tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36442173.post5387134155063126934..comments2023-11-02T05:44:01.903-04:00Comments on INTUITION IN-DEPTH: KARL POPPER AS THE 'ULTIMATE WARRIOR'Lois Isenmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15824175568923217819noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36442173.post-1592291135214798292008-11-11T00:46:00.000-05:002008-11-11T00:46:00.000-05:00Good for people to know.Good for people to know.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36442173.post-33569587303126638772008-03-30T09:41:00.000-04:002008-03-30T09:41:00.000-04:00Our brains and our hands are too small to encompas...Our brains and our hands are too small to encompass much at all.<BR/><BR/>The dancing words and numbers are only clumsy representations of that which is.<BR/><BR/>Today I went to Mass and I played with some words and numbers. This pleased me.<BR/><BR/>It's how I celebrate life.<BR/><BR/>A physicist, an artist -- they both create representations of what they feel, what they see.<BR/><BR/>These representations will please others... or not. These representations may be further developed by others... or not.<BR/><BR/>There's a destination beyond which none of us can see. <BR/><BR/>The joy, the reason for life, is sharing the journey with others.<BR/><BR/>It is all art.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36442173.post-24207282027604362302008-03-04T09:48:00.000-05:002008-03-04T09:48:00.000-05:00I was so taken by the the passages I wrote about f...I was so taken by the the passages I wrote about from Conjecture and Refutation because there Popper proposes relatively broad standards for what constitutes a scientific theory--much broader than I had realized before. In the passages I quote later on in the article it becomes clear that potential empirical falsification is not necessarily required according to his view here.<BR/> <BR/>Instead the paramount issue is whether the theory can be subject to falsification either empirical or rational. This greatly surprised me and seemed noteworthy. <BR/><BR/>I called him the 'ultimate warrior' because he was taking on the issue about how humans could approach understanding the universe even when they could not make empirical tests of theory and when observation could easily lead astray. His message in these passages---that theories beyond what we can empirically test at the current time can be legitimate areas of scientific concern, if one can engage in critical discourse about them--- is also relevant today.<BR/><BR/>I feel his point is best captured by the title of the book: science is about conjecture and refutation. Indeed I feel we cannot ask more from science than this (except for technology of course--- which it supplies us with a plenty.) At the same time looking at science in terms of its falsifiability is really a gift as it can open our minds to the fact that there is much more to know than what can currently be known and no doubt even more than we can imagine. Taken this way--it is mind expanding.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Of course refutation is in the eye of the refuter. Popper does talk a lot about what it takes to falsify a theory elsewhere, as has been pointed out-- but his discussion seems rather removed from the nitty-gritty of actually doing science. But even he seems to know that it is really a judgment call. <BR/><BR/>My background is in biology. My sense is that it often takes more than it should to refute a current theory. What is science and what are fundable projects and sometimes even publishable observations are determined often by those with clout in a field. These are not infrequently people with a vested interest in a certain established point of view and perhaps often large egos. Therefore the 'search for truth' can get quite political. Therefor Popper's views are a healthy corrective perspective.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36442173.post-51745382022102452952008-03-04T09:43:00.000-05:002008-03-04T09:43:00.000-05:00The cynicism that comes with age has taught me tha...The cynicism that comes with age has taught me that, although falsifiability is a wonderful test of the meaningfulness of a theory, it is just a little too perfectly fitted to religious belief ; one can almost use it as a definition of religious belief/faith, i.e., theories which are not falsifiable, and I think of it more as a tailor-made tool in the atheist arsenal than a scientist's toolkit (I reiterate that I absolutely do not believe in God or gods). It is more a milestone in the history of religious disputation than of science, IMHO.<BR/><BR/>BernieAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36442173.post-23765997580968657672008-03-04T09:41:00.000-05:002008-03-04T09:41:00.000-05:00> I hate to say this but I read his works and I do...> I hate to say this but I read his works and I don't<BR/>> remember this. In fact, her is a what Plato.Stanford.edu<BR/>> says about Popper and there is nothing in there to suggest<BR/>> this.<BR/><BR/>Philosophers of science usually see Popper as an opponent of Thomas<BR/>Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend, but their points of difference are often<BR/>exaggerated, and in the larger details they agree about a great deal.<BR/><BR/>All of them would agree that the "Baconian" model of science -- the<BR/>one blissfully assumed by almost all psychologists and almost everyone<BR/>on this list, as far as I can tell -- is a non-starter.<BR/><BR/>Popper was in his prime at the same time as the "logical positivists",<BR/>who said that much philosophy was literally meaningless. If there is<BR/>no way of telling whether a claim is true -- i.e. if there is no<BR/>conceivable evidence that could push you for it or against it -- then<BR/>the claim simply doesn't have a meaning.