Virtual Word Popper Kant Popper Duality Fantasy Falsification Absolutism Truth Faces Freud Kafka Popper and Wittgenstein Popper and Feyerabend Relativity Wittgensteins Poker Popper Truth Popper Truth-2 Popper Truth-3 Socrates Aristotle Dilemma Aristotle Verisimilitude Fallibilism


The Spell of Popper: Reducing Reality to 'Science' (Virtual Reality)
The confused Western Wizard Popper hated unpredictability and with 'scientific attitude' replaced 'willpower' by 'critical rationality', imitating the superwizardry 'pure reason'
Popper wrote in "Conjectures and Refutations" page 47: Thus we are born with expectations; with 'knowledge' which, although not valid a priori, is psychologically or genetically a priori, i.e. priori to all observational experience
Using 'a priori' makes discussing of 'imaginative' 'common sense' people with fantasy-rich Christian Scientists (all Western Scientists) pointless. You're either accused of not being 'Christian' or even worse of lack of 'understanding'.
Dividing reality in 'a priori wars' is labeled by Thomas Kuhn as incommensurability
Fighting wizards just are members of ONE family). After Enlightenment 'irrational' witches (in the eyes of science were burned to death.

The death of common sense means: 'rational' fantasy (understanding) replaces 'imagination' . Imagination uses the 'rationally' seen as 'primitive' trigger emotion

This tendency is especially clear in protestant stronghold US. Also obvious in 'protestant worlds' like UK and Germany.

'Analytical' means: under 'rational' spell (between 'scientist' and 'nerd').
Zarah2nd: Karl Popper might mean DNA and common sense.
A wizard claiming that billions of years old tested and adapted experimental magic is not valid in the 'eyes' of his 300 years old Roman Christian wizardry.
Popper wrote: [I don't] understand Kant completely.... Henkt: Karl Popper must have meant: I completely can't make sense of Kant







Tip: The senses produce Popper's unvalid 'Observational Experience'. That's why Popper's own 'a priori' spell cleans Observational Experience of everything that he considers as 'Unidentified Flying Object', before adding 'pure reason' (queer brew of spells containing that what Roman Christians think that are 'logical' happenings in world view Split of Mind and Body)
Tip: Popper's 'a priori' = Appearance (dream).
Sense Filters = Common Sense.

Tip1: Kantian Thinking or 'Fantasy' or rational understanding based on 'Natural Spells' and 'Social Spells' transforms in Social Science The One in the duo (good,evil)
'Kantian Thinking replaces the evolutionally proven common sense emotion as decisive trigger of behavior.
(Engineering only adds the spell 'rationality)
Tip2: Natural Spells = Enlightenment wishful thinking about 'energy' and time.
Tip3: Social Spells = hocus pocus + freedom of speech, individual liberty and democracy]








karl popper Karl Popper: Attacker of 'Terrorists of Non-Science'
This often called greatest philosopher of science of the 20th century ignorantly produced following quote: Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell. Popper as Prophet of the religion Western or Christian Science. Wittgenstein would have smiled.
falsification / world1 world2 world3
The basic notions 'consciousness and understanding of the Rational Paradigm proved to be tricky and almost complete filters for sense experiences of reality, but more addictive than sex. Popper than even again filtered the 'rational' result-set with filter 'falsification. Because Popper saw unfiltered sense experience as 'pseudo-science' and his own tiny 'dustheap' as science. Popper in "Conjectures and Refutations":
1. I wished to distinguish between science and pseudo-science; knowing very well [..] that pseudoscience may happen to stumble on the truth.
A 21st century Philosophy Professor advises his students: Thou shalt delineate the features that distinguish science from pseudoscience
2. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory - if we look for confirmations.
Or elsewhere: Ich mag unrecht haben und Du magst recht haben, und wenn wir uns bemühen, dann können wir zusammen vielleicht der Wahrheit etwas näher kommen." - In English: "You may be right and I may be wrong, and by an effort, together we may get nearer to the truth."

Karl Popper and Falsification: logic underlying falsification
Testability: IF a theory is TRUE, THEN its predictions must be all TRUE. However IF 1 prediction is FALSE, THEN the whole theory is FALSE.
However: Popper in The Demarcation Problem (inherently arrogant) defines science as consisting of only IN RATIONAL EXPERIENCE falsifiable hypotheses. Completely opposite to Buddhism Popper divides earth-reality in 'sense' and 'non-sense' (science and pseudo science). Falsification judgements are verdicts about 'reality' in 'rational' ethics, by a 'rational' judge.' Popper knew better, because he wrote: No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt
To give common sense value to outcomes of the synthetic 'rational' logic is a repeatal of the mistake of Immanuel Kant.
a rational attitude.

