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The Paradox of Karl Popper

147 points by lainon 8y ago

johnalamos 8y ago
can someone plz give a summary ?
trukterious 8y ago
Popper sounds like a dude. We shouldn't confuse this apparent irascibility with dogmatism. He was passionate about his ideas: he published them and read criticism of them. He changed his mind about the testability of evolution, and other things. Intellectual humility is not the same quality as personal meekness and geniuses have always had difficult personalities. Philosophers doubly so. How could it be otherwise? How can one create new stuff if one is too agreeable and too susceptible to groupthink? Btw, the reason falsifiability doesn't have to be falsifiable (by experiment) is that it isn't a scientific idea; it's a philosophical one. It is potentially 'falsifiable' by criticism, however. The best modern Popper proponent is David Deutsch. See his books The Fabric of Reality and The Beginning of Infinity. They're both packed with interesting ideas and arguments. He says that Popper did indeed solve the problem of induction. And here's a recent paper of his on the logic of experimental testing: https://arxiv.org/abs/1508.02048 https://arxiv.org/abs/1508.02048
- raverbashing 8y ago
  > it's a philosophical one. It is potentially 'falsifiable' by criticism, however Agreed. I think the main issue is not with the idea itself of the scientific method, rather than the practical implications and its limitations. - The main idea is a qualitative one. It doesn't consider all the statistical can of worms about reproducibility. - Real world experiments rarely reproduce perfectly/exactly. The more the experiment involves more variables (or unknown variables) you can detect an effect but its magnitude might vary. - Not everything can be reproduced, not everything can be measured perfectly, hence the "study of knowledge" needs to be able to handle those cases, and not just bury their head in the sand and go "la la la this is not scientific let's ignore it"
  - nonbel 8y ago
    Scientists were reproducing each others work before statistics was a thing. Whatever "statistical can of worms" there is regarding it sounds like a problem with the statistics being used rather than science.
    - raverbashing 8y ago
      > Scientists were reproducing each others work before statistics was a thing They were also doing that before Popper was a thing. > Whatever "statistical can of worms" there is regarding it sounds like a problem with the statistics being used rather than science. Not really. It's easier to prove "Drug X cures dying from disease Y 99% of the time" than "Drug X solves issue Y 30% of the time only in individuals with a certain combination of characteristics".
      - nonbel 8y ago
        > Scientists were reproducing each others work before statistics was a thing They were also doing that before Popper was a thing. Yes, but not sure why you are pointing that out. > Whatever "statistical can of worms" there is regarding it sounds like a problem with the statistics being used rather than science. Not really. It's easier to prove "Drug X cures dying from disease Y 99% of the time" than "Drug X solves issue Y 30% of the time only in individuals with a certain combination of characteristics". If you had a complete understanding you would only apply the drug when it would work and have 100% success rate.
        raverbashing 8y ago
        > If you had a complete understanding you would only apply the drug when it would work and have 100% success rate. There is no way to have 100% understanding of a specific person to have a designer drug for every condition. Not even Aspirin is 100% effective nor we have a complete understanding of how it works (though there were some discoveries on that regard around 20yrs ago, I think) It's hard for physics and it's impossible for biology (and other fields) to come up with completely accurate predictions.
- keithpeter 8y ago
  Possibly of interest. Miller was teaching at Warwick university some decades ago. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1983/04/28/the-karl-popper-problem/ https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1983/04/28/the-karl-popper-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Miller_(philosopher) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Miller_(philosopher)
- amelius 8y ago
  Relevant quote: > The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
- kashyapc 8y ago
  Speaking of David Deutsch, the fine man needs more visibility. To get a taste of his thoughts, might want to listen to the podcast[1], Surviving the Cosmos, between Deutsch and Sam Harris. (They did a second podcast together as well, but I somehow have a stronger memory of the first one.) [1] https://samharris.org/podcasts/surviving-the-cosmos/ https://samharris.org/podcasts/surviving-the-cosmos/
