Re: Exact Opposites

--- In [email protected], David Deutsch
<david.deutsch@...> wrote:
>
> On 16 Apr 2013, at 15:37, hibbsa hibbsa@... wrote:
>
> > The problem of, and for, Popper's analysis of Scientific
> > philosophy-to-date, was the low/peripheral status of such efforts, in
> > real terms of influence/importance in the practical shape Science was
> > taking. Some of the great pioneers of science had certainly wondered how
> > this miracle was happening. Trying to describe what they were intuiting
> > about this was a natural thing to do. In the event they fell short of
> > nailing the problem and Popper set them straight.
> >
> > But right or wrong, the significant point is in terms of the reality of
> > what was taking place in scientific discovery, other than to the
extent
> > they were in fact correct (which they weren't as Popper says),
>
> No, he didn't say that there's no extent to which "they were in fact correct", i.e. to which empiricism is true. Empiricism contains a great deal of truth, even though it also contains major mistakes.
>
> > had no
> > influence or bearing on how science was actually happening.
> >
> > Which of course was one of the conclusions Popper himself came to, but
> > what he meant was actually something else. That his epistomolgy of
> > knowledge held that all knowledge, including scientific, evolves by the
> > same mechanism.....thus to the extent progress was made in science, the
> > explanation was C&R regardless of whether they thought it was something
> > else.
> >
> > But Popper was seeing the causality along the lines of (1) Enlightenment
> > was a happy coincidence of developmetns (2) Criticism leR (3) Beginning
> > of infinity exponential progress was the result.....not because of but
> > despite the pioneers, whose ideas were comprehensively and exactly
> > wrong.
>
> No, they were partly true.
>
> It's not such a surprising 'coincidence'. The fact that empiricism contains a lot of truth is one reason. Another is that it is actually impossible to act according to empiricism. Therefore people who thought they were acting according to it were always doing something else. Sometimes they were doing science. This made it much easier for science to be done. Belief in empiricism began to be a significant drag on (some) sciences only later, when scientists such as Mach tried to take empiricism/inductivism more seriously, while methods of measurement and observation were becoming much more sophisticated.
>
> -- David Deutsch
>


Sure. I only characterized that aspect sloppily because I don't think
what I am saying depends on that sort of bad call from popper. A bad
habit on my part, but I would say he was a very nuanced guy the more so
the more importantly he viewed whatever he was trying to do.

But pretty much just following from his own distinction that there may
be laws governing the scientific phenomenon that do not need to be
realized by the practicioners.

Which pretty much frees whatever the scientists think is going on to be
whatever they fancy, right or wrong.  Which also means what scientists
think is happening doesn't have to reflect what is actually happening.
And what is actually happening doesn't have to reflect the real laws
governing everything.

The two important implications from this are:

- Popper wasn't necessarily recieving any information describing what
science actually looks like on the ground.

- By the same principle that laws could govern things without needing to
be understood, the detail of what was actually taking place could have
their own implications. Could invoke other or additional laws also not
requiring to be understood, and this could occur in such way that
contradict, complement or do not interact with Popper's laws.

Or reveal something else. And so on.

It would be difficult to avoid Popper needed to be in a process that
exposed him to the material phenomenon of Science at least until he'd
seen enough to know he didn't need to see any more.

More generally I think that there was a mismatch between the real and
perceived status of philosophy in what he wanted to do, and the real and
perceived status of the scientist's philosophy in terms of Science, that
would have to be realized by him or the wrong status would get
implicitly assumed by default. plicit the wrong status would be added by
default, significantly influencing his judgement how much philosophical
efforts and Science actuale are one and the same, and how much this was
something he needed to think more on.