Immanuel Kant is a monument of philosophy of science, and so is Karl Popper. Although Popper without saying so got his ideas from his forgotten teacher Otto Selz (1881-1943), who died in concentration camp Auschwitz. 'Scientific' 'FALSE' is only synthetically false (rationally), but in social science just treated as generally false. Falsificationists see not falsifiable theories as unscientific, like computers they only accept TRUE or FALSE. In rational reasoning a male having tried sex ONCE with a woman fails the computertest for being homosexual. Greedy lawyers would make dead meat of him. Computers also deny that he is heterosexual. Lawyers and judges consider the lucky bastard bisexual. Women claiming sex with gay men are 'confused'.

A hilarious quote of Popper: many people who regard themselves as critics of scientism are in reality dogmatic, ideological and authoritarian opponents of the natural sciences, of which they sadly understand all too little.
Desperate 'falsificationists' invented: Sophisticated Falsification. I'm considered as naive 'pseudoscientist' who does not to use THE 'Scientific Method'. Sophisticated' Falsification is presented as adding extra proof and checking (1) with a priori analysis and (2) against reality.
(1) is more rational thought and (2) everybody imagines THE own reality. Anyway checking against reality can even 'prove': all Palestines are 'terrorists'.
The latest VERY desperate defense (May 2006) is that Popper of course very well realized that falsification is limited, BUT that Popper presumed that 'science' advances through a process of "conjectures and refutations." Zarah2nd: Odd, fundamental 'scientifical' followers of Popper never worried much about what this sympathetic thinker meant. Anyway: Conjectures=Definition in Rational Terms, and Refutation=Falsification.






Popper revives Cartesian Interactionism
Belief in 'spirits' or' gods'


Popper inherently argues:
It is NOT the experience that creates sense experience (emotion), but senses react on our fantasy that there is an experience (emotions are 'white noise').
Emotions are automatisms (that makes sense, though emotions are VERY complex), 'understanding' = Truth (non-sense).
If a stone hits our head, than the fantasy 'stone' hurts, it wouldn't hurt if we 'understood' 'strawberries'. Life is a dream (virtual movie) with good guys who have to shoot down the bad guys (terrorists), directed by 'God.

Popper as scientist completely rejects the claim of Ludwig Wittgenstein that 'philosophical' problems result from language interpretation.
But the inventor of 'falsification' writes: No doubt some people talk nonsense, but I claim that there does not exist a logical or language-analytical method of detecting philosophical nonsense . Well that's a misleading representation. There is no 'rational' process for 'watertight' detecting of all 'rational nonsense', but Common Sense considers all of 'rationality' as non-sense.

Karl Popper rejects the thinking of Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein, and considers language as more than physical behavior. That means he rejects evolution as creator, and believes in a 'spirit' called 'God' as creator.
Example: say a 'female' expresses female emotions in female common sense. Then Popper 'argues': emotions are rubbish, I use 'scientific laws', I filter 'female' language with 'rational' filter and then apply 'falsification'. Then I 'understand' that expressing 'female emotions' in common sense produces mostly FALSE 'rational' info in 'scientific' English. Zarah2nd: try replacing 'female' with 'Red Indian', 'Aborigine', 'Polynesian', ....
Karl Popper doesn't trust DNA and common sense as built in billions of years evolution. This is still arrogant Aristotelian thinking, invented by the ancient Greek Aristotle to cope with the genocide practices of his boss Philip II of Macedon (and of his 'student' Alexander the Terrible). Inherently Popper sees humans as made by 'God', and as superior to animals (including slaves).

To the ancients, common sense provided knowledge and experience: in short wisdom. But 'science' as used by western governments = following absolute rules ('understanding), and is presented in 'law'. 'Science' believes in understanding'; Law = accepted 'understanding'. Freethinkers and most historians and freethinkers are 'quite unhappy' with Karl Popper's thinking
Popper without common sense reasons judged that the following 'principle of rationality' of Newel (1982) was empty: If an agent has knowledge that one of its actions will lead to one of its goals, then the agent will select that action.
(Zarah2nd: Popper's 'narrow-mindedness is that 'rational understanding' rules reality.)










About Popper and the fantasy Falsification

white black-crow The saying "All crows are black" is rationally seen as FALSE IF one crow is white. Common Sense recognizes white crows as rare specimen.
Better shoot all 'terrorists' before trying to falsify the statement: "The US president is mentally handicapped cowboy".
TRUE is a construction out of technology. If the chance is say 0.001 per year that a hurricane destroys New Orleans, THEN the statement: New Orleans is safe is seen as TRUE and close enough to 'true'. It is not difficult at all though to construct logics with other use of the notions 'all', 'color' and 'safe'.