  - jazzkingrt 8y ago
    This is amazing thank you.
- rexpop 8y ago
  > geniuses have always had difficult personalities Not sure that's true.
  - trukterious 8y ago
    There were exceptions. For instance, David Hume is reputed to have been an affable fellow. But we nearly all of us underestimate how much creativity and energy is expended in trying to be normal (or to appear normal, which is much the same thing).
blueprint 8y ago
TIL proving something is not true is not proving the negative to be true. Not.
- escherplex 8y ago
  For the fun of it, try an embedded factoid: 'blueprint' is happy to have committed some atrocity X (without negating X)
  - blueprint 8y ago
    Huh? Do you know what happy means
    - escherplex 8y ago
      Nah, that's a corollary to Popper's observation of a problem with all 'definitions' in that terms are defined using terms which themselves remain undefined which points to an implicit universal subjectivity, which contemporary phenomenology inspired by Husserl attempts to skirt. The above was a counterargument used on a HS hacker classmate's contention that any and all questions could be formulated requiring only a yes/no true/false answer. Prefixing a malicious factoid with a requisite subjective judgment and requiring a categorical response illustrates an ill-formed [but possible] question incapable of being affirmed or negated by any respondent.
      - blueprint 8y ago
        As long as happiness and subjectivity are not well defined by the asker, answers to questions formulated using such definitions necessarily seem to them to be ill-defined...
jimhefferon 8y ago
> pseudo-scientific theories, like astrology and Freudian psychoanalysis Kind of a bold take from SciAm.
- Buldak 8y ago
  I gather Popper criticized those theories himself, so you could read this as simply a description of his arguments, rather than an endorsement.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  No, it's not. You're inappropriately cutting off the sentence: "He is best-known for the principle of falsification, a means of distinguishing pseudo-scientific theories, like astrology and Freudian psychoanalysis, from genuine ones, like quantum mechanics and general relativity." Falsification is critical to 'real' science, as otherwise the value of what is said rests solely on how it is said rather than what is said. For instance I could say that there's an invisible massless gremlin resting on your shoulder, but you can't tell it's there as it only interacts with other invisible massless gremlins and gravity. Obviously nobody would believe this, because it sounds absurd. But that's not why you shouldn't believe it. The reason you shouldn't believe it is believe it is because it's not falsifiable. You're left trying to prove that there is no invisible massless gremlin on your shoulder, which is something you cannot do. Predictiveness is of course also critical, but predictions that cannot be falsified are irrelevant. For instance 100 wrong astrology predictions in a row does not falsify astrology. It just means 100 predictions ended up being not true for some individual or another. But because we can happily ignore the times when predictions of astrology are wrong means you ought also be happy to ignore all of the times that it's right - as it's saying nothing where accuracy matters.
melling 8y ago
Nassim Taleb, the author of Fooled by Randomness and the Black Swan, is a fan of Popper.
- mulligan 8y ago
  > Popper abhorred philosophers who argue that scientists adhere to theories for cultural and political rather than rational reasons.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Well, he might abhorred them, but he was empirically wrong in tons of cases on the matter.
- PKop 8y ago
  An excerpt of his thoughts on this subject, very interesting to contemplate the political implications of this: "The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority" [0] [0] https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict... "...Clearly can democracy –by definition the majority — tolerate enemies? The question is as follows: “ Would you agree to deny the freedom of speech to every political party that has in its charter the banning the freedom of speech?” Let’s go one step further, “Should a society that has elected to be tolerant be intolerant about intolerance?”
- pvitz 8y ago
  And so is also Popper's student George Soros.
yters 8y ago
I never understood how falsificationism is supposed to workaround the shortcoming of inductivism. Say I have coin that I predict will always flip heads. The first flip is tails. Hypothesis falsified! But, that still tells me nothing about the future if the coin is fair. For falsification to work, we have to assume a priori there is not a uniform distribution over events. In which case, we can do something like Solmonoff induction anyways. So, it looks like falsification is only useful if induction is also useful. In which case, falsification is not a workaround for induction's problems.