<BR/><BR/>The logical positivists were mostly concerned with drawing a line<BR/>between language that was genuinely "meaningful" and language that<BR/>wasn't, but Popper was more narrowly concerned with a particular sort<BR/>of human activity involving language -- what was genuinely<BR/>"scientific" and what wasn't. While their criterion was<BR/>"verifiability", his was "falsifiability".<BR/><BR/>The difference between them is as follows. A linguistic claim is<BR/>"unverifiable" if there is no conceivable evidence of any kind that<BR/>could push someone to accept it or reject it. A theory is<BR/>"unfalsifiable" if there is no conceivable experimental test or<BR/>observation that could force someone to reject it. This is a much<BR/>stricter criterion, intended to demarcate a much narrower area of<BR/>human activity and thought than language in general.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36442173.post-86971946362113309482008-03-04T09:38:00.000-05:002008-03-04T09:38:00.000-05:00> He felt that theories come first and determine w...> He felt that theories come first and determine which experiments are <BR/>> done. In contrast, the logical positivists, whose views were prominent <BR/>> at the time and still are to some extent, believed that the data comes <BR/>> first and determines theory. Since for Popper theory is based on <BR/>> conjecture, he argued that falsification of theory, or disproof, not <BR/>> verification, is the proper work of science.<BR/>><BR/><BR/>I hate to say this but I read his works and I don't remember this. In <BR/>fact, her is a what Plato.Stanford.edu says about<BR/>Popper and there is nothing in there to suggest this.<BR/><BR/><BR/>http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36442173.post-5358855581027738262008-03-04T09:35:00.000-05:002008-03-04T09:35:00.000-05:00Lois, according to your studies (what I appreciate...Lois, according to your studies (what I appreciate) and your belief upon them (what I appreciate even more): do you think Sir Karl (P) accepted 'observation' which 'is' the foundation for science? What and HOW do we observe? <BR/>*<BR/>We 'get' certain phenomena only (maybe even only partially transmitted into our cognition that interprets them for 'us') - by those observational techniques which are (were?) available at the time of the observer for interpretation within the cognitive level THEN. Our instruments NOW (much more sophisticated than e.g. 2500, or even 50 (K.P.) years ago) are still primitive and built (designed) to work WITHIN the proper scientific cognitive inventory of their application. Comes new epistemic enrichment: newer instruments will be designed to 'measure' new concepts for enriching our science.<BR/>I am the naive hopeful who believes in further advancement, so today's level I do not consider the ultimate. Nor was Popper's more than 50 years ago. Science should be open to step into domains not (yet?) 'falsifiable' by the past cognitive levels. It takes new thinking with new concepts (words?) and we are at the very beginning of the 'future' - which starts now. <BR/>Old(er) geniuses were very wise, partially because they were not impaired(?) by 'too much' knowledge of the world, which continuously keeps accumulating ever since. To keep all that ancient 'wisdom': scientists dream up paradoxical solutions (eg. to combine the (discontinuous) atomic world into those hypothetical (continuous) fields, to fill the empty atoms with almost no 'matterly' in them by forces called 'matter' and calculate them as particles, etc. etc. - just to grab the figment of the 'atomic' world of matterly physics as an example.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36442173.post-45300471171916452882008-03-04T09:32:00.000-05:002008-03-04T09:32:00.000-05:00Hilde,In fact there was a footnote in the chapter ...Hilde,<BR/><BR/>In fact there was a footnote in the chapter to this effect. Apparently Aristotle characterized Anaximander's 'ingenious but untrue' theory about the position of the earth to be like a man hungry and thirsty yet unable to move because he is equidistant from both food and drink--- what has become known as Buridan's ass.<BR/><BR/>The reference to Newton I believe fits perhaps better with the idea of gravity---effectively balanced forces---keeping the planets in their orbits. Newton by the way, had serious concern about the occult seeming nature of gravity---since it implied action at a distance.<BR/><BR/>I disagree with the idea that Popper's main concern was the theory-laddeness of observation. He really thought that bold and intuitive---not implicit theories--- guide science progress. He was strongly influenced by Einstein and his work. <BR/><BR/>I certainly agree that falsification is in the eye of the beholder.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36442173.post-56149487290181261282008-03-04T09:10:00.000-05:002008-03-04T09:10:00.000-05:00Hi Lois, You could think of Anaximander as prefig...Hi Lois,<BR/> You could think of Anaximander as prefiguring the medieval idea of Buridan's ass with equally succulent bales of hay on either side, he starved to death because he was unable to decide between them. Essentially he was acting (negatively) on the principle of sufficient reason, and that is also implicit in Newton's 2nd law(?) An object in motion remains in motion unless interrupted; likewise a stationary object - so the world just stays put unless there is something to move it. Is that a matter of observation? I think Popper's point is that our observations are theory laden or expectation laden, and I think that is true. Unfortunately that also applies to falsification.<BR/> By the way, I think you resemble Uncle Manny.<BR/> Hilde<BR/>p.s the ultimate warrior looks like the Si Stallone that used to be.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com