Popper was the son of the Jewish lawyer Simon Siegmund Carl Popper who converted to Protestantism in 1900. He used above falsification filter, when rational minds didn't like a 'truth' but (RATIONAL!) theory failed to contradict it.
Karl Popper posed that the distinction between science and non-science is thay a scientific hypothesis should be 'testable' and allow 'falsification'. The stealthy presumption is that testing and falsifying should happen in the Roman Christian ethics 'rationality'. So Popper poses: 'scientific' = 'rational', and not necessarily makes sense in common sense. The Falsification trick is like the Roman the body mind split, and Popper like another Kant. The pro-slavery Romans needed a weapon against the common sense anti slavery message of Jesus. Ages later their body mind split was formalized in 'rationalism' by the catholic priest Descartes.
As authority in the then dominant protestant world Immanuel Kant made this pro slavery ethics 'holy' in his Critique of Pure Reason, though the ancient Hebrews made no distinction between fantasy and body ('flying spirits' are a Greek invention).

Try to verify the truth of the statements: Osama bin Laden is a terrorist/freedom fighter. Then you'll realize that the method 'falsification' is culture dependent, as are the notions 'good' and 'evil'. The absolutism behind 'falsification' turned social science definitely into a 'rational' religion.
South Africans might remember that Nelson Mandela miraculously shifted from worldwide 'terrorist' in 'freedom fighter' (cultural relativism).
I must have been the first mathematician diving into this method. My immediate reaction: The principle of falsification itself fails to be subject of falsification. Must be a method for LOCAL decisions, i.e. within 'rational' thought. My IRrational logic: a theory is TRUEish if my intuition says that it's TRUEish. IF my intuition feels that it's FALSEish THEN the whole theory is FALSEish. My prediction in this irrational logic: The statement (Osama bin Laden is a terrorist = FALSEish) = TRUEish.
I'm sure Popper would have liked this challenge. I made a TRUEish theory within my logic, because my intuition indicates it as TRUEish. Many Muslims whose moods are mainly influenced by Muslim ethics will feel happy with the content. My common sense intuition is convinced that his motivation is respectful, but then predictions of intuition are considered FALSEish in rationality. It's not rational to imply moods in decisions, and most Western politicians consider this statement FALSE.
Though evolution 'archives' all proven wisdom in our body, the resulting moods are ignored in abstract rational thinking (pure reason or FANTASY).

'Rationalism' in practice goes hand in hand with individualism, skepticism and humanism.
Individualism: The belief that evolution aims at personal self-determination. Or that in a jungle the individual trees matter.
Skepticism : The belief that when you cannot rationally validate a sense experience, you should reject it
Humanism: The arrogant belief that humans are special in evolution.

about falsification
As outsider of the Western paradigm your intuition might prompt frustration (throwing stones). Then the rational hunters predict: he/she is a terrorist (is acting IR-'rational').




Falsification


'Falsification' was known to mathematicians , because some of my friends around 1975 were fans op Karl Popper. I myself did real 'sociological' work and spent my spare time at my Dutch 'University Twente' being responsible for the publicity of a student bar with the name 'Vestingbar'.
Ten years later practically all 'management' functions in student social activities were taken by students in Management Science (Dutch: 'Bestuurskunde') as coming from The USA. Nice young people, often dressed in suit, and wearing ties. Using weird English words (like efficient = using N bullets to kill N people), and eating 'with knife and fork'. Equally 'clever' as Karl Popper when it came to logic. This generation of students took (in the whole Western World) the majority of functions in society in politics and management. Western armies became very efficient. Also Western society became totally burocratic, managing was seen as working. Ever more Western people wanted to be 'manager'.
The disastrous result of ABSTRACT thinking without deciding ('analysing' and 'compromising') and a totally mistaken method of verifying a bigger 'truth' than the own can be seen in all Western Countries. 1 example: try to imagine EFFICIENT sex.
In Chinese language the English word 'decision' is translated as 'thought of a Master' (in inventing appropriate behavior).
Not as 'democratic' 'compromise'.

The whole Western World became a Rational Virtual World, democratically optimizing compromises
instead of following Common Sense decisions of Master Thinkers.

Because a friendly Jewish Austrian teacher in physics got 'possessed' by the phantom 'rational thought' , and that made him a world famous philosopher. But Descartes and especially his not grasping Kant tricked him and many others into considering 'rational' logic as part of truth. Rational falsification SEEMED so 'natural', and Popper as still common in sociology saw math as more than a tool. (sociology mistakenly sees 'rational' a priori as Natural Laws, i.s.o. rational hypotheses).


No mistake: Karl Popper was partly a genius, but obviously even studying math didn't make him a Master Thinker.










