The status of my paper on probability has remained at Editor Assigned for more than ten weeks. I console myself with two thoughts.

First and foremost is that I have made improvements to the paper during this time, and even recently, so that it will be a better article if-and-when it is published than it would have been had it quickly been accepted.

Second is that, as I have noted elsewhere, the delay suggests that the reviewers for the journal in question take their responsibilities seriously. It would be fairly easy to look through almost any paper and make a few carping demands without really understanding whether the work were any good.

Again, it is possible for a paper to be rejected because reviewers have not been found. And most papers that are reviewed are rejected.

Everyone first becomes aware of suffering in the form of his or her own hurt. Further, each of us discovers that others have a power over us in an ability to injure us. And, from the very early childhoods of most people, pain was often used by those who also routinely exercised various other powers over them. Thus, many people associate infliction of distress not merely with the exercise of power of a particular sort, but with strength more generally.

However, exactly because dispensation of suffering is associated with strength, those who feel vulnerable or ineffectual have an increased propensity to attempt cruelty, as if cruelty would make them less vulnerable and more effectual. Indeed, an active desire to cause distress almost always comes from a felt sense of weakness.

That's not to say that injurious acts are always motivated by a sense of impotence. Hurtful actions — even hurtful actions that are deliberate actions — are not always characterized either by indifference to injury or by drawing satisfaction from that injury. Sometimes the action may be deliberate yet the agent genuinely unaware of the consequent suffering; in other cases, he or she may regard the hurt as a regrettable cost that none-the-less should be paid (as in a case of a painful medical procedure to prevent or to correct a still greater problem). And I don't assert that acts of cruel indifference almost always come from a sense of weakness; indifference does not proceed from felt need. Rather, I refer to acts driven by a desire to inflict suffering as such (including of course cases in which indifference is feigned).

In the sense that one cannot do what one greatly wishes to do, almost everyone will at times feel weak. Many of us will at one interval or another believe ourselves unable to do something that people normally seem able to do. Further, most or all of us will on various occasions regard the contrary choices of some other person or persons as what prevent us from doing what we very much wish. In this last case, that other person or those other people are perceived to be, at the margin, the source of the sense of weakness, and thus an urge to be cruel (and thereby to feel stronger) is likely to be directed at them. But if such people are in some way out of reach, or if the sense of weakness derives from other circumstances, then some other person — a target of opportunity — may be made the contemplated focus of attempted cruelty with some spurious rationalization.

While a desire to be hurtful almost always comes from a sense of weakness, a sense of weakness doesn't always provoke an urge to be hurtful, nor do people who from weakness feel such impulses always choose to act upon those desires. A person may be crushed beyond any action, or may see no opportunity to lash-out. But another person may reject cruelty that he or she could see within reach. It is possible to recognize a sense of weakness behind one's own desire to be cruel. It is possible to realize that cruelty will not make one any stronger; to see that cruelty is a confession of weakness; and to decide that, if a confession should be made, then there would be better ways to make it than through acts of cruelty. It is sometimes possible even to be conscious of a sense of weakness before it produces an urge to be cruel, and to consider what would be a reasonable response to that sense. The more practice that one has in finding rational alternatives to cruelty, the less one feels the impulse to be cruel even at the outset. To some extent, one can grow beyond that urge.

And, when one encounters cruelty from others, one can look for its source in some sense of weakness on their parts. Perhaps their cruelty will be forgiveable; perhaps it will not; but it will almost always be understandable. And any response to cruelty will be more assuredly appropriate if the motivation for the cruelty is understood.

Readers may have noticed some technical problems with this 'blog over the previous few days. I believe that the problems are resolved.

Recently, browsers have become concerned to warn users when they are dealing with sites that do not support encryption. Simply so as not to worry my visitors, I have tried to support the HTTPS protocol.

But I found that WordPress was still delivering some things with the less secure HTTP protocol, which in turn was provoking the Opera browser to issue warnings. At the WordPress site, I learned that I needed to modify two fields.

Unfortunately, changing these two fields broke my theme — my presentation software — so that fall-back text, rather than the title graphic, was sometimes displayed; but I didn't discover the breakage for a while, because the symptom wasn't always present. Ultimately, I realized that something were amiss. I tracked the problem to inconsistencies in how WordPress determines the protocol of the URI of the 'blog versus that of the directory holding the themes.

I recoded my theme to handle this inconsistency. (In the process of this recoding, my 'blog was made still more dysfunctional over several brief intervals.) My code is now sufficiently robust that it should not break if WordPress is made consistent in these determinations.

My paper on qualitative probability has been in the submission queue of the same journal for more than six weeks now. The status of the paper has been listed as Editor Assigned since 23 February (by a European clock). The management system does not report when the handling editor begins seeking reviewers, but it would only be under unusual and rather scandalous circumstances that a paper would have been in the queue for this length of time without a search for reviewers having begun. Reviewers are normally found within four to six weeks of the handling editor being assigned; the editor is probably struggling to find reviewers for my paper.

