MH370 (cont.)

Fallguy,
Meanwhile, the Malaysian government has changed...

 

The attitude that the pilot "never dunnit" appears not to have changed.

 

Right. The plane mysteriously rose to a level where the passengers would die without oxygen and be unable to text or grab a cell signal. Then the plane mysteriously did a 180 and flew over and past and off to never never land.

It's a mystery indeed.

No.

Occam's.

 

William of Ockham (aka Occam) made one major exception in the to him attributed razor, which says that with competing hypotheses to solve a problem, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy → William of Ockham → 4. Metaphysics → 4.1 Ockham's Razor

‘‘ . . . . Nevertheless, we do sometimes have sufficient methodological grounds for positively affirming the existence of certain things. Ockham acknowledges three sources for such grounds (three sources of positive knowledge). As he says in Sent. I, dist. 30, q. 1: “For nothing ought to be posited without a reason given, unless it is self-evident (literally, known through itself) or known by experience or proved by the authority of Sacred Scripture.” . . . . . ’’

For me the latter part is based on a lot of assumptions, so Occam's razor looks like a good tool to me when going without the assumption that so called Sacred Scriptures are true without proof.

 

So, here is how I read that.

Rather than assuming all systems on a redundant design combined into a calamity and forced an aircraft to 43,000 feet and then forced it down a few minutes later and then forced it to fly by Malaysia and then noone was able to send a text message, etc... The assumptions required against foul play are many. Very many.

More interested in the fix...

If we had a great group of mathematicians develop drift analysis; I believe we would be able to develop the highest probability locations. Then, we would have confidence intervals and drift paths. And the searches would be across intersecting drift paths under the various scenarios. It would probably be the stuff of a Nobel Prize in mathematics if found.

 

Only can start with trace back drift analysis and looking for intersections after some pieces were found.

 

Success of that sounds more achievable and less expensive than a new Ocean Infinity or the like search of half the Southern Ocean.

 

I think it entirely reasonable to assume that a drift analysis was done long ago.

 

You would think so, "no tern left unstoned"

 

I would think so too, but were there ever trace back trails published of the found pieces, and if so were there intersections . . ?

 

Yes, throw stones at all terns, don't stop til you've hit them all, but start or improve the methods to hit the most obvious first . .

That would be at least according to what William of Ockham says about it in his law of parsimony . .

 

I guess a matter greatly complicated by some pieces more affected by windage, than others.

 

Yes, that should be implied in the drift analysis of the found pieces, that's why it would need a whole set of geniuses to write good algorithms incorporating all the available wind and current data in relation to each of the found pieces and their time at sea.

 

The mere fact that pieces turned up at widely separated sites, means they were not all clustered together, for long, I'd be amazed if any back-tracking method would help.

 

They should at least throw stones at all terns, otherwise some might escape unstoned.