[extropy-chat] Popper and QT

[gts]

On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 18:53:29 -0400, scerir <scerir at libero.it> wrote:

>> I'd be interested to know your opinion as to whether these experiments
>> corroborate or falsify or say anything conclusive about Popper's
>> philosophy of probability.
>
> I do not remember what Popper wrote about probability.

I know only what I could understand of what he wrote of probability in  
_Conjectures and Refutations_.

Here's a bit of Popper on the subject, in which he writes of his disdain  
for subjectivist interpretations of probability:

"Though things have improved since then [1944], subjectivism is still  
rampant in the philosophy of science, and especially in the field of  
probability. The subjectivist theory of probability, which interprets  
degrees of probability as degrees of rational belief, stems directly from  
the subjectivist approach to truth -- especially from the coherence  
theory."

Popper railed against subjectivist ideas such as the coherence theory of  
truth. He argued always for the correspondence theory, and writes that  
subjectivism should be "discarded as a lapse, as based on a mistake --  
though perhaps a tempting one." (Popper, _Conjectures and Refutations_, pg  
308)

> I personally like to regard a probability wave, even in 3N-dimensional  
> space, as a real thing, certainly as more than a tool for mathematical  
> calculations ..."Quite generally, how could
> we rely on probability predictions if by this notion we
> do not refer to something real and objective?'
> [Max Born, Dover publ., 1964, "Natural Philosophy of Cause
> and Chance", p. 107].

Offhand I'd say Popper would agree with you and Born here.

-gts