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I am not advocating for Blanchard in any way, in case I'm giving that impression, just talking about Popper in general. Thought experiments, unless something p
by mmooss 2y ago
I am not advocating for Blanchard in any way, in case I'm giving that impression, just talking about Popper in general.
Thought experiments, unless something provable like mathematics, are worse than useless, they are deceiving. There is an evil demon that deceives us, that we cannot overcome.
The only source of knowledge is to go out and ask, 'what do you mean?' Thanks for answering!
- wizzwizz4 2y agoYou're not giving that impression, but your criticism was warranted. (I don't understand falsification as well as I thought I did.) I wouldn't quite say that thought experiments are always deceiving (Albert Einstein found them quite useful, for example), but they are very parodiable. https://existentialcomics.com/comic/183 https://existentialcomics.com/comic/183 > "Did he just… not see any of us?" "Rationalists are terrible at seeing stuff. He probably just tried to deduce who was here from reason alone."
- mmooss 2y ago> criticism Really, purely curiosity. At first, one thing I was wondering was if some new theory might have caught hold in some corner of academia, for example. Then I wondered if I misunderstood falsification myself. > Einstein found them quite useful, for example He is why I made the exception for math. His 'experiment' used math (exclusively?) - and wasn't relied upon until confirmed empirically.