>>Learning is accelerated when we fail.
But if we are a means to the seeming_ends of biological evolution we
are a success since things change because of us, we are a boundry to
bump against and alter the flow, we are a temporary memory of the
system of biomass, fertilizer for....that sounds terrible sorry..
..the life of the individual is at
bottom only borrowed from
that of the species
- Arthur_Schopenhauer
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/2387/suicide.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer
...the growth of our knowledge is the result
of a process closely resembling what Darwin
called 'natural selection'; that is, the
natural selection of hypotheses...
--Karl Popper
Popper started with the old idea that knowledge grows by trial and
error, or in more learned terms, by conjecture and refutation. He
generalised this theory to encompass all forms of learning and problem-
solving, including the evolution of life on earth. On his account
every organism, from the amoeba to Einstein, is constantly engaged in
problem solving. In the plant and animal world this involves the
production of new reactions, new organs, new forms of life. For
humans it involves the production of new ideas. When these forms of
life or theories appear they confront selective pressures. These may
come from the biological environment or from competing forms of life.
Ideas meet the competition of alternative theories, critical arguments
and experimental tests.
The central motif of Popper's evolutionary epistemology is the four-
step problem-solving schema:
P ---> TS ---> EE ---> P
The starting point is a problem, which evokes tentative solutions.
These are subjected to the process of error elimination by way of
critical discussion and experimental testing. In the course of these
activities new problems emerge.
http://www.the-rathouse.com/poptheoryknow.html
the view that culture originates and changes over time in a manner
analogous to the cumulative trial and error of biological evolution
has become increasingly popular among social scientists. As
anthropologist John Reader explains:
The farmers who founded and refined the wet-rice system and maintained
its high levels of production for centuries knew nothing of nitrogen
cycles and oxygen transportation in plants. They worked purely by
trial and error. In the process, however, they acquired a sound
appreciation of just what made the system work, and of how to keep it
working.[8]
It cannot be doubted that the Balinese farmers are successful in
cultivating rice, but is it actually the case that they "acquired a
sound appreciation of just what made the system work"? For the
traditional farmers it is observance of Dewi Sri's calendar together
with participation in the many religious activities that are
responsible for their success. Yet it can be easily shown that such
religious observances are in no way essential to obtaining continued
good rice harvests, since good harvests are obtained elsewhere in the
world where the biological requirements of the rice plant are met and
Dewi Sri and her calendar are totally unknown. So clearly a fit exists
between Balinese farmers' agricultural practices and the requirements
of the rice plant, although individual farmers may not know (and need
not know) the underlying scientific reasons for it.
Regardless of a lack of technological or scientific understanding of
rice cultivation, the society in which the rice farmer lives is
structured in such a way to ensure continuation of the farming
practices found over the centuries to be effective. By making it
appear that these practices have divine origin and guidance, it is
less likely that an individual farmer would challenge the system. So
although daily rice offerings to the gods and frequent temple
ceremonies in themselves have no direct causal link to the success of
the crop, these traditional activities are well adapted in a larger
sense since they ensure that traditional agricultural methods which
have proved effective over the centuries will continue.
Does his lack of scientific understanding mean that the traditional
Balinese farmer is in any way irrational or illogical in his adoption
of the centuries-old methods of rice cultivation? Hardly, since for
him rice cultivation and religious practices form one integrated
system. It would be well nigh impossible for him to determine which
particular aspects of his way of life are essential for obtaining
continued good harvests and which are not. Indeed, such experiments
(for example, refusing to participate in religious activities to see
if this reduces rice yield) would possibly result in the radical
farmer being ostracized from his community and make it impossible for
him to obtain the water supply on which his crop depends. Instead,
there are important advantages for individuals to adopt the
agricultural and other traditional practices of the majority of their
community.[9]
So since many aspects of traditional rice cultivation are not
individually testable, we should not be surprised to find that some of
them are not functional or are even maladapted to the requirements of
rice production. The difficulty that an individual would encounter in
attempting to analyze which aspects are actually well adapted and
which are not, save for the fact that they may play important social
functions, also argues for the rationality of accepting and observing
the total cultural package.
http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/g-cziko/wm/10.html
Because Galileo couldn't devise a frictionless circular path around
the Earth to prove his concept of inertia to be fact, he had to come
up with some other way to demonstrate that inertia was, in fact, a
fact.