- lisper 8y ago
  Falsification is only a small part of the story. The other part, the much more important part, is explanatory power. David Deutsch does an excellent job of explaining this in his book The Fabric of Reality, mainly in chapter 7. Highly recommended. Induction, BTW, is completely invalid as a mode of reasoning (speaking here of logical induction, not mathematical induction). You can flip a coin 10,000 times and have it come up heads every time and still not be able to validly conclude that it will come up heads every time (there are a lot of ancillary assumptions that go into the deductive inference, none of which are justified). On the other hand, you can examine the coin, see that there are heads on both sides, and immediately conclude (soundly) that it will come up heads every time because you can provide an explanation: one of the two sides must come up, and they are both heads!
  - yters 8y ago
    That's just pushing the problem up a level. Adding an explanation is proposing a model for the coin's behavior. Regardless of the model proposed, and whether it is confirmed or refuted, if the coin is fair you learn nothing. On the other hand, if the coin is not fair, Solomonoff induction works.
    - lisper 8y ago
      > if the coin is fair you learn nothing. But that is simply because the theory that a coin is fair cannot be falsified with one data point. (Well, that's actually not quite true. It can't be falsified with a single data point which is "heads" or "tails". It could be falsified if the coin lands and breaks into two pieces revealing some internal mechanism that makes it unfair.) > if the coin is not fair, Solomonoff induction works. No, it doesn't. It is possible (given sufficient technology) to produce a coin that generates a sequence of flips that is indistinguishable from fair for any finite number N of flips, but which then produces HEADS forever after the Nth flip. Moreover, it is possible to know that this will happen without even flipping the coin!
13415 8y ago
As far as I remember, that was the worst article about a philosopher that I've ever read. The author is resentful and pretentious from the start to the end and tries his best to portray Popper as a kind of silly person. If you haven't read the article yet, my advice is not to read it.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  Thank you. Actionable comment. A+
- frabert 8y ago
  I absolutely don't agree and have not found the author trying to shed that light on Popper. Quite the opposite in fact, I felt it was just the description of a rightly self-confident and exuberant philosopher.
- ecocentrik 8y ago
  > tries his best to portray Popper as a kind of silly person. The author seems to have pulled the bulk of the article from 25 year old notes. He doesn't hide his own youthful naïveté at assuming that a taxi driver would know directions to the home of a philosopher. He also preserves what I'd imagine are embarrassing moments like Popper's reaction to his "big question". What you consider silly, might just be an issue of narrative style. I personally think it captures the wit and home life of an energetic 90 year old philosopher. What well adjusted human being doesn't expect to have a slightly disorganization existence near the end of a very long life?
  - jessriedel 8y ago
    > He doesn't hide his own youthful naïveté at assuming that a taxi driver would know directions to the home of a philosopher. Huh? The author specifically asked for directions and was surprised when he was (unjustifiably) assured he wouldn't need them. > I personally think it captures the wit and home life of an energetic 90 year old philosopher... 13415 isn't saying the author succeeds at making Popper look silly. Rather, the author is attempting and failing to do so.
phyller 8y ago
Ha, I didn't know about him before. Sounds really interesting. Reminds me a lot of Socrates. I have recently been reading the classics about Socrates and was surprised to realize that a) his main mission seemed to be to show people they didn't know as much as they thought b) he was basically a huge troll, even if he was usually correct c) he was such a huge troll that the Athenians actually put him to death for it via a public trial If our culture didn't have certain moral qualms that the Athenians didn't have too much trouble brushing aside, I imagine Karl's career would have been cut a lot shorter, along with quite a few other philosophers.
- stareatgoats 8y ago
  Popper is immensely influential in science, well worth a closer study. Agree there are some similarities with Socrates but as far as I know there was no drive to have Popper drink poison (a tribute to the imprint of that ancient Athenian on modern society maybe). Except perhaps in communist countries, the expressed antithesis of Popper's "open society".