Fundamentalism


Logic learns: The goal of ANY theory is testing a logic, and interesting is: "WHICH logic did Popper use, and was not used by his 'victims'".
Because Popper's truth was accepted in toplayer of the Western World. Not 'on the street' though, where by far most people live. In my birth region decisions are still mainly based on the common sense value 'respect'. I concluded that the truth of Popper exists only in Worlds of RATIONAL logic.
Though the rational split of reality in 'sense' and 'nonsense' was already a basic of Catholic thinking since start of the Roman Christian Church. That church and the Roman Army between 100 and 500 thoroughly erased 'Gnostic Christianity' that practiced 'holistic' thinking. And the Gnostic thinker Valentinus ALMOST managed to become Pope around the year 125. He must have lost the fight against rich and powerful Roman slaveowners, who were rightfully afraid that Valentinus would use his power as Pope to end 'slavery'.

Popper's use of rational logic caused him to become fundamentally suspisious in case of statements of Einstein's theory of relativity, Marx's theory of history, Freud's psycho-analysis, and Alfred Adler's so-called "individual psychology."

Suspision arrives in his case from them being RATIONALLY unintuitive (waiting to be falsified). Peculiar is, that fundamental rational scientists never feel urged to falsify rational fantasies like 'Axis of Evil'

Not that strange because falsification is meant to falsify theories that are not 'rational'. Einstein's relativity theory is MORE than rational thought, Freud and Adler are often called IRrational. Marx uses rational thought, but some of his 'predictions' are easily to falsify.

If some decisions coming from Koran interpretation are RATIONALLY untrue, then realize: such judgements have ONLY 'rational' value
Some decisions coming from Koran study however are dubious too in common sense. What about forbidding burning dead bodies after a tsunami?
But also Islam as stated in the Koran bases 'leadership' on authority by 'respect'. In the Western World 'leaders' are appointed who fit 'rational rules' (making Western democracy)

Muslim countries having a government that is tolerated by 'respect' of the people are seen as 'undemocratic' in Western eyes.
Zarah2nd: Bullshit, I prefer a government that makes sensible decisions to a 'democratic' goverment that makes no sense. The decision in the 21st century of Iran government to have all nuclear tools makes sense, because rival cultures USA, England, France and Germany have those tools too. What Iran goverment plans to do with its ability to make nuclear bombs is another question. Just like the US at the end of WWII it claims that it will not use nuclear force. Do 'Christian' countries don't want non-christian countries to have power tools? Because the US at the end of WWII dropped two nuclear bombs on Buddhist Japan.













Truth has many Faces


ANYONE who studied logics nowadays knows that truth has many faces
and only locally is shaped within local basic statements.

Popper was forced by Einstein's theory of relativity to crooked thinking. Because Newtonian physics didn't support all the results.
I recognized his dilemma, because my own physics teacher around 1970 still got a SEVERE headache from this then unintuitive problem.

My teacher at secondary school had to accept Relativity Theory because it made successful predictions, and he couldn't falsify it
This guy was say 35 years younger than Popper. Relativity Theory being based on a logic containing rationalism COULDN'T be falsified in rational thought.

My teacher of physics on secondary school was a really nice guy, but with an education that couldn't cope with Relativity Theory. Popper sure was a nice guy too, but he and with him many people couldn't beleave that BOTH theories are true within their own thinking. They fail to recognize the difference between World and Theory, in ignoring that both Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein in their MODELS use ABSTRACT PREsumptions.
The scientist Einstein added Doppler effect and that way the position of the observer to the model of Newton to make this thought CONCEPT usable in astronomy.
But on earth for instance bats and dolphins effortlesly use the same phenonomen Doppler effect. Are they disguised Einsteins?

I'm sorry but I'm totally puzzled. Popper held speeches for audiences of hundreds of scientists. HOW did he get away with this HUGE mistake?











Human Superbugs brilliantly picture 'analytical' Rational Burocrats
ANY statement might be true


It was already the mathematician/philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein who showed that given the fitting logic, ANY statement might be true.
By the way, Wittgenstein was also from Austria and also European Jew, i.e. the modern type of Jew since start of Roman Christianity accepting the body mind split. Popper in after war WWII Vienna was heavily influenced by French/English abstract rationalism, and he that way represented 'English/French European fashioned' culture.

Before 1814 Vienna was a sparkling capital of the slightly degenerating 'Old European' Austrian-Hungarian Empire.
After the Congress of Vienna in 1814 following the defeat of Napoleon Vienna changed in a kind of new cosmopolitan European capital.
Already the brilliant young Czech Jewish author Franz Kafka in "Die Verwandlung" (The Metamorphosis) described his utter confusion, when suddenly bureaucracy grasped power. Kafka noticed the bureaucracy, but failed to recognize the underlying paradigm shift related to 'rational analysis' . Kafka described the utter confusion of common sense people when less common sense fellow people more and more start acting 'rational'

An atmosphere where a 'rationalist' like Sigmund Freud (another European Jew) INVENTED 'irrational' behavior. He called this process "the art of interpretation" ('psychoanalysis = the skill of fantasizing'), and was considered brilliant. Freud comfortably claimed 'rational' knowledge unavailable to his 'irrational' clients.
That's like a Christian Psychiatre saying some rules in Islam are 'irrational' and 'anormal'. And that Mosks need 'rational' supervision. It might be good to know that 'psychiatry' already in 1808 replaced the more clear notion 'alienism'.
Kafka died of tubercolosis in a sanatorium near Vienna.