Half a century before Galileo was carrying on all of these
ruminations, a practical trial and error advocate named Tartaglia had
gone out onto the proving grounds and shot off cannonballs at
different angles in order to come up with the angle that would cause
the cannonball to travel the furthest distance. After much banging
around, he determined that the optimum angle was forty-five degrees.
Galileo allowed the balls that had rolled down the inclined plane to
roll off the end of his workbench and measured the same angle, at
forty-five degrees, the inclined plane produced the maximum
trajectory.
He then said he had, in the confines of his study, by mathematics
alone, proven that which was proven by trial and error on the proving
grounds. It was acceptable procedure, then, to use mathematics to
prove facts that were not capable of being directly measured.
Of course, Tartaglia had actually shot real cannonballs out of real
cannons to produce real measurements. By duplicating the facts in his
study, Galileo had not proven a fact that was not capable of direct
measurement, he had just measured the same fact in a different way,
measuring real balls that had rolled down a real inclined plane
rolling off the end of a real workbench.
He hadn't proven anything let alone a concept, inertia, to be a fact.
Concepts about factual relationships can be demonstrated by
measurement to be fact.
Concepts, however, can never be proven to be facts
http://www.copernican-series.com/sss/induct.html
On Popper's account, the central problem of moral and political
philosophy is to formulate and criticise standards which act as 'rules
of the game' in social life. These rules of the game occur in all
groups and they may be enforced informally or by due process of law.
The question we have to face is not whether we will have rules but
whether we will try to improve them by critical discussion and trial
and error. This approach cuts through the verbalism that bogs down
academic discussions of moral and politics and it is constantly in
touch with practical problems and their possible solutions.
http://www.the-rathouse.com/poppurpose.html
This volume adds weight to Bartley’s claim that Popper is on the right
track but has not received due credit because his ideas have suffered
from misreading and other mishaps. In Logik der Forschung (1934)
Popper challenged the theory that scientific knowledge grows by a
process of induction from accumulated observations. He advanced a
theory of conjectural objective knowledge that grows by trial and
error, controlled by criticism and by empirical tests. He also
presented the now-famous falsification criterion for the demarcation
of scientific statements from those of metaphysics and pseudoscience.
This criterion was widely criticised as an attempt to solve a
completely different problem, namely to define meaningful statements.
This misreading obscured his achievement for some decades and books
are still being written about the logical positivists (called logical
empiricists in the US) without mention of Popper. In the 1930s he
wrote a series of papers to refute various theories that contributed
to the collapse of civilisation in the holocaust. Mind, the most
prestigious organ of analytical philosophy, did not accept them.
Eventually they appeared in the journal Economica and later in book
form as The Poverty of Historicism (1957).
http://victorian.fortunecity.com/beardsley/700/dwarf.html
...During this process, the individual learner attempts a trial
solution. The learning processes is trial and error for which the
learner is responsible.
This is an evolutionary epistemology. Creation and elimination (or
modification) works hand in hand. Problem formulation takes precedence
over observation and there is an emphasis on the value of refutation
and the falsification of theories. Hence the development of critical
thinking, a dialectical process of continuous reflection and the
testing of current assumptions to extend understanding is vital.
Popper recognises that criticism by experimental testing, the
consideration of other peoples argument, reason and compromise, the
deduction of consequences and the emphasis on the fallibility of
science are important components in. the objectification of knowledge.
These are key strategies in the critical rationalist methodology and
might become more firmly embedded in the ecological curriculum.
