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A 'Fairy Tale'
The 3 major earth-cultures are kingdoms of sent out 'nephews' (prophets) of VERY WISE king 'Abraham' (nickname 'Common Sense') somewhere in Central Asia.Cultural Bubble1 of nephew Zoroaster triggered Zoroastrianism and influenced Buddhism, and its knowledge = common sense + ZararathustraSpeed. The cultural Bubble2 of nephew Buddha extended common sense in direction Buddhism, and its knowledge = old common sense + BuddhaSpeed. Bubble3 triggered by youngest nephew Jesus was transformed in Catholicism and became abstract 'Aristotelian', with knowledge = common sense + Catholic-knowledge-speed Catholicism (and Muslim copy Muhammedanism) is Aristotelian (worship illusions called 'angels'='spirits'). Cultures 1, 2 and 3 started mixing, although 'angels' are not a part of common sense. A fresh prophet Zarah2nd in a Total Paradigm Shift 'blows away' the immaterial 'angels as HUGE obstacle for joining the 3 similar kingdoms. |
| Falling asleep softly, or be shocked awake brutally. Life is a not a dream, but continuous fighting. |
The Popper-Kuhn debate in effect refers to an encounter that took place at the
former Bedford College, University of London on 13 July 1965.
A meeting of a just arrived genial theorist of science (Kuhn, 43) with a remarkable selfmade 'leaving'
theorist of science (Popper, 63). Thomas Kuhn had by thorough comparing discovered that the ancient physics of someone like Plato was not WRONG in Newtonian view, but a totally different knowledge space (different logic in a different language). He developed the concept of paradigms (knowledge worlds).
The 'debate' organizers Imre Lakatos and his most fanatical fan Feyerabend failed in presence and in writing. Kuhn missed his chance, and the aimed for frontal collision between 2 essentially different parallel views on science (paradigms without compromise) became a polite non-happening. Popper defended the fantasy 'understanding' and Kuhn saw manipulating knowledge as puzzling with the (mood, reaction) pairs caused by reality within the ethics of a culture. Inherently Thomas Kuhn denied understanding being more than very complex intuition. Instead of a fierce intellectual fight, resulting in a scientific revolution. The next 35 years Popper would be still in the lead. Leaving 2 happy scientists talking parallel, and 2 bitterly opposing camps of millions of fans. The 2 camps are not comparing basics, but trying to prove that 'apples' taste better than 'pears' or vice versa
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I'll use the following steps:| Only Kuhn for some reason did not consider 'science' itself as paradigm, and thus introduced 'Kuhnian Paradigms' or scientific revolutions INSIDE 'science'. |
The terms 'normal' science and 'historical truth' show the differences in their approaches.
Popper believed in the existence of 1 gradually growing continuous normal science that has to be cultivated, and in absolute 'good and wrong' (a dual view).
This dualism is what makes American leaders
think that American Culture is superior and that they should export own puritan ethics (democracy and freedom of speech);
Kuhn thought science to be relative (no general good and wrong) and to change in jumps.
Darwin showed that humans developed in tiny incremental steps out of apes. The tiny cartesian steps are still in the view that Karl Popper is using around WWII ('tiptoe through the tulips'). Unluckily Kuhn's view was not broadly accepted. The garden decorators (rational Thinkers), thinking in compromise (inherent in a dual view), had still too much power. |
Relativism needs Absolute Views, this duo is a unity. But you cannot compromise. Compromising suggest continuity, but this is an abstract concept. In nature NOTHING is continuous.
Compromising is like sliding down a mountain, you always end at the bottom.| 1 example: When the US president suggests that protestant churches should have freedom of speech in Buddhist China,
THEN that is like proposing to tolerate cancer cells. 0. The Buddhist unwritten basic says: Respect all Life. 2. The second Noble Truth Samudaya inherently states: Egoism doesn't pay. While the protestant godfather Martin Luther introduced individualism or egoism! Compromising has no end, protestantism threatens Buddhist ethics, it is straightforward use of Buddhist ethics to quarantine protestantism. Before thinking about a definition for terrorism the Western Top of the United Nations should better realize such simple basics. |