  - soldeace 8y ago
    > Except perhaps in communist countries, the expressed antithesis of Popper's "open society". I see your point, and I agree, but lest we address the wrong concept, the term you're looking for is 'dictatorial'. Capitalism, just like Communism, produced bloody repressive regimes that were no ground to 'open societies' (e.g. almost every South American country from the 60's to 80's). History teaches us that we should keep our eyes open, for living in capitalist and oh-so-free countries today is simply no guarantee of 'open societies' tomorrow.
    - stareatgoats 8y ago
      OK, my bad. The expressed antithesis of Popper's open society was dictatorship, not communism. There is little doubt that Popper saw communism (and even marxism) as expressions of that antithesis (i.e. by necessity leading to dictatorship), based on his own hard-earned experiences (and by no means questioned by Marxist-Leninists). But agree, capitalism is by convention the counterpart to communism in that habitually dichotomous concept of possible economic models, but does not guarantee freedom from dictatorship as you correctly point out.
bikenaga 8y ago
The first chapter "Conjectural Knowledge" of his book "Objective Knowledge" is a discussion of his proposed solution to the problem of induction. His theories of science (and in particular, of falsification) are explained in his book "Conjectures and Refutations". I read it years ago when I was in grad school. Popper's writing is clear and jargon-free, so anyone who is interested in his ideas should take a look at some of the original sources. Finally, "Wittgenstein's Poker" by David Edmonds and John Eidinow takes an argument between Wittgenstein and Popper as a starting point for exploring their lives and work.
bo1024 8y ago
This was a fun read, but I found the premise of the "paradox" frustrating. I get that it's kind of funny how the falsfiability guy is passionate and dogmatic about his views. But taking it seriously that this is a contradiction and asking "is falsification falsifiable" is a basic misunderstanding. It reminds me of popular misinterpretations of Godel's theorem. The author seemed to not understand Popper's response, which was dead on of course. The type of thing that can be falsified is a scientific theory that makes empirical predictions. Falsification is a prescription for how to do science. It can be argued against from a philosophical standpoint, but it makes no predictions and cannot be proven wrong by observation. It's like asking if the 4th Commandment can be falsified -- the compiler gives a type error. Again, enjoyable read, but this aspect was disappointing.
- mactintyre 8y ago
  Nice response; love the 4th commandment point. I found the author to be on the attack, from the beginning, with the whole taxi driver / address thing. Who cares? Plus the first driver even knew the street. Then the author seems pathetic here: "Peering searchingly into my eyes, he asked if one of his critics had persuaded me to pose the question. Yes, I lied." Why lie? Have some guts, like Popper evidently does, and believe in what you want to ask. Popper at this time was 90 years old, surely not putting his best foot forward. It was a poor essay overall, IMO, but I love to read anything about Popper.
PunchTornado 8y ago
> He was stooped and surprisingly short. I had assumed the author of such autocratic prose would be tall. Thanks for this valuable information. What other physical traits did you assume from someone's writings?
8bitsrule 8y ago
Funny, funny stuff! Popper glared at me. Then his expression softened, and he placed his hand on mine. “I don't want to hurt you,” he said gently, “but it is a silly question." Very sly form of argument, that.
chicob 8y ago
This whole interview sounds a lot like someone finally getting the courage to get even with an elderly man by exposing some petty aspects of his homely habits while only superficially mentioning his work. It seems the most detailed and thorough paragraph is the one devoted to the spelling of 'Popperazzi'.
wuzamarine 8y ago
Popper is a paradox because his falsifiability violates the math Law of Non Contradiction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics#Mathematics_as_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics#Mathematics_as_sci... Philosophy has no place in Science. The Scientific Method is based on 'principles' and theorems/math based not philosophies. Karl is the real inventor of modern pseudoscience (lipstick on a pig). The final cog in The Scientific Method -> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK97153/#ch2.s3 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK97153/#ch2.s3 ^^hasn't changed since it sparked the entire Industrial Revolution and still 100% effective as is. .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction

147 points by lainon 8y ago

can someone plz give a summary ?

Popper sounds like a dude. We shouldn't confuse this apparent irascibility with dogmatism. He was passionate about his ideas: he published them and read criticism of them. He changed his mind about the testability of evolution, and other things. Intellectual humility is not the same quality as personal meekness and geniuses have always had difficult personalities. Philosophers doubly so. How could it be otherwise? How can one create new stuff if one is too agreeable and too susceptible to groupthink? Btw, the reason falsifiability doesn't have to be falsifiable (by experiment) is that it isn't a scientific idea; it's a philosophical one. It is potentially 'falsifiable' by criticism, however. The best modern Popper proponent is David Deutsch. See his books The Fabric of Reality and The Beginning of Infinity. They're both packed with interesting ideas and arguments. He says that Popper did indeed solve the problem of induction. And here's a recent paper of his on the logic of experimental testing: https://arxiv.org/abs/1508.02048 https://arxiv.org/abs/1508.02048

raverbashing 8y ago
> it's a philosophical one. It is potentially 'falsifiable' by criticism, however Agreed. I think the main issue is not with the idea itself of the scientific method, rather than the practical implications and its limitations. - The main idea is a qualitative one. It doesn't consider all the statistical can of worms about reproducibility. - Real world experiments rarely reproduce perfectly/exactly. The more the experiment involves more variables (or unknown variables) you can detect an effect but its magnitude might vary. - Not everything can be reproduced, not everything can be measured perfectly, hence the "study of knowledge" needs to be able to handle those cases, and not just bury their head in the sand and go "la la la this is not scientific let's ignore it"
- nonbel 8y ago
  Scientists were reproducing each others work before statistics was a thing. Whatever "statistical can of worms" there is regarding it sounds like a problem with the statistics being used rather than science.
  - raverbashing 8y ago
    > Scientists were reproducing each others work before statistics was a thing They were also doing that before Popper was a thing. > Whatever "statistical can of worms" there is regarding it sounds like a problem with the statistics being used rather than science. Not really. It's easier to prove "Drug X cures dying from disease Y 99% of the time" than "Drug X solves issue Y 30% of the time only in individuals with a certain combination of characteristics".
    - nonbel 8y ago
      > Scientists were reproducing each others work before statistics was a thing They were also doing that before Popper was a thing. Yes, but not sure why you are pointing that out. > Whatever "statistical can of worms" there is regarding it sounds like a problem with the statistics being used rather than science. Not really. It's easier to prove "Drug X cures dying from disease Y 99% of the time" than "Drug X solves issue Y 30% of the time only in individuals with a certain combination of characteristics". If you had a complete understanding you would only apply the drug when it would work and have 100% success rate.
      - raverbashing 8y ago
        > If you had a complete understanding you would only apply the drug when it would work and have 100% success rate. There is no way to have 100% understanding of a specific person to have a designer drug for every condition. Not even Aspirin is 100% effective nor we have a complete understanding of how it works (though there were some discoveries on that regard around 20yrs ago, I think) It's hard for physics and it's impossible for biology (and other fields) to come up with completely accurate predictions.
keithpeter 8y ago
Possibly of interest. Miller was teaching at Warwick university some decades ago. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1983/04/28/the-karl-popper-problem/ https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1983/04/28/the-karl-popper-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Miller_(philosopher) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Miller_(philosopher)
amelius 8y ago
Relevant quote: > The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
kashyapc 8y ago
Speaking of David Deutsch, the fine man needs more visibility. To get a taste of his thoughts, might want to listen to the podcast[1], Surviving the Cosmos, between Deutsch and Sam Harris. (They did a second podcast together as well, but I somehow have a stronger memory of the first one.) [1] https://samharris.org/podcasts/surviving-the-cosmos/ https://samharris.org/podcasts/surviving-the-cosmos/
- jazzkingrt 8y ago
  This is amazing thank you.
rexpop 8y ago
> geniuses have always had difficult personalities Not sure that's true.
- trukterious 8y ago
  There were exceptions. For instance, David Hume is reputed to have been an affable fellow. But we nearly all of us underestimate how much creativity and energy is expended in trying to be normal (or to appear normal, which is much the same thing).