The fallibilist conception of ecological theories and knowledge
requires teachers to encourage students to develop the appropriate
traits, attitudes and dispositions to begin the essential process of
critical thinking. Students of ecology, as well as the scientists
themselves, need to refine these skills, construct, identify, analyze
and evaluate arguments, rather than to accept too readily dogmatic
beliefs.
http://www.hamar.fsnet.co.uk/teg/6/DoUndergrads.html
[conjecture and refutation (trial & error)]
...Some of this confusion [about education] arises from the clash to
two antagonistic notions of scientific activity which may be called
the romantic and the rational or the poetic and the analytical. This
clash involves the opposition of activities which are in fact
complementary and it is resolved by the mode of thought which travels
under the unfortunately cumbersome title of the 'hypothetico-
deductive' model of scientific activity. Popper has called this the
method of conjecture and refutation, a high-falutin' name attached to
the old-fashioned method of trial and error. This is not entirely
original and it can be traced in the work of thinkers such as Whewell,
Peirce and the French physiologist Bernard. The leading modern
exponent is Popper who has added some wrinkles of his own, notably in
rejecting 'justified belief' as the terminus of scientific or
philosophical activity.
It can be very difficult to understand philosophical ideas without
understanding the problem that the ideas were supposed to solve. Often
these problems arise outside philosophy itself, in science, religion,
politics, art etc. Popper's first major problem was 'When should a
theory be ranked as scientific?' or 'Is there a criterion for the
scientific status of a theory?'
We can understand how this arose by a study of Popper's biography. He
was born in 1902 and he grew up in Vienna with the air full of the
exciting ideas of Freud, Adler and Marx. These men formulated
impressive schemes that appeared to explain anything and everything
that happened. There was an explanation for everything, albeit
different explanations. It seemed that nothing could contradict them
and in this respect Popper noted that Einstein had a very different
attitude to his equally revolutionary theory. This was put to the test
by Edington's eclipse observations in 1919 and Einstein had announced
that a negative result would suggest a need to reconsider his theory.
In this way Einstein provided Popper with the hint for his
falsification criterion for science. This scenario provides a rational
explanation for Popper's motivation in formulating his criterion,
unlike the suggestion that he embraced falsificationism in the
reckless and irrational spirit of the Jazz Age.
=== The Line of Demarcation ===
A statement may be considered to be scientific if it is conceivable
that publicly available evidence maybe produced to show that it is
false. In other words we have to be able to look for some kind of
evidence that would clash with our statement or our theory. For
example the statement "There are no students in the library" can be
refuted by the discovery of a student in the library. Similarly, the
laws of science, formulated in universal terms along the lines 'All
ravens are black' can be refuted by the discovery of a white raven.
The point is, to make progress we need to locate weak spots in our
theories in order to stimulate the production of new ideas. This means
we have to take the risk of being wrong by making assertions that can
be checked against evidence.
The criterion of testability is not a criterion of truth, meaning or
even of importance, and it shows that we should not take the word
'science' too seriously. On the science side of the line we have
descriptive statements which say something about the world. They may
be true or false and they may be refuted by evidence. They may also be
supported by evidence but this is a great deal more problematic
because for some theories, everything that happens counts as
supporting evidence (as Popper found with the followers of Marx and
Freud).
On the 'non-science' side of the line are several categories of
statements, among them the statements of pseudosciences such as
astrology, which claim to be based on evidence but can never be
refuted; the 'ought' statements of morals and ethics; theories of
method (such as the falsification criterion); and also, incidentally,
nonsense statements.
Some more needs to be said about morals, values, ethics and political
ideals. These can be formulated as proposals for various kinds of
behaviour or action. In this way they can be contrasted with
propositions which state matters of fact (this is the language used by
Popper in Chapter 5 of The Open Society and its Enemies). We may argue
about the truth or falsity of propositions but we cannot claim that
proposals are true or false. Our acceptance or rejection of proposals
is a matter of decision, though matters of fact (and hence
considerations of truth and falsity) will arise in considering the
consequences. The element of decision in relation to moral 'oughts'
and political proposals has been interpreted to mean that these
decisions are irrational or arbitrary, as indeed they may be,
especially if they are made under the influence of a theory that these
matters cannot be subjected to reasonable discussion. As indicated in
Critical Preference in Science and Ethics we can critically examine
alternative moral or political codes and we can form critical
preferences that can be modified in the light of evidence and new
arguments.