Austria was part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, but as a result of two World Wars about European power finally became heavily under influence of English and French culture.

The frigid Austrian-Hungarian culture already since long out of fear for being annexed had a love-hate relation with the fertile German culture. It saw allies in the also 'old' and little less degenerating French and English powers. Nevertheless this central European power had been refined, and still produced brilliant philosophers (only not all of them like Wittgenstein brilliant mathematicians).












Popper Wittgenstein


The Wittgenstein Poker myth is a tragic history how a genius in one paradigm (The Rational World Paradigm with Roman Christian ethics) hurts a genius in another paradigm. That makes some conclude Popper made an ethical point. It's closer to truth to say that he failed to recognize a cultural truth in another and relative paradigm.
If the myth is based on true events, than both did not show respect. In Philosophical Investigations though Ludwig Wittgenstein showed that he more than anyone else grasped barriers caused by language. Rationally behaving people can be like 'talking' fire ants, (inherently) dangerous and IMMENSELY irritating. Reason to limit freedom of speech.

The 'Popper-Kuhn debate' is about enlightened absolutism versus cultural relativism. It is without any doubt clear that Karl Popper even did not recognize there WAS a debate. For him only The Rational World Paradigm existed (also called 'science'), and Kuhn was mistaken.


Popper at that time sure was brilliant, but also already began getting outfashioned. His inability to change views had started...



















Popper and Feyerabend


Paul Feyerabend (1924, 1994), studied science at the University of Vienna. As thinker Feyerabend is known as an critic of the "critical rationalism" of his teacher Karl Popper. Feyerabend became a critic of philosophy of science itself, particularly of "rationalist" attempts to lay down or discover THE Rules of Nature.

Feyerabend wrote "Against Method" (1975): Successful research does not obey general standards; it relies now on one trick, now on another; the moves that advance it and the standards that define what counts as an advance are not always known to the movers. Feyerabend defended cultural diversity and 'scientific anarchism' in "Science in a Free Society" (1978).
Indeed the game 'science' only has value when being a 'gamer', outside it is just a game. Philosophy of Science also suffered before Kuhn and Feyerabend, because it was a mainly abstract and thus irrelevant game.

The big philosophical problem about science was that the scientific method worked fine in technology. Feyerabend did a discovery of the greatest importance : the 'scientific method' doesn't work in social life; actually social engineering in social science got in the way of 'progress'.

For another well known Popper student Imre Lakatos as confusing SEEMINGLY Kuhn clone his fellow student Paul Feyerabend was too frighteningly relativist and his teacher Karl Popper too rigid.
Lakatos couldn't imagine a mix of flamboyance (love all life) and craftsmanship (be able to make advanced weapons).




Paul Feyerabend wrote to Thomas Kuhn: Better live in permanent revolution than in the state of normalcy










Cultures are Relative


Popper was a representative of a Europe of power games lead by the industrial powers England and France, followed by Germany and Austria-Hungary. And Industrialism is a consequence of Rational Thought.
Wittgenstein had returned from the subset rational thought to the more respectful overall 'common sense', seeing language as expressing human values in specific surroundings. Ludwig Wittgenstein started to grasp the relativity in cultures as expressed by language. This after trying to make sense of fellow soldiers during WWI, and related stay in an Italian prison camp.

Common Sense: Everybody cherishes his/her own truth, using own words.
That some statement is seen as 'untrue' in rational logic, only means that it is 'rationally untrue'.
That is similar to observing: Statements in other than English language are nonsense.

Popper inherently qualifies common sense as pseudo science. That leads to beautiful non-sense statements like: the more improbable a theory is, the better it is scientifically. Falsification implies a complete breaking of reality. In a TRUE splinter and a FALSE splinter. Any result of observation in the church 'science' is archived as being part of church (TRUE or science) or not (FALSE or pseudo-science). Helas breaking reality (in science and pseudo-science) is a BASIC of rationalism (groundrule of church science). So in the only thing that is achieved is valuing the observation as 'part of church' or 'pagan'. Indeed, just as the Alexander the Terrible and later the Romans did when valuing Zoroastrian Persians as 'pagan' because Zoroastrianism saw reality as 'The One' (just like present Zen Buddhism).