blueprint 8y ago

TIL proving something is not true is not proving the negative to be true. Not.

escherplex 8y ago
For the fun of it, try an embedded factoid: 'blueprint' is happy to have committed some atrocity X (without negating X)
- blueprint 8y ago
  Huh? Do you know what happy means
  - escherplex 8y ago
    Nah, that's a corollary to Popper's observation of a problem with all 'definitions' in that terms are defined using terms which themselves remain undefined which points to an implicit universal subjectivity, which contemporary phenomenology inspired by Husserl attempts to skirt. The above was a counterargument used on a HS hacker classmate's contention that any and all questions could be formulated requiring only a yes/no true/false answer. Prefixing a malicious factoid with a requisite subjective judgment and requiring a categorical response illustrates an ill-formed [but possible] question incapable of being affirmed or negated by any respondent.
    - blueprint 8y ago
      As long as happiness and subjectivity are not well defined by the asker, answers to questions formulated using such definitions necessarily seem to them to be ill-defined...

jimhefferon 8y ago

> pseudo-scientific theories, like astrology and Freudian psychoanalysis Kind of a bold take from SciAm.

Buldak 8y ago
I gather Popper criticized those theories himself, so you could read this as simply a description of his arguments, rather than an endorsement.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
No, it's not. You're inappropriately cutting off the sentence: "He is best-known for the principle of falsification, a means of distinguishing pseudo-scientific theories, like astrology and Freudian psychoanalysis, from genuine ones, like quantum mechanics and general relativity." Falsification is critical to 'real' science, as otherwise the value of what is said rests solely on how it is said rather than what is said. For instance I could say that there's an invisible massless gremlin resting on your shoulder, but you can't tell it's there as it only interacts with other invisible massless gremlins and gravity. Obviously nobody would believe this, because it sounds absurd. But that's not why you shouldn't believe it. The reason you shouldn't believe it is believe it is because it's not falsifiable. You're left trying to prove that there is no invisible massless gremlin on your shoulder, which is something you cannot do. Predictiveness is of course also critical, but predictions that cannot be falsified are irrelevant. For instance 100 wrong astrology predictions in a row does not falsify astrology. It just means 100 predictions ended up being not true for some individual or another. But because we can happily ignore the times when predictions of astrology are wrong means you ought also be happy to ignore all of the times that it's right - as it's saying nothing where accuracy matters.

melling 8y ago

Nassim Taleb, the author of Fooled by Randomness and the Black Swan, is a fan of Popper.

mulligan 8y ago
> Popper abhorred philosophers who argue that scientists adhere to theories for cultural and political rather than rational reasons.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Well, he might abhorred them, but he was empirically wrong in tons of cases on the matter.
PKop 8y ago
An excerpt of his thoughts on this subject, very interesting to contemplate the political implications of this: "The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority" [0] [0] https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict... "...Clearly can democracy –by definition the majority — tolerate enemies? The question is as follows: “ Would you agree to deny the freedom of speech to every political party that has in its charter the banning the freedom of speech?” Let’s go one step further, “Should a society that has elected to be tolerant be intolerant about intolerance?”
pvitz 8y ago
And so is also Popper's student George Soros.

yters 8y ago

I never understood how falsificationism is supposed to workaround the shortcoming of inductivism. Say I have coin that I predict will always flip heads. The first flip is tails. Hypothesis falsified! But, that still tells me nothing about the future if the coin is fair. For falsification to work, we have to assume a priori there is not a uniform distribution over events. In which case, we can do something like Solmonoff induction anyways. So, it looks like falsification is only useful if induction is also useful. In which case, falsification is not a workaround for induction's problems.

