I wonder whether I'm engaged in soliloquy. Some people have accounts on this 'blog, allowing them access to restricted entries, but I don't know that anyone is actually logging-in and reading those entries.

Off-and-on, I work on the plans for a couple of pieces of serial fiction. And thus it is repeatedly brought to my attention that, for the stories really to work, a profound necessity must drive events; essential elements must be predestined and meaningful.

This characterization contrasts markèdly from my view of real life. I think that people may be said to have personal destinies, but that these can be unreälized, as when we say that someone were meant to do or become something, but instead did or became something else. And, if I did believe that the world were a vast piece of clockwork, then I'd be especially disinclined to think that its dial had anything important to say.

My short article was rejected by one journal yester-day, and submitted to another in the wee hours of this morning. And, yes, that's just how the previous entry began.

This time, an editor at the rejecting journal informed me that an unnamed associate editor felt that the article didn't fit the purposes of the journal. I got no further critique from them than that. (It should be understood that, as many submissions are made, critiquing every one would be very time-consuming.)

With respect to my paper on indecision, I had some fear that I would run out of good journals to which I might submit it. With respect to this short article, I have a fear that I might run out of any journal to which I might submit it. It just falls in an area where the audience seems small, however important I might think these foundational issues.

My short article was rejected by one journal yester-day, and submitted to another in the wee hours of this morning.

At the journal that rejected it, the article was approved by one of the two reviewers, but felt to be unsuited to the readership of the journal by the other reviewer and by the associate editor. Additionally, the second reviewer and the associate editor suggested that it be made a more widely ranging discussion of the history of subjectivist thought, which suggestion shows some lack of appreciation that foundational issues are of more than historical interest, and that the axiomata invoked by the subjectivists are typically also invoked by logicists. (I say appreciation rather than understanding, because the reviewer briefly noted that perhaps my concern was with the logic as such.)

I made three tweaks to the article. One was to make the point that axiomata such as de Finetti's are still the subject of active discussion. Another was to deal with the fact that secondary criticism arose from the editor's and the objecting reviewer's not knowing what weak would mean in reference to an ordering relation. The third was simply to move a parenthetical remark to its own (still parenthetical) paragraph.

The journal that now has it tries to provide its first review within three months.

As expected, my brief paper was quickly rejected by the third journal to which I sent it. The rejection came mid-day on 19 July; the editor said that it didn't fit the general readership of the journal. He suggested sending it to a journal focussed on Bayesian theory, or to a specific journal of the very same association as that of the journal that he edits. I decided to try the latter.

On the one hand, I don't see my paper as of interest only to those whom I would call Bayesian. The principle in question concerns qualitative probability, whether in the development of a subjectivist theory or of a logicist theory, and issues of Bayes' Theorem only arise if one proceeds to develop a quantitative theory. On the other hand, submitting to that other journal of the same association was something that I could do relatively quickly.

I postponed an up-date here because I thought that I'd report both rejections together if indeed another came quickly. But, so far, my paper remains officially under review at that fourth journal.

The paper is so brief — and really so simple — that someone with an expertise in its area could decide upon it minutes. But reviewing it isn't just a matter of cleverness; one must be familiar with the literature to feel assured that its point is novel. A reviewer without that familiarity would surely want to check the papers in the bibliography, and possibly to seek other work.

Additionally, a friend discovered that, if he returned papers as quickly as he could properly review them, then editors began seeking to get him to review many more papers. Quite reasonably, he slowed the pace of at which he returned his reviews.

The second journal to which I submitted my brief article quickly rejected it (on 11 July) as being unsuited to their readership, and suggested that it may be that your work would be better directed to a journal specialising on statistical theory, or foundations/philosophy. (The journal to which I submitted arguably is one of statistical theory; but it leans heavily towards review rather than towards innovation.)

As 13 July neared its end, I submitted to yet another journal. This time, I'm pretty sure that I'm playing a long-shot, but a rejection should come very quickly if it comes, the paper would get relative many readers if were published there, and people in and around my field would be impressed; so I think that the gamble is a good one.

In the wee hours of 8 July, I rewrote my brief article on one of the proposed axiomata of probability, and sent it to a journal of statistical theory.

The principal reason for doing some rewriting was to add a paragraph reporting an interesting point made by one of my former professors. (I wish that I'd seen that point on my own, but I didn't, so I've duly creditted him.) Additionally, I tightened-up the abstract.

