfully. New Zealand did.

The Long Silence Around François Mitterrand
The central mystery persisted for years:

Did #President François Mitterrand personally #authorize the operation?

For a long time, the answer remained hidden behind silence.

Mitterrand refused detailed public discussion of the affair. This #silence itself became politically effective. Modern #media systems often reward emotional immediacy. But silence can outlast outrage. News cycles move on. Public attention fragments.

Mitterrand understood this dynamic well. He remained silent until his death.

Only years later did former DGSE director Pierre Lacoste reveal critical details in his memoir Un Amiral au Secret. Lacoste stated that he had received presidential approval for the operation during a meeting with Mitterrand in May 1985.

This delayed revelation illustrates a central challenge in intelligence history:

Truth often emerges only after institutions lose control over memory.

Retired officials write memoirs. Classified archives slowly open. Participants age. Political loyalties weaken.

#History is frequently reconstructed backward, fragment by fragment, like archaeologists rebuilding a shattered statue from scattered pieces.

Fernando Pereira and the Politics of #Witnessing
At the #moral center of the story stands Fernando Pereira.

His #death transformed the operation from sabotage into #tragedy.

Pereira returned below deck to recover his photographic equipment after the first explosion. In doing so, he demonstrated a principle central to both journalism and activism: evidence matters.

Without documentation, suffering becomes abstract. Without images, distant violence remains politically invisible.

This explains why authoritarian systems and covert operations so often target journalists, photographers, and witnesses. Cameras challenge monopoly over #narrative.

The Rainbow Warrior affair therefore was never simply about one ship. It was about who controls #reality in the public #imagination.

Greenpeace sought exposure. The French state sought containment.

One side used cameras. The other used #explosives.

Why the Affair Still Matters
The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior remains historically significant because it exposed uncomfortable truths about democratic governments and covert violence.

The affair demonstrated that even liberal democracies can authorize illegal operations when strategic interests feel threatened. It revealed how intelligence agencies rely on secrecy, infiltration, deniability, and narrative management. It also showed how difficult accountability becomes once national #security enters political discourse.

Most importantly, the case demonstrated that truth emerges slowly.

Not in dramatic cinematic revelations. Not through a single leaked document. But through decades of persistence by investigators, journalists, historians, witnesses, and former participants.

The Rainbow Warrior sank in #Auckland Harbor in 1985. But the deeper story surfaced much later.

#conspiracy #press #journalism #terror #military #crime #justice #democracy #fail #guilty

I added support for Type-2 grammars to theotui.

https://codeberg.org/dawe/theotui
#rust #ratatui #computerscience #logic #math

The case against boolean logic

https://abuseofnotation.github.io/boolean-thinking/

#Logic #Philosophy #ComputerScience

The case against boolean logic

https://abuseofnotation.github.io/boolean-thinking/

#HackerNews #Tech #Logic

The case against boolean logic

https://abuseofnotation.github.io/boolean-thinking/

#HackerNews #booleanlogic #logic #debate #criticalthinking #techdiscussion

What Do Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems Mean?

https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-do-godels-incompleteness-theorems-truly-mean-20260518/

#HackerNews #Gödel #Incompleteness #Theorems #Mathematics #Philosophy #Logic #Science