Popper also made sense, but ONLY for 'rational' technological myths. I.e. for problems that were already stated in 'rational' logic, divide reality in some TRUE-FALSE division. 'Rational' dividing is thinking like an engineer, it helps when with a checklist trying to find a technical failure in a car. Karl Popper was a teacher in physics. The checklist-method 'falsification' is succesfully used on present day Discovery Channel by the quite rational 'mythbusters' to uncover technological myths. BUT 'rational' Social Engineering is a disaster















Wittgenstein's Poker


I'm not going to add to the confusion of the conflict Popper-Wittgenstein.
My impression though is that much confusion is caused by Popper giving dubious misinterpretations.


Wittgenstein believed that 'problems of philosophy' were illusions, fantasy puzzles rooted in conceptual confusion.
Caused by addiction to LOCAL language (like 'scientific' language).
For Friedrich Wittgenstein difficult 'scientific' language only added to the confusion. Like Popper proved.
Better study language (see Wittgenstein about language).


To Popper, this was a threat to all he held dear.

















The Truth of Popper


Popper as already noticed had no 'mathematical mind' and didn't favor strict definitions, but about 'truth' in relation to science he said:
What, then, is the object of our 'rational belief? It is, I submit, not the truth, but what we may call the truth likeness [verisimilitude] of the theories of science so far as they have stood up to severe criticism, including tests. What we believe (rightly or wrongly) is not that Newton's theory or Einstein's theory is true, but that they are good approximations to the truth, though capable of being superseded by better ones.

That Karl Popper said 'THE truth' gives a clue about his thinking. Albert Einstein gave a good approximation of a LOCAL truth.
And NOT BETTER, but an OTHER one

Karl Popper saw the development of 'science' as an evolutionary process. Only Popper saw evolution as 'continuous' and 'science' as well. Disregarding the fact that 'continuity' only is a 'rational' abstract concept dating from Enlightenment.

Popper himself said about the critical attitude in 1968: Even those who, like myself, cannot follow Kant all the way can accept his view that the experimenter must not wait till it pleases nature to reveal its secrets, but that he must question her. He must cross-examine nature in the light of his doubts, his conjectures, his ideas, and his inspirations.

If Popper didn't understand Kant completely, how could he know that it was this Kant who made rational thinking accepted,
as one and only way of thinking?.


Quote Popper: Optimism is a moral duty.
Comment Zarah2nd: Moral Duties are absolute rules. The Christian Ten Commandments were INVENTED as temporary Emergency Rules on tablets by panicking travel guide Mozes. (Like: damn it, don't have sex with the wife of your fellow traveller!)










The Truth of Popper (2)


Popper was motivated by the scientific problems in what he called 'world 3'. To understand him possibly his definition of 3 worlds is useful:
He distinguished 3 worlds: that of physics, the psychological one, and the world of products of he human mind.
World 1: ['reality'] that of of rocks and trees, and physical force-field, those of chemistry and biology.
World 2: [moods] feelings of fear and of hope, and of dispositions to act, all kinds of subjective experience (incl. subconscious and unconscious ones).
World 3: [values] works of art, ethical values, social institutions, scientific problems and theories including mistaken theories.

So while he obviously realized existence of other values, he found it safe to be a rational scientist.
Popper's mistake was that he failed to notice values in moods. He thought rational values to be 'objective' and moods 'subjective'
Relativism would have made him realize that EVERY observation is 'subjective'

Popper's hero was the pragmatist Charles Pierce. He never admitted though being a pragmatist.
But Popper only differed with pragmatism on opinion about how to make truth claims. So only his clearly NOT relative falsification principle was point of difference. Popper named himself a critical rationalist.

This means using a methodological approach involving:
· Belief in open discussion (freedom of expression, ignoring different 'truths')
· Testable statements, experimentation and refutation, using reason and compromise
· Realisation of the fallibility of knowledge including that of science.
· Positive critical toward inductive thinking
· Uncertain world with us failing to be predictive.
· Faith in a notion of objectivity (that is believing in the existence of an ultimate truth ).










The Truth of Popper (3)

Popper claimed that science only profits from scientists who are critical toward own thoughts and those of others. Not from ego's searching for new evidence to support own theories.
For Popper a theory consists of a set of statements, both of which are necessary ingredients of a complete explanation. They are:
(1) universal statements about the character of natural laws. (Mind that this is absolutism)
(2) singular statements, or predictions, derived from universal statements and 'initial conditions'.

Two eye opening statements:
(1) Einstein (1940): physics has no theoretical basis. (2) Henkt (2005): This is NOT a failure, evolution = physics, and logic = rearranging.

'Rational' logic and its engineering version 'calculus' are fine tools to archive 'rational' skill. You can build 'railways of the future' that way. But when you want to be creative and basically want to change tranportation the thinking in term of 'continuity' as in 'calculus' brings you nowhere. Engineering should use every logic.
And as ethics for social life 'rationalism' is simply disastrous.