Attempts to derive values from facts cannot be achieved logically,
though there have been many efforts to do so in the belief that such a
derivation would produce rational or scientific ethics. This was
considered to be a defence against unreason at a time when rationality
was supposed to apply in science but not on the other side of the line
of demarcation, for example in religion, morals and aesthetics.
However, attempts to provide a 'positive' basis for morals are likely
to lead to dogmatism, quite likely linked to conservatism by appealing
to the official or prevailing laws or morals at the time.
Popper's line of demarcation should affect the way the way we look at
science in relation to other subjects because it cuts across the
bounds that are supposed to exist between 'the sciences' and 'the
rest'. Statements in any subject such as history or literary criticism
may be considered to be scientific if they can be supported or refuted
by evidence. The convention applies to statements, not to areas of
activity.
It should not matter how a student defines the subject, because it is
very much more important to be clear about the problem that is being
investigated. A serious attempt to work on a problem should drive the
student into a whole range of subjects or disciplines, thereby making
nonsense of the narrow definition of subjects and over-specialisation.
Too much focus on subjects and examinations can make the problems and
themes invisible, but problems and themes should provide the backbone
and the organising principles amidst the mass of information that
confronts the student and the researcher.
If we lost sight of genuine problems, or never find them, it is
virtually impossible to contribute to the growth of knowledge. This
brings us to another philosophical problem - how does our knowledge
grow? Popper has suggested that our knowledge grows as a result of
our attempts to solve problems by trial and error, a process that he
has compared with the evolution of life on earth. If we are going to
talk about the growth of knowledge, we seem to imply that there is
something to grow towards, presumably the truth. But how does this
come about, and what is the truth?
...The advance of science is not due to the fact that more and more
perceptual experiences accumulate in the course of time. Nor is it due
to the fact that we are making ever better use of our senses...Bold
ideas, unjustified anticipations, and speculative thought, are our
only means for interpreting nature, our only instruments for grasping
her, and we must hazard them to win our prize.
A fierce battle has raged over the problem of induction which is
closely related to the matter of the line of demarcation because it is
sometimes suggested that the criterion of science is its inductive, or
maybe its experimental method, as against the speculative or creative
or expressionistic method of the arts, the intuitive method of
psychology, the sociological imagination, the historical method etc.
Everything depends on what is meant by induction, and if it is used to
mean the guess or the imaginative leap, then this does not distinguish
science from any other activity that involves thinking. However it
usually refers to a methodical or logical process for proceeding from
the particular to the general, or from the observation of facts to the
formulation of laws. This type of induction is not logically or
psychologically defensible and it cannot be retrieved by the use of
the probability calculus to assign numerical probabilities to
theories.
=== Conclusions ===
Scientific knowledge is capable of growing by the detection and
correction or error, though its growth can never be completed. It does
not grow in a disciplined, orderly or predictable way, but rather by
unjustified leaps of imagination, controlled by the use of logic,
critical analysis and experimental tests.
Our knowledge in a given field does not consist of a mass of facts or
a set of verified laws, it consists of a body of hypotheses along with
an account of the tests and other arguments that have been used in
attempts to refute them. There is no opposition between imagination
and reason because they have different (and complementary) roles to
play. There is no antagonism between theorising and fact finding
provided that we have a clearly formulated problem in mind when we
start looking for facts.
This theory of knowledge has some political implications. The
positivist-empiricist-inductivist may have thought that he did not
need to actively make decisions about his subject matter. The task of
the scientist was to collect and collate information to steadily
record the tale told by the book of nature. However, this idea of the
passive observer-collector cannot be sustained. If the scientist wants
to advance the frontier of knowledge, even to the smallest degree that
the average honours student should aspire to achieve, he has to make
an effort and bring into action both the imagination and the critical
faculties. There is also the consideration that the findings are quite
likely to be used and the scientist (or at least the community of
scientists) is morally responsible for warning of potential dangers
and monitoring any dubious applications.
