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I put ‘we’ because institutions like legal systems are fundamentally collaborative, unless enacted by a total dictator. Popper’s grandparents were Jewish and h

by dotsam 3y ago

I put ‘we’ because institutions like legal systems are fundamentally collaborative, unless enacted by a total dictator. Popper’s grandparents were Jewish and he wrote one of his major works which explores these topics, The Open Society and Its Enemies, as an urgent response to the totalitarian ideologies and atrocities of WWII. Totalitarian ideologies do not permit open, critical pursuit of the truth, and so they cannot create knowledge to solve problems in an unbounded way. Free, open societies can, where ideas can be freely exchanged and people have the freedom to criticise institutions without fear of violence. The values of an open society are the values needed for knowledge growth. And the reason we want more knowledge is to solve our problems. I am wondering if it would have been better if I had written ‘solving problems is on balance a good thing’? Or do you think solving problems is on balance bad, or perhaps neutral?

tivert 3y ago
> I am wondering if it would have been better if I had written ‘solving problems is on balance a good thing’? Or do you think solving problems is on balance bad, or perhaps neutral? I don't think the "solving problems" angle escapes subjectivity. It seems like just obscured subjectivity.
- dotsam 3y ago
  It sounds like we both want to say that the holocaust is objectively wrong, not merely subjectively wrong. I don't know where best to start but I do think knowledge and problem solving are key to the answer. There is objective truth about the physical world, and we work towards it by error-correcting and replacing our bad explanations with better explanations. Errors and bad explanations cause us problems, and we create knowledge to solve them. Moral problems like the holocaust also require knowledge to solve. With more knowledge, we could have stopped the holocaust sooner. We can't just embrace ignorance and unreason and hope for the best, we need to create a continuous stream of knowledge to solve the continuous stream of problems we face. You can't just commit to any subjective moral values you feel like and hope to have continual success in knowledge creation. Unbounded knowledge creation requires commitment to moral values such as tolerance, openness to criticism and change, and respect for truth. Blind obedience to authority, rigid acceptance of dogma and commitment to infallible final solutions are all morally bad and limit our ability to make continual progress.

by dotsam 3y ago

tivert 3y ago

> I am wondering if it would have been better if I had written ‘solving problems is on balance a good thing’? Or do you think solving problems is on balance bad, or perhaps neutral? I don't think the "solving problems" angle escapes subjectivity. It seems like just obscured subjectivity.

dotsam 3y ago
It sounds like we both want to say that the holocaust is objectively wrong, not merely subjectively wrong. I don't know where best to start but I do think knowledge and problem solving are key to the answer. There is objective truth about the physical world, and we work towards it by error-correcting and replacing our bad explanations with better explanations. Errors and bad explanations cause us problems, and we create knowledge to solve them. Moral problems like the holocaust also require knowledge to solve. With more knowledge, we could have stopped the holocaust sooner. We can't just embrace ignorance and unreason and hope for the best, we need to create a continuous stream of knowledge to solve the continuous stream of problems we face. You can't just commit to any subjective moral values you feel like and hope to have continual success in knowledge creation. Unbounded knowledge creation requires commitment to moral values such as tolerance, openness to criticism and change, and respect for truth. Blind obedience to authority, rigid acceptance of dogma and commitment to infallible final solutions are all morally bad and limit our ability to make continual progress.