Popper hated facism and fights historicism which he saw as it's main intellectual pilar. According to Popper historicism leads to the dangerous 'Historicist Doctrine of the Social Sciences': (a) that the principal task of the social sciences is to make sociological and politic predictions (b) that the task of politics to smoothen the way to the predicted future This inevitably leads in his view to totalitarianism and authoritarianism - i.e. centralised government and large-scale social planning.
The late Popper work is dominated by biological themes. He revived evolutionary epistemology (evolutionary theory of knowledge or ideology) . This approach to knowledge was very popular in the 19th century. Evolutionary theory of knowledge applies Darwin's principle of natural selection to all forms of knowledge. It is concerned with problem-solving given selective conditions. This contrasts with more modern theories of knowledge based on belief or probability.

So Karl Popper's thought can be seen as a more sophisticated version of Logical Positivism (Vienna Circle). He believes in the tradition of the French Enlightenment (rationalism) that nature has only one basic set of general rules (absolutism). In this he was the most famous adversory of his equally famous collegues Ludwig Wittgenstein and Thomas Kuhn (see Popper-Kuhn debate). Like their relativism Popper's absolutism is a belief. As such it can't be wrong. You can only observe that in evolution relativism developed after absolutism. It looks like relativism at least added something that was not in absolutism . And the weak part of old fashioned absolutism brought us dictators (dogma's), gods (religions) and fatalism.

Popper showed that in general he had sympathetic ideas. But MAYBE he overestimated the possibility of change with only a linear progressing science. Now Popper became THE important scientific icon for further introducing of ABSTRACT thinking in SOCIAL science.
Popper followed the dubious thinking of Immanuel Kant, that resulted in slavery, apartheid, nazism and two world wars.









Popper, Socrates and Aristotle
Popper places himself explicitly in the liberal tradition. He did a fine job in criticizing totalitarian politics, but his ideas about freedom as found in "All life is Problem Solving" are prescriptive and dubious.
Popper took Socrates as example, because Plato pointed to the weaknesses of an 'open society' (power to the ignorant: the beast democracy) Nevertheless I think Popper was much closer to Aristotle. Socrates and Plato still used experience based common sense, Aristotle out of nothing invented 'understanding' based on 'reason'. Aristotle would have liked 'falsification' as arbitrator for what is 'objective' or 'subjective'.

Aristotle's father Nikomakhus was the physician to Amyntas, the father of Philip II of Macedon. Aristotle made anti-Persian propaganda,although he like most Greeks had a very high opinion on Cyrus. Aristotle supported the invasion of Persia, and at age 40 was hired by Philip of Macedon as tutor for his son Alexander. Did Aristotle's teachings inspire Alexander the Terrible to annihilate a Zoroastrian culture that saw life as The One, and saw 'reason' as complete fantasy?. Aristotle was ready to have Socrates killed, and if necessary also Plato.
In passing from Plato to Aristotle, we see a change in proven common sense behavior to the fantasy 'reason' (fully abstract). Socrates and Plato observed that the herd animal 'human' needs leaders, not democracy of the herd. That's not totalitarianism, that's common sense.
Popper worried about Socrates and Plato seeing knowledge as by evolution proven behavior (intuition and common sense), expressed in wise men as leaders. Popper in the tradition of Immanuel Kant saw science as 'pure reason' that only needs an arbitror (like 'falsification').

Socrates quotes:
The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance (Zarah2nd: ignorance seen as shortage of proven intuition).
All human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice of them
I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

Aristotle quotes (Zarah2nd: Aristotle was a fine engineer, but his quotes show that he should have stayed far from social science)
We make war that we may live in peace. (Zarah2nd: The Western World in a nutshell).
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it (Zarah2nd: the fantasy 'reason').
Law is mind without reason. (Zarah2nd: the fantasy 'Law and Order').
The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature (Zarah2nd: The fantasy THE Moral values).
The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law. (Zarah2nd: The fantasy 'democracy')
The truth [needs] an arbitrator .... (Zarah2nd: only a Greek ?)
It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen (Zarah2nd: compromise.
Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth. (Zarah2nd: Fundamentalism. As 'good' citizen Aristotle accepted to have Socrates executed.).

It is part of my thesis that all our knowledge grows only through the correcting of our mistakes. Karl Popper in "Conjectures and Refutations"
 No offense but the above is a rational 'Control Theory -like' remark. It shows a trust in continuity of all things. But mistakes in discontinuous space can't be corrected through 'compromise' in small steps. Drifting away from common sense is exactly what changed Germans step by step into Nazis.









Aristotle's Dilemma

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle uses a short paradoxal argument to attack Plato's 'Doctrine of the Good'.
Paradoxal because it undermines his own fantasy 'eudaimonia'.

Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, 1096 a34-b4):
And one might ask the question, what in the world they mean by 'a thing itself', if in man himself and in a particular man the account of man is one and the same.
For in so far as they are men, they will in no respect differ; and if this is so, neither will there be a difference in so far as they are good.
But again it will not be good any the more for being eternal, since that which lasts long is no whiter than that which perishes in a day.
Aristotle here denies ages of experience, resulting in common sense BEHAVIOR.
And Aristotle introduces his own unproven fantasy 'good spirit' or "eudaimonia".