Scientists can only approach the truth by conjectures and by critical
tests, and if they accept their social responsibilities they will
carry their critical attitude out of the laboratory, to participate,
like everyone else, in a continuous process of non-violent cultural
revolution.
http://www.the-rathouse.com/poprevtheory.html
At the same time I realized that such myths may be developed, and
become testable; that historically speaking all-or very nearly all-
scientific theories originate from myths, and that a myth may contain
important anticipations of scientific theories. Examples are
Empedocles' theory of evolution by trial and error, or Parmenides'
myth of the unchanging block universe in which nothing ever happens
and which, if we add another dimension, becomes Einstein's block
universe (in which, too, nothing ever happens, since everything is,
four dimensionally speaking, determined and laid down from the
beginning). I thus felt that if a theory is found to be non-
scientific, or "metaphysical" (as we might say), it is not thereby
found to be unimportant, or insignificant, or "meaningless," or
"nonsensical." it cannot claim to be backed by empirical evidence in
the scientific sense-although it may easily be, in some genetic sense,
the "result of observation."
http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~fotoole/321.1/popper.html
Popper, too, locates the beginning of science in the advent of an
attitude, the appearance of the "critical" beside the "dogmatic."
These are for him psychological, not historical, categories, which are
not distinguished by means of their products or world-views. The
dogmatic attitude, "an uncontrolled wish to impose regularities" upon
the world, is succeeded by the critical attitude, "which shares with
the dogmatic attitude the quick adoption of a schema of expectations-
a myth, perhaps, or a conjecture or hypothesis- but which is ready to
modify it, to correct it, and even to give it up." (6) Popper's
scientist is not entirely removed from praxis, but takes a different
attitude to his products and experiences. For example, he writes, "The
method of trial and error is applied not only to Einstein, but, in a
more dogmatic fashion, by the amoeba also. The difference lies not so
much in the trials as in a critical and constructive attitude towards
errors... ." (7)
In the essay "Science: Conjectures and Refutations," Popper describes
his distinction as belonging to the psychology of experience, (8)
while Husserl describes his as the "genuine" history of philosophy,
but in spite of this, each ends up describing his respective
"attitudes" in both historical and psychological, or subjectivistic
terms. Popper, despite his initial psychological description, credits
the Greeks with the "discovery of the critical method," indicating
that the adoption of the critical attitude by the human psyche took
place at a specific point in history, namely with the Presocratics.
(9) Husserl, in turn, while being primarily concerned with historical
description of the origin of science among the Presocratics, ends up
ascribing "prescientific" properties to the minds of children, while
scientific rationality is the mark of a mature mind. (10) For Popper,
the prescientific attitude is "characteristic of primitives and
children; and increasing experience and maturity sometimes create an
attitude of caution and criticism rather than of dogmatism." (11) In
both investigations into the origins of science, the scientific
attitude ends up in the hands of members of a certain society at a
certain point in history, members who have certain psychological
characteristics, which make them relate to their surroundings in an
entirely novel way. Popper credits Thales, the first scientist, with
the institution of the critical attitude, which is "the attitude of
reasonableness, of rationality." Husserl marks with Thales, the first
philosopher, the advent of "a new humanity"-perhaps a more dramatic
description than Popper's, but one which results from the same
sentiment: Thales, or rather what he represents, is the beginning of
the rationality, the very humanity, we take to be proper to us today.
(12)
http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Meth/MethGreb.htm
Popper's opposition to inductivism is well known. He repeatedly
insisted that there can be no successful algorithm for theory-
formation. Popper likened the position of the theorist to the
situation of a blind man who searches in a dark room for a black hat
which is--perhaps--not there. (15)
The theorist, like the blind man, proceeds by trial-and-error, coming
to learn where the hat is not, without ever reaching a certainty
immune from rejection in the force of further experience.
Popper is correct to emphasize the role of creative imagination in the
formulation of scientific hypotheses. The problem-situation does not
dictate a solution to the theorist. However, neither are hypotheses
formulated independently of the problem-situation. Popper's "black-hat
image" is quite misleading. Scientific conjectures are "blind" only in
the sense that the outcome of subsequent testing is unknown. They are
not "blind" in Campbell's sense of being "independent of the
environmental conditions of the occasion of their occurrence".
http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Scie/ScieLose.htm
