[extropy-chat] Fwd: Re: Popper and QT.

[gts]

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 19:45:34 -0400, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com>  
wrote:

>> According to Popper's own holly dogma that idea is nonsense because
>> it can never be disproved.
>
> Hmm.  The above is a truism.

Popper believed his own theories concerning the correct approach to  
epistemology (and science) were ultimately a 'moral decision' on his part,  
i.e., more or less an act of faith. However other philosophers of science  
who followed after Popper offered some seemingly coherent arguments for  
accepting Popper's philosophies of falsificationism and rational  
criticism. I learned of these arguments while reading _Evolutionary  
Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge_, the book that  
inspired me to read Popper's own _Conjectures and Refutations_.

I highly recommend this book, even more than Popper's, to anyone  
interested in the general subject of evolutionary epistemology:

Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812690397/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product/103-7683219-5666269?ie=UTF8

> Popper was not remotely in the same field as Einstein.

Not quite true. Einstein was no stranger to philosophy, and both Popper  
and Einstein were philosophical realists (unlike for example Bohr). Popper  
gave great credit to Einstein even if they disagreed about some  
fundamental points, e.g., the question of determinism vs indeterminism.

-gts