I have read of a paper being rejected by a journal after about two months, ostensibly because the editor were unable to find reviewers; but most editors do not give-up within that span. I have also read of a paper accepted because reviewers could not be found, but I think that most editors would regard such a decision as inappropriate.

I have been doing some work on the next paper in the programme. Mostly, I have been researching the history of an approach that I want to reject, which history should inform the introduction of my paper.

The journal to which I submitted my paper on qualitative probability on 20 February has multiple editors. On 23 February (by a European clock) it was listed as assigned to one. Since then, the listing has remained unchanged; unless it receives a desk rejection (Editor has a decision), the next classification will be Reviewers Assigned, to be followed by Under Review.

It is not impossible that it should be given a desk rejection even after more than three weeks in the hands of an editor, but I think that such a rejection is unlikely. The editor seems to have read or be reading the paper, and to have recognized that it indeed is properly submitted to a journal concerned with philosophy of science, unlike the editor at the first journal to which I submitted it.

It is fairly common for it to take a month or a bit more to find reviewers. It may be harder to find reviewers for my paper than it would be to find reviewers for a typical submission.

Confronted with a real or imagined social problem, most people first grab for an ostensible solution that appeals to their prejudices, and then for an argument (in favor of this policy) that seems plausible to them. That approach is not ideal, but might still result in good policy if people would poke at each such argument, to see whether it were actually logical, and move away from proposed solutions in cases in which none of the arguments withstood examination. Unfortunately, people don't generally test their arguments; words strung together in emotionally satisfying ways are embraced as if any reasonable person would accept them.

I came upon an epitomal example of this behavior, in the wake of a recent mass shooting at a school. Someone posted a graphic macro suggesting how guns might be treated analogously to motor vehicles and and declared

Let’s go through this one more time…maybe they will get it. And yes, people will obtain guns illegally. And yes, people kill people. But doing nothing means more die.

(Underscore mine.) Now, there are various problems with the suggestion that guns should be treated analogously to motor vehicles, and perhaps someday I'll labor all that occur to me. But here I want to focus on that assertion doing nothing means more die. To the poster, it apparently seems that any reasonable person would accept that this assertion is an argument for the policy that he favors. Let's poke at this use, to see whether it is actually logical.

It is surely true that if we do nothing different, then people who have not yet died will die, and in this sense more will die. But, as a matter of logic, that doesn't mean that there is something that we can do such that people would not die, or even that fewer would die. If we somehow had an optimal social policy, and found that people died, we could still say that if we did nothing different then people would die. So, one question that we might ask is of whether a change in social policy would cause fewer or more people to die.

And I'm not simply talking about whether a change in social policy would cause fewer or more people to die at the hands of shooters who are not state officials, or even about the more general question of whether a change in policy would cause fewer or more people to to die at the hands of shooters of all sorts, but about the question of whether the change in policy would result in fewer or in more deaths across all causes. For example, a policy change might lead to greater use of IEDs. (The deadliest mass murder at a school in American history was effected by a bomb.) The answer is not known a priori.

There is also the issue of other costs. For example, some jurisdictions have a lower rate per capita of homicide, but a higher rate of rape. One doesn't want to switch from one set of policies to another simply on the basis that if we do nothing then more will be raped, and likewise one doesn't want to switch from one set of policies to another simply on the basis that if we do nothing then more will die. I don't think that any utilitarian calculus is actually reasonable, but one that simply counts lives is plainly inhumane. And it would be childlike to think and childish to insist that, with some set of policies, the global minimum for each costs could be achieved simultaneous to that for every other, let alone that such a fantastic minimum could be found by first finding the local minimum for one cost and then seeking the local minimum for another.

The poster has presented an example from just one class of policies, and declared doing nothing means more die. Plainly, there are other possible policy responses, so that the relevant comparison is not simply between adopting the policy that he favors and maintaining the status quo.

Moreover, if his argument were adapted to the defense of other policies, he and others might be provoked to examine that argument more carefully. His words might be left essentially unchanged, but the macro replaced with one discussing a policy of a different sort. For example, someone might propose that each person above the age of 10 years old be interned in a mental-health camp, until and unless experts appointed by the state certified that he or she was not a danger to society. I'd like to think that, if the original poster had earlier seen the very same words used in defense of an internment policy, then he would have immediately poked at the argument to find the illogic. I'm quite sure that most people who applauded or would have applauded his words in the context in which he did use them would have found their illogic in the context of an argument for rounding-up American youth and throwing them into camps. Well, they should have poked at the argument where they actually found it.

The third journal to which I submitted my paper on formal qualitative probability had a 10,000-word limit on submissions (with bibliographies excluded from the calculation). I wasn't sure just how they wanted formulæ to be assessed, but it seemed to me that I should still be under their limit with them counted in some reasonable way. As the editors requested a word-count, I mentioned to them that I weren't sure how to assess the formulæ. After barely less than two weeks, the paper was rejected, without a reason being given.