It helps to realize that Aristotle was the tutor of the ancient 'Hitler variant' Alexander the Terrible.
A kind of ancient clone of Hitler's scientific adviser Dr. Wernher von Braun, brilliant engineer but in social ethics 'ready to fly with all dominant winds'. Yes in the 20th century after WWII US goverment made Von Braun head of NASA. Something to wonder about...

Start 21st century that results in 'scientists' who consider 'reality' not as a thing in itself (The One), but as The Duo 'spiritually good' and 'spiritually evil' (two times a thing in itself). But now consider 'rationality' as 'a good thing in itself'.
And such 'scientists' never wonder about the basics behind 'rationality'.
The tricky thing is that Plato's 'good' comes from ONE reality and was preferred as PROVEN behavior.

The ancient Plato was a freethinker, grown up in Greek direct democracy (an open debate culture). His student Aristotle grew up in the household of Philip in Macedon, because his father worked as scientist for Philip. Aristotle's birth fell at the start of the terror reign of Philip over Athens, and never experienced honest open debate.
To integrate 'slavery a la Philip' Aristotle created a broken reality consisting of his own unproven fantasy 'good' (eudaimonia) and inherently a 'bad'.
As such he stated that in his 'family' some members were not seen by him as part of this 'family'. They didn't play his (eudaimonia) game .
One of them was Plato. This egoistic view many ages later in the 21st century results in 'War on Terrorism' and 'fascism'.

Aristotle quote: law is mind without reason. (Zarah2nd: COMPLETELY missing the point that laws used to be intuition [experience] made into rules)










Verisimilitude and Fallibilism

Popper: one theory can be closer to THE TRUTH, or has greater verisimilitude.. Not worth discussing. This verisimilitude still very 'rational' presumes THE TRUTH. This is absolutism 'rationally' disguised.

Fallibilism: Admitting that human knowledge may be mistaken, even if human beings have good evidence and have done their sincere 'RATIONAL' best. VERY tricky is that still is presumed (in hidden way) that there are natural laws. And that our human 'rational' assumptions make sense (humanism).
Doing sincere 'rational' best means nothing, just like 'rationally 'falsifying means nothing. The honest admittal: I may be 'rationally' wrong attracts sympathy , but stealthily hides that truth is much more than only 'rational'. And that 'right' and 'wrong' or 'good' and 'evil' are 'rational' concepts.

Even more treacherous than 'fallibility' is the 'rational' hallucination: 'theory triumphs over experience'.
Or in reality exchanging fact and fiction in the 'rational' doctrine (or the 'rational' religion) and arrogantly and fundamentally believing that fantasy even beats 'fallibilism'.
That results in replacing awfully complex and effective living products of evolution with boring predictable machines. Of course in the end machines are living beings too, but the next at least 100 ages very dum ones.
Popper's rationality principle: Persons act 'appropriately' or 'reasonably' given the situation in which they find themselves. (free will limited by 'rationality')
Imagine that you're an astronaut on his/her way to an unknown planet with earthlike conditions, but with huge deserts. You should in Multiple Choice decide for a companion. Either a shovel with one tank of gasoline, or a camel with one week of food, able to give love and a tremendous survivor.
Imagine that you're an Israelian soldier. You should make a existential DECISION after religious orders. Either without hesitation follow tradition. And Hebrew tradition just like Muhammedan Islam is quite agressive, and now able to hide behind the rational excuse "there must be (rational) law and (rational) order". And in a war on terrorisn with high tech weapons kill a few hundred civilians (including children) and ruin a neighbouring culture because 2 of your fellow soldiers are kidnapped (but alife).
....Or use COMMON SENSE.
Then read internet clopedia Wikepedia:
The Popper is a small, blue biped lifeform in the computer game X-COM: Apocalypse. It is basically a self-delivering biological warhead with the sole purpose of charging at an enemy at a high speed and exploding. It is also likely to blow up when hit by piercing weapons, struck by an explosion or shockwave, ....
Let's finish with some recent quotes of the very common sense anthropologist/biologist Stephen Jay Gould:
a) Creationist critics often charge that evolution cannot be tested, and therefore cannot be viewed as a properly scientific subject at all. This [..] is rhetorical nonsense.
b) No rational order of divine intelligence unites species. The natural ties are genealogical along contingent pathways of history.
c) Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview - nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty.
d) The fundamentalists, by 'knowing' the answers before they start (examining evolution), and then forcing nature into the straitjacket of their discredited preconceptions, lie outside the domain of science-or of any honest intellectual inquiry.
free to copy, only please mention this overview as reference.

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