In the absence of being given a reason why my note was rejected by the previous journal, my conjecture is that it was considered to present what would be viewed as a technicality from the perspective imputed to the readership. So I'm turning to a journal with a different sort of readership.

The first journal to which I submitted my brief article on the foundations of probability has rejected it, without providing a reason. This sort of rejection is the most common, and I got one of that sort from the first journal to which I submitted my paper on incomplete preferences.

I will find another journal to which to submit the newer paper, but I have little sense of the the rankings of the sorts of journals in which this paper might be published, and I don't know at the moment to which journal I will next send it.

Years ago, I planned to write a paper on decision-making under uncertainty when possible outcomes were completely ordered neither by desirability nor by plausibility.

On the way to writing that paper, I was impressed by Mark Machina with the need for a paper that would explain how an incompleteness of preferences would operationalize, so I wrote that article before exploring the logic of the dual incompleteness that interested me.

Returning to the previously planned paper, I did not find existing work on qualitative probability that was adequate to my purposes, so I began trying to formulating just that as a part of the paper, and found that the work was growing large and cumbersome. I have enough trouble getting my hyper-modernistic work read without delivering it in large quantities! So I began developing a paper concerned only with qualitative probability as such.

In the course of writing that spin-off paper, I noticed that a rather well-established proposition concerning the axiomata of probability contains an unnecessary restriction; and that, over the course of more than 80 years, the proposition has repeatedly been discussed without the excessiveness of the restriction being noted. Yet it's one of those points that will be taken as obvious once it has been made. I originally planned to note that dispensibility in the paper on qualitative probability, but I have to be concerned about increasing clutter in that paper. Yester-day, I decided to write a note — a very brief paper — that draws attention to the needlessness of the restriction. The note didn't take very long to write; I spent more time with the process of submission than with that of writing.

So, yes, a spin-off of a spin-off; but at least it is spun-off, instead of being one more thing pending. Meanwhile, as well as there now being three papers developed or being developed prior to that originally planned, I long ago saw that the original paper ought to have at least two sequels. If I complete the whole project, what was to be one paper will have become at least six.

The note has been submitted to a journal of logic, rather than of economics; likewise, I plan to submit the paper on qualitative probability to such a journal. While economics draws upon theories of probability, work that does not itself go beyond such theories would not typically be seen as economics. The body of the note just submitted is only about a hundred words and three formulæ. On top of the usual reasons for not knowing whether a paper will be accepted, a problem in this case is exactly that the point made by the paper will seem obvious, in spite of being repeatedly overlooked.

As to the remainder of the paper on qualitative probability, I'm working to get its axiomata into a presentable state. At present, it has more of them than I'd like.

There's a sort of story-telling that has not yet, to my knowledge, really come into existence, though it has been possible for many years. It has been approached from multiple directions; and, if it emerges in no other way, then it will emerge from computer gaming, when AI in personal information technology becomes sufficiently powerful. However, it doesn't actually require AI at all.

In real life, when one comes to a place, as one interacts with what one finds there one discovers things about the place — stories. We can have story-telling that mimicks this process. What I suggest is that we will see works of fiction that are computer programs in which there is no game in the ordinary sense (though a game in the more general sense of game theory is unavoidable), but there is a virtual reality in which a story or stories may be discovered — without forcing. (That is to say that none of the cheap devices of chose your own adventure books or programs will be considered acceptable.)

An example of the experience of such a game without AI is easily imagined. The user launches the program. There is no prologue. He or she finds himself just inside the gate of a property, with various things in his or her possession. Leaving the property in any way exits the program. Proceeding into the property gets one to things such as one or more buildings. The buildings have things such as desks; the desks have drawers. The drawers have contents. Examing these contents and other things on the property, the user perhaps learns things. Reflections may or may not be revelatory, depending upon the stories. There are no declarations of achievements; one is never told when all the important pieces have been seen. But stories are there and some people find them. There will be writers who learn how to move the user to joy or to fear or to sorrow or to melancholy in this way.

AI can be introduced first for beasts — birds, rodents, perhaps cats. It will be a while before a proper dog can be implemented. (And I'm not so sure about a cat.) Other persons probably first begin as those at the other ends of telephone lines.