The next journal to which I planned to submit the paper had a 9,500-word limit (with bibliographies included in the calculation). I still thought that I would be under that limit. Unfortunately, they wanted citations and the bibliography formatted in a way for which I was not immediately prepared, so I spent some time wrestling with that. Then, part-way through the submission process, I encountered a note that said that figures were to be counted as if having as many words as the space they occupied could otherwise have contained. What they had called a word limit began to look suspiciously like a page limit (combined with an expectation as to the size of type).

My paper does not have an figures as such, but many of its formulæ are in block-display form. In theory, I could present the formulæ in in-line form, and then the paper would probably come-in under the apparent limit; but it would also become nearly impossible to understand. In order to get my paper under the apparent limit otherwise, I'd have to pare-away more than 18% of its content, which would be dreadful. I might press ahead without making changes, as the editors had not said anything about formulæ, but I felt sure that I'd be wasting my time.

And I think that it is comparatively likely that the previous journal, with its ostensible word limit actually had a similar page limit.

I made some further improvements in the content. One improvement was a consequence of looking again at an article to deal with the citations, and noticing something that I'd long ago forgot. Another was a result of fleshing-out the philosophical discussion, still in the wake of the first rejection. My perhaps too spartan mention of that change puzzled kpm, so I wrote a longer explanation for her, and the process of doing that led to my adding two more points to that discussion.

To-night, I submitted the latest version of the paper to what one might count as the fourth or fifth journal. It is again most likely that I'll get a desk rejection; and, should it instead be sent to reviewers, most likely that they will reject it. Either such rejection would be hard to take, even though anticipated.

But I know that it was a marvelous piece of work when sent to the first journal, and it is still better now.

On 25 January, I received a desk rejection (without explanation) from the second journal to which I had submitted my article on qualitative probability. To-day, I submitted to a third journal, adopting one of two suggestions from Anthony Gamst.

This third journal imposes a strict word limit. I am not sure how to adjust a word count in the presence of formulæ, but I removed two tables to ensure that I were below the limit. Possibly they might be restored, if a reviewer wants a pair of claims within the text to be substantiated.

I also made some minor changes in the text to hide my identity in the specific manner demanded by the journal. I don't know whether I would want to reverse those changes should the article be accepted.

Additionally, I added a sentence to the abstract, in order to help the editor (and any other possible reader) recognize the philosophical content within the paper.

Again, most articles receive rejections before being sent to reviewers, and most articles sent to reviewers are rejected. I must be prepared to deal with yet another rejection.

I received a desk rejection from the editor of the first journal to which I submitted my paper on qualitative probability. He said that the paper were a highly technical discussion without sufficient engagement with the philosophical literature, and would be better suited to a journal of statistical or probability theory.

There is very little philosophical literature on qualitative probability as such, and I engaged with it; I also discussed philosophical issues that don't appear in that prior literature.

A journal of statistical theory would almost surely reject my paper. One of probability theory might well accept it; but might instead reject it as too philosophical.

I've submitted to another journal of philosophy. That journal demanded to know to where I'd previously submitted the paper, so I told them and gave the editor's argument for rejection. Then, in a set of cover comments, I explained why I thought that argument inappropriate. I also made a point of noting work that this next journal had previously published on probability theory that was formal and did not embrace an interpretation of probability.

My argument not-withstanding, I can expect yet another desk rejection. If-and-when my paper reaches editors who send it on to reviewers, I can expect that at least the first few sets of reviewers will reject it. But, were I unwilling to endure this wretched process, then it would have made little sense for me to write the paper in the first place, as my prior experience informed me as to what to expect in submitting a paper that innovated in a non-trivial manner.

As I told kpm, my submitting to another journal on the same day as I had been rejected was largely a matter of getting on another horse. I might have spent more time investigating my options, and might thus have identified a still more suitable journal, but I didn't want to be bogged-down by such considerations even as I dealt with my frustration and disappointment.

As occasionally noted in publicly accessible entries to this 'blog, I have been working on a paper on qualitative probability. A day or so before Christmas, I had a draft that I was willing to promote beyond a circle of friends.

I sent links to a few researchers, some of them quite prominent in the field. One of them responded very quickly in a way that I found very encouraging; and his remarks motivated me to make some improvements in the verbal exposition.

I hoped and still hope to receive responses from others, but as of to-day have not. I'd set to-day as my dead-line to begin the process of submitting the paper to academic journals, and therefore have done so.

The process of submission is emotionally difficult for many authors, and my past experiences have been especially bad, including having a journal fail to reach a decision for more than a year-and-a-half, so that I ultimate withdrew the paper from their consideration. I even abandoned one short paper because the psychological cost of trying to get it accepted in some journal was significantly impeding my development of other work. While there is some possibility that finding acceptance for this latest paper will be less painful, I am likely to be in for a very trying time.

It is to be hoped that, none-the-less, I will be able to make some progress on the next paper in the programme of which my paper on indecision and now this paper on probability are the first two installments. In the presumably forth-coming paper, I will integrate incomplete preferences with incompletely ordered probabilities to arrive at a theory of rational decision-making more generalized and more reälistic than that of expected-utility maximization. A fourth and fifth installment are to follow that.

But the probability paper may be the most important thing that I will ever have written.