lisper 8y ago
Falsification is only a small part of the story. The other part, the much more important part, is explanatory power. David Deutsch does an excellent job of explaining this in his book The Fabric of Reality, mainly in chapter 7. Highly recommended. Induction, BTW, is completely invalid as a mode of reasoning (speaking here of logical induction, not mathematical induction). You can flip a coin 10,000 times and have it come up heads every time and still not be able to validly conclude that it will come up heads every time (there are a lot of ancillary assumptions that go into the deductive inference, none of which are justified). On the other hand, you can examine the coin, see that there are heads on both sides, and immediately conclude (soundly) that it will come up heads every time because you can provide an explanation: one of the two sides must come up, and they are both heads!
- yters 8y ago
  That's just pushing the problem up a level. Adding an explanation is proposing a model for the coin's behavior. Regardless of the model proposed, and whether it is confirmed or refuted, if the coin is fair you learn nothing. On the other hand, if the coin is not fair, Solomonoff induction works.
  - lisper 8y ago
    > if the coin is fair you learn nothing. But that is simply because the theory that a coin is fair cannot be falsified with one data point. (Well, that's actually not quite true. It can't be falsified with a single data point which is "heads" or "tails". It could be falsified if the coin lands and breaks into two pieces revealing some internal mechanism that makes it unfair.) > if the coin is not fair, Solomonoff induction works. No, it doesn't. It is possible (given sufficient technology) to produce a coin that generates a sequence of flips that is indistinguishable from fair for any finite number N of flips, but which then produces HEADS forever after the Nth flip. Moreover, it is possible to know that this will happen without even flipping the coin!

13415 8y ago

As far as I remember, that was the worst article about a philosopher that I've ever read. The author is resentful and pretentious from the start to the end and tries his best to portray Popper as a kind of silly person. If you haven't read the article yet, my advice is not to read it.

scarejunba 8y ago
Thank you. Actionable comment. A+
frabert 8y ago
I absolutely don't agree and have not found the author trying to shed that light on Popper. Quite the opposite in fact, I felt it was just the description of a rightly self-confident and exuberant philosopher.
ecocentrik 8y ago
> tries his best to portray Popper as a kind of silly person. The author seems to have pulled the bulk of the article from 25 year old notes. He doesn't hide his own youthful naïveté at assuming that a taxi driver would know directions to the home of a philosopher. He also preserves what I'd imagine are embarrassing moments like Popper's reaction to his "big question". What you consider silly, might just be an issue of narrative style. I personally think it captures the wit and home life of an energetic 90 year old philosopher. What well adjusted human being doesn't expect to have a slightly disorganization existence near the end of a very long life?
- jessriedel 8y ago
  > He doesn't hide his own youthful naïveté at assuming that a taxi driver would know directions to the home of a philosopher. Huh? The author specifically asked for directions and was surprised when he was (unjustifiably) assured he wouldn't need them. > I personally think it captures the wit and home life of an energetic 90 year old philosopher... 13415 isn't saying the author succeeds at making Popper look silly. Rather, the author is attempting and failing to do so.

phyller 8y ago

Ha, I didn't know about him before. Sounds really interesting. Reminds me a lot of Socrates. I have recently been reading the classics about Socrates and was surprised to realize that a) his main mission seemed to be to show people they didn't know as much as they thought b) he was basically a huge troll, even if he was usually correct c) he was such a huge troll that the Athenians actually put him to death for it via a public trial If our culture didn't have certain moral qualms that the Athenians didn't have too much trouble brushing aside, I imagine Karl's career would have been cut a lot shorter, along with quite a few other philosophers.