| Recent western theories of knowledge can be divided generally in two 'competing' camps
(paradigms)- the very slowly increasing relative view of the later Wittgenstein, Kuhn and others versus
the very slowly decreasing absolute view of the dominant paradigm. One important defender of modern absolutism is the elder Popper
(in fact without aiming for it the younger Popper had quite a few relative traits).
Both sides investigate the borders of rationalism (in fact Kuhn's tool 'paradigm shift' is the way for leaving this dream (system of thought) by getting awake in one flash of mind. Karl Popper in his active adult life defended 'rationalism' in his own critical variant. The elder Popper revives 'evolutionary epistomology' (evolutionary theory of knowledge or ideology), and researches knowledge under specific conditions. This approach to knowledge was quite popular in the nineteenth century after Darwin's book on evolution. It only shows that not unusually on respectable age Popper tended to become conservative and prescriptive, quite different from his ideals in former adult years.
The democratic liberalist Popper can't help that the Ideology of Darwin became mostly practiced in religious circles (the word taken in its meaning dogmatic).
That's certainly not to disqualify this group, but just an observation. Because everytime I searched for this difficult word
on Internet I ended up in sites about religious subjects. That may be coincidence but
the word this way seemed to me to attract people with a conservative, religious outlook on
the world ('religious' seen as god-believe in prescriptive sense).
That's probably why the fundamentalism in the doctrine rationalism inherent in the thoughts of the elder Popper
became common practice in this corner of society that defends acquired power.Overhere I found a system of thought (nightmare) that in my view in many ways still resembles the one in early Enlightenment, i.e. characterized by things like 'absolutism', strong god-believe (often in a dogmatic sense), conservative liberalism. Fascinating, but it triggered in me an uncomfortable feeling (most feelings in rationalism became marginal in circles of power). Worrying because I found much more power-arguments here, then real debating arguments. Evolution is purely triggered by chance + selection, but if things locally get really out of hand, then something like an ice age erases all mistakes. |

| NO, a compromise between Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn would be 'rational'. But both theories are part of the TOTAL of ways to handle the unity reality. |
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Closed-Circle Theory: Wisdom is relative (Kuhn)
Meanings, according to Wittgenstein, are formulated and stated in 'language games' (to be honest this idea is already found in the work of Nietzsche);. They consist of a set of rules that constitute closed circles of meanings. Because there is no individual (general) language as such there are no individual meanings, and because such systems are closed circles there is no reference to anything outside the system (i.e., an objective "world"). Only inside the circle there are objective meanings, thus 'the only truth' is your own dream (fundamentalists trying to make a general dream are denied). In Kuhn's masterwork "Scientific Revolutions" Wittgenstein's closed-circle language worlds were turned into paradigms, and scientific revolutions seen as a shift from one paradigm to another. In this view Einstein's physics does not partially extend Newton's (showing something that was implicitly already there), doesn't reject it either, BUT adds something extra to it that was not in this scheme. Closed-circle theory includes that there is more than only rationality. |
Evolutionary Epistemology: Knowledge is Absolute (Popper) Evolutionary epistemology studies knowledge under specific conditions. Only it presumes such conditions are rational, and that all dreams are rational. In fact it resembles what technicians mention as a closed-loop system. Not totally, because borders of rational cultures are slightly open, but near to it. As such it is more limited than Closed Circle Theory. They only see 1 closed circle or closed system, a rational one. Only such a game is presumed to be objective. On top of that the game is supposed to be evolutionary. The tendency in this camp is to see Closed-circle theorists as anti evolutionists. But Wittgenstein and Kuhn are NOT denying evolution, only they see it as more than only rational and as A particuliar game of knowledge. This shape of absolutism, is a modern version of Logical Positivism (Vienna circle) |
| Christian rationalism proved perfect for technology. Buddhist relative ethics in the first 3 of the 4 noble truths is superior to Christian ethics in the 10 commandments. In fact it is based on the much older and much more complex logic 'common sense' used by both Gautama Buddha and Jesus. Outside science most people are still using this 'logic'. See Buddhism and Christianity. |

WHAT IF some of the affected concepts that in different cultures give rise to nasty differences in interpretation handle about things like ?!democracy, intelligence and terrorism !? |
| In other words: HIGH time in the Western World to stop hiding and revalue: democracy, capitalism, and intelligence as found in feelings. Many communication problems on earth are in fact paradigm (culture) clashes. There's only one solution: teaching the history of say the three major paradigms (Christianity, Islam and Buddhism) in a nutshell in every paradigm. As well as their major paradigm shifts and major myths. This should be done by someone still belonging to that paradigm. |
A very positive conclusion of the virtual Popper-Kuhn-debate Poverty is temporary
It is only temporary absolute, but like everything without any doubt relative The Asian Tigre economies showed that rationalism is A way to leave poverty. Only they should NOT mistake Rationalism for the Final Goal. |
| In this article I focused on the inherent debate between the thoughts of Popper and those of Kuhn Another approach is looking where both methods reinforce each other. Here was not the right place to do that, but in my article Truth, I follow this path. |
| Sound of Hope |