stareatgoats 8y ago
Popper is immensely influential in science, well worth a closer study. Agree there are some similarities with Socrates but as far as I know there was no drive to have Popper drink poison (a tribute to the imprint of that ancient Athenian on modern society maybe). Except perhaps in communist countries, the expressed antithesis of Popper's "open society".
- soldeace 8y ago
  > Except perhaps in communist countries, the expressed antithesis of Popper's "open society". I see your point, and I agree, but lest we address the wrong concept, the term you're looking for is 'dictatorial'. Capitalism, just like Communism, produced bloody repressive regimes that were no ground to 'open societies' (e.g. almost every South American country from the 60's to 80's). History teaches us that we should keep our eyes open, for living in capitalist and oh-so-free countries today is simply no guarantee of 'open societies' tomorrow.
  - stareatgoats 8y ago
    OK, my bad. The expressed antithesis of Popper's open society was dictatorship, not communism. There is little doubt that Popper saw communism (and even marxism) as expressions of that antithesis (i.e. by necessity leading to dictatorship), based on his own hard-earned experiences (and by no means questioned by Marxist-Leninists). But agree, capitalism is by convention the counterpart to communism in that habitually dichotomous concept of possible economic models, but does not guarantee freedom from dictatorship as you correctly point out.

bikenaga 8y ago

The first chapter "Conjectural Knowledge" of his book "Objective Knowledge" is a discussion of his proposed solution to the problem of induction. His theories of science (and in particular, of falsification) are explained in his book "Conjectures and Refutations". I read it years ago when I was in grad school. Popper's writing is clear and jargon-free, so anyone who is interested in his ideas should take a look at some of the original sources. Finally, "Wittgenstein's Poker" by David Edmonds and John Eidinow takes an argument between Wittgenstein and Popper as a starting point for exploring their lives and work.

bo1024 8y ago

This was a fun read, but I found the premise of the "paradox" frustrating. I get that it's kind of funny how the falsfiability guy is passionate and dogmatic about his views. But taking it seriously that this is a contradiction and asking "is falsification falsifiable" is a basic misunderstanding. It reminds me of popular misinterpretations of Godel's theorem. The author seemed to not understand Popper's response, which was dead on of course. The type of thing that can be falsified is a scientific theory that makes empirical predictions. Falsification is a prescription for how to do science. It can be argued against from a philosophical standpoint, but it makes no predictions and cannot be proven wrong by observation. It's like asking if the 4th Commandment can be falsified -- the compiler gives a type error. Again, enjoyable read, but this aspect was disappointing.

mactintyre 8y ago
Nice response; love the 4th commandment point. I found the author to be on the attack, from the beginning, with the whole taxi driver / address thing. Who cares? Plus the first driver even knew the street. Then the author seems pathetic here: "Peering searchingly into my eyes, he asked if one of his critics had persuaded me to pose the question. Yes, I lied." Why lie? Have some guts, like Popper evidently does, and believe in what you want to ask. Popper at this time was 90 years old, surely not putting his best foot forward. It was a poor essay overall, IMO, but I love to read anything about Popper.

PunchTornado 8y ago

> He was stooped and surprisingly short. I had assumed the author of such autocratic prose would be tall. Thanks for this valuable information. What other physical traits did you assume from someone's writings?

8bitsrule 8y ago

Funny, funny stuff! Popper glared at me. Then his expression softened, and he placed his hand on mine. “I don't want to hurt you,” he said gently, “but it is a silly question." Very sly form of argument, that.

chicob 8y ago

This whole interview sounds a lot like someone finally getting the courage to get even with an elderly man by exposing some petty aspects of his homely habits while only superficially mentioning his work. It seems the most detailed and thorough paragraph is the one devoted to the spelling of 'Popperazzi'.

wuzamarine 8y ago

Popper is a paradox because his falsifiability violates the math Law of Non Contradiction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics#Mathematics_as_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics#Mathematics_as_sci... Philosophy has no place in Science. The Scientific Method is based on 'principles' and theorems/math based not philosophies. Karl is the real inventor of modern pseudoscience (lipstick on a pig). The final cog in The Scientific Method -> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK97153/#ch2.s3 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK97153/#ch2.s3 ^^hasn't changed since it sparked the entire Industrial Revolution and still 100% effective as is. .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction