Episode 120: Popper on Trial

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Transcript

[00:00:00]  Blue: Hello out there this week on the theory of anything podcast Bruce puts popper on trial Specifically through the lens of Michael Streven’s book the knowledge machine Which argues that science works because it follows the iron law of explanation so to Streven’s Scientists must put aside philosophy politics and theology and only follow empirical evidence Bruce asks how compatible is this view with the epistemology of coral popper I Enjoyed listening to Bruce here, and I hope you do too

[00:00:45]  Red: Welcome back to the theory of anything podcast. Hey Peter.

[00:00:48]  Blue: Hey Bruce. How are you doing on this beautiful day?

[00:00:52]  Red: Doing pretty well. I

[00:00:54]  Blue: Assume it’s beautiful in Utah.

[00:00:55]  Red: Yeah, it’s always looking good,

[00:00:57]  Blue: right?

[00:00:58]  Red: Okay, yes, we’re a desert. We get no rain or snow or you know, it’s just beautiful all the time That’s absolutely how deserts work. Well, I guess

[00:01:06]  Blue: that how you define beauty. Yeah, that’s great Wow, it’s a beautiful day in Seattle, so I

[00:01:14]  Red: Don’t know what order we’re gonna be releasing these podcast episodes in because we’ve got like interviews coming up and such but At least in terms of the order that we recorded them on the last podcast We talked about Michael Streven’s is a epistemology from his book the knowledge machine how irrationality created modern science So we’re going to do a further discussion Not just in this episode like there’s there’s a lot to cover So I’m I’m gonna break it up a little and we’ll do several different episodes and what I want to do is I want to sort of quote his Criticisms of popper and I want to assess them if that makes any sense.

[00:01:56]  Red: I Try to summarize his view in the previous episode that we recorded with many of his own examples And then I gave some commentary Maybe not minimal commentary I gave some commentary as I saw necessary to show that there was some alignment between Streven’s is epistemology and Popper’s epistemology and the reason why I felt like I needed to do that is because he words Things very strongly in an adductivist Bayesian sort of way Which I think will be a turnoff to most critical rationalist because most critical rationalists engage with critical rationalism in terms of what I’ve called the papyri or the crit rat war on words Where what words you use matters a lot to most crit rats And if you use the wrong set of words, they just can’t hear you So part of what I’m trying to do is I’m trying to see past the words He uses and I’m trying to grasp the concepts He’s after and to show that there may be some overlap there even though he chooses terms That would be a turnoff to crit rats Well, it seems to be one of the themes of this show is that that papyrians just aren’t thinking Enough about what Popper was actually saying about refutation and induction and all this stuff and that these ideas are even more far -reaching than than they think Yeah, that’s fair.

[00:03:24]  Unknown: That is fair.

[00:03:25]  Red: That’s that is one of my themes of the show for sure

[00:03:29]  Blue: You’re kind of an uber popperian then and yeah, that’s

[00:03:33]  Red: that’s exactly I’m the I’m an uber popper. That’s okay. Great Let me give a quick summary of Stravins’s epistemology as taken from the previous episode Stravins’s book has several big ideas that that I’ll summarize just briefly so that anyone who didn’t listen to the previous episode at least Can follow along with what we’re talking about modern science’s power according to the book stems from its Iron rule of explanation i.e. that science is Unreasonably closed -minded about a code of argument that dictates that all arguments must be carried out with reference to empirical evidence Now Stravins sees that as irrational and closed -minded because it refuses to consider many other sources of explanation and criticism Explanation criticism that are non -empirical such as philosophy theology and aesthetics, but he also believes this irrationality Was what led to unbounded rapid progress because it forced explanation into areas that wouldn’t have happened Had this constraint not existed And anytime I use the word irrationality, that’s him not me I just like totally don’t agree with him on that but that I’m trying to present his viewpoint here So Stravins believes the iron rule involves four methodological innovations a shallow notion of explanatory power Which is basically a culturally agreed upon by all scientists that they focus on causal derivations from observable phenomena regardless of the underlying philosophical or metaphysical nature Which Stravins believes science isn’t that interested in Second a distinction between public scientific argument and private scientific argument public argument follows the iron rule Private reason does not need to Remember the iron rule means that you put things in terms of empirical evidence third a requirement for objectivity in scientific argument

[00:05:36]  Red: Achieved through sterilization his term not mine which excises subjectivity as much as possible Even if it makes arguments incomplete or blunted and fourth a prohibition on non -empirical considerations philosophical religious aesthetic etc in officially official scientific argument in Insisting that only empirical testing counts even if other considerations philosophical philosophical or aesthetic went into the development of the theory So Stravins argues that this methodology leads to two Things that are of note the first is what he calls baconian convergence. Yes named after Francis Bacon’s induction a term bound to make crit rats see red, but it’s the idea related It’s related to the idea that observations eliminate the competing theories narrowing what is actually possible and converges Convergence takes place because of this narrowing. So that’s an idea that isn’t really even though it’s worded Inductivistically, it’s not that far from what crit rats state they believe in namely falsification ism The second is what Stravins calls the tychonic principle the idea that the above methodology creates an irrational His term drive towards increasingly small observable empirical details Testing theories via eking out another few decimal points So to speak an idea that I in the previous episode I quoted Deutsche green with so it’s not necessarily at odds with Say David Deutch’s view However Stravins does not see his epistemology even though there I think there’s some overlap with poppers epistemology He does not himself see his epistemology as a form of critical rationalism He is deeply critical of popper overall and he sees poppers epistemology as problematic and as his own epistemology as a Necessary corrective to poppers So is this the case is he actually improving upon popper and maybe doing away with some of popper’s mistakes?

[00:07:43]  Red: Or is he just misreading popper, which is very common. Okay, or you know, or does he have a point? Is he actually making some fair criticisms of popper? When I first read Stravins’s criticisms of popper my knee -jerk reaction was to shout straw man But then I would look at it carefully I’d start to realize that sometimes popper really did say many things That could have led to the quote -unquote Misunderstanding that Stravins had which then made me wonder is it really a misunderstanding or if it is a misunderstanding as I’m supposing Might popper be at fault for the misunderstanding Yet when I try to then say okay, I’m gonna take the stance that Stravins is correct I could almost always think of somewhere within popper where he said something that Disproves Stravins is criticism Making me feel like maybe it was just a straw man after all. I feel like this is an ongoing problem with popper Popper has a had a very long career like it was really long and Like he was like in his 30s or something when he wrote his groundbreaking first, you know Logic of scientific discovery or whatever it was and then he lived for a long time afterwards writing additional Articles and books and things like that Kind of growing and building upon that original foundation He said a lot of things over that period of time and and he even changes his mind a lot over that period of time Now occasionally he acknowledges that he changes his mind. He says I used to say this now.

[00:09:23]  Red: I say that But it seems to me This is this is a criticism that mark burrows brings up all the time of popper and that he’s kind of sold me on is kind of true Popper often puts things as a small refinement to his original thinking Even though if you really stop and think about it carefully, it’s maybe not such a small refinement It might be a big refinement And I think popper thought that a lot of these small refinements were just small refinements when really he had evolved his theory Into something very different than where he had started and I think that the problem with that means that you can read Early popper and late popper and it’s just not always clear where popper is coming from or what he means Because he says things that that really do seem quite different in the beginning than compared to the end and yet He’s claiming this is what I said all along So I’ve increasingly had to come to grips with the fact that popper is often his own worst enemy As an example of this a few podcasts ago Popper put his whole epistemology in terms of falsification ism. We did an episode on his falsification ism falsifiable Falsification ism is a term that was just bound to cause people to think that his epistemology was about quote -unquote Proving a specific theory wrong rather than as popper apparently intended it an epistemology that was really just about the logical relationship between theories and empirical evidence and not really about Refuting a theory and proving it to be wrong Moreover popper never did seem to see how falsification as a term when taken as relationship between a theory and

[00:11:07]  Red: between a theory and a criticism Also related to good philosophical theories. So this is one of the things that I’ve been critical of popper on Popper goes so far as to insist that there is no relationship between falsification ism and philosophical theories And I just don’t buy it like there’s a really obvious analogy there between a good philosophical theory and the fact that you can in Some sense you can do something very similar to falsification on them And as opposed to a bad philosophical theory where you can’t and though popper does a handful of times speak of the importance of his no ad hoc rule and In some really strong terms by the way He never made it central to his epistemology and apparently I think apparently Seeing his logical falsification ism as equivalent to or tacitly assuming the no ad hoc rule But he just doesn’t call it out like when you think of popper you don’t think of the no ad hoc rule you think of falsification ism and I Don’t think that’s the right emphasis, right? I don’t doubt that he probably thought Falsification ism and the no ad hoc rule were the same thing, but in most people’s minds. They’re just not right so I whatever he intended there I don’t think he got it across well And two podcasts ago.

[00:12:23]  Red: I showed that even when popper does talk about his own falsification ism You can and even when he gets it right in some books You could almost always show that popper did state it wrong in some other books somewhere Where he would specifically what I have in mind here is that he would make statements that would indicate that with a single Basic statement you can once and for all refute a theory coming across very much as a naive falsificationist and Yes, if you go read all of popper and kind of look at how his thought thinking evolved Maybe you can make the case that in context that wasn’t so bad But if you’re just trying to rip that quote out and if you’re just reading that quote for what it is Even when the context of that book or chapter You’re going to come across with this idea that popper really did believe you could definitively refute a theory with an observation Which you can’t because of the doom coin problem. Okay? Elsewhere he does admit this it’s not like popper just totally missed this fact, right? But you can find these quotes that I really do think are just technically wrong Even if you can put him into a context where you can say well, I can see what he meant I can see it’s not, you know, he’s on the right idea. Just the quotes by themselves just really strike me as technically wrong

[00:13:43]  Red: So overall, I’ve come to accept that popper did blunder and He’s not often as clear as as I would have liked him to have been and I don’t I don’t think he was as clear as he Wanted to be I think that’s part of the reason why he ended up fighting with a lot of his Students is that they would sometimes read him a little too Literally and not quite quite get the nuance of what he was trying to go for and then they would Particularly I have in mind Lakatos here where he has a rift with Lakatos Over the fact that Lakatos wants to amend falsification ism and what what Lakatos was trying to amend was a lot of popper’s Early statements that were really technically wrong about falsification So Lakatos wasn’t like in the wrong in that sense But there was a more nuanced view that popper had in mind and I don’t think Lakatos ever got that right So I feel like there’s just kind of good evidence that popper didn’t even successfully communicate his ideas Well to his own students at times right a lot of times we blame look blame blame Lakatos for that We say the guy’s an idiot and he went off on his own way and he missed what popper really had to say I just don’t think it’s that simple, right? I

[00:14:56]  Red: think Lakatos had a legitimate set of concerns that never really got addressed by popper in a way that was convincing I feel it is therefore popper’s fault that Crits rats today have branched out in his epistemology off into several different directions There’s a ton of different forms of critical rationalism today Many of which that I personally think undermines some important parts of popper’s original epistemology rather than improve on it I would have to say though I can’t think of any form of critical rationalism that I’ve come across from the children of popper That don’t improve upon popper in some ways So I’m really saying something more nuanced here that I think if you were to look at Lakatos versus popper if you were to look at Deutsch versus popper if you were to look at Miller versus popper. I think are Danny Frederick Versus popper. I don’t think any of them I think all of them improved on popper in some ways, but also Undermined important parts of popper in some ways. So it wasn’t it was it wasn’t a pure progressive Improvement if that makes sense and I think if you’re really trying to figure this out and get to the best epistemology you almost have to Borrow from everybody simultaneously

[00:16:12]  Blue: You’re just too nuanced Bruce

[00:16:16]  Red: Okay, so let me admit that I Find this may be a difficult case trying to going back to this idea of Strevins’s Criticisms of popper. I want I really want to proclaim a defensive popper here and put down Strevins the inductivist But when I read Strevins carefully, I find it harder to do than I’d have liked So here’s what we’re gonna do We’re going to put popper on trial today with Strevins His defense attorney or sorry prosecuting attorney is going to put arguments against popper and We’re going to let him try to put popper on trial and we’re gonna also I’ve got some quotes from popper himself that His defense attorney is going to raise in defense of popper to try to show that Strevins is wrong if that makes sense and So this is going to probably be done in several parts across several episodes. We’re not going to do it all in one episode After each criticism from Strevins. I’m going to discuss Strevins’s criticism with peter Okay So let the record show that peter despite his humility on this subject Is a lay expert on popperian epistemology as am I of course also And let the record show that peter is the least dogmatic critical rationalist. I’ve ever met and by the way I don’t intend that as a compliment necessarily

[00:17:42]  Blue: I can take it

[00:17:44]  Red: because Both Strevins and popper both argued to some degree in favor of dogmatism So I’m saying it just as a stated fact that peter happens to be very very undogmatic Which in this particular case Is going to be very helpful because peter has no problems Saying yeah, I think maybe popper had that wrong or saying You know, no, I think strevins is up in the night And I think what we can get a there’s no defensiveness on peter’s part So I I actually can really appreciate how in this particular case his lack of dogmatism is probably exactly what I need

[00:18:21]  Blue: Well, you know discuss this my added. I’m just For better for worse. I don’t have an ego In any of this I and I just I’m just interested in ideas and exploring ideas and I just that’s my attitude towards this whole thing. So that’s

[00:18:40]  Red: exactly what I’m hoping for. I guess

[00:18:42]  Blue: that is The opposite of dogmatism in a way. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but I

[00:18:48]  Red: don’t know either It probably depends on the circumstance, right? That’s fair one of the one of the themes of this show is that dogmatism isn’t as bad as people think it is It can be like it can be very bad. Like I’m not denying that right?

[00:19:00]  Blue: Yeah, sure,

[00:19:01]  Red: but but We shouldn’t get too worried about oh, no dogmatism Right, it’s I get I get too worried about it and I shouldn’t right like I know I’m in the wrong

[00:19:11]  Blue: Kind of relates to the faith -based nature of reality I never never thought about that. But how we how we’ve discussed that that it’s almost like to live in this world. You have to have faith in certain things and dogmatism is kind of like an unkind word for faith in a way. Yes, you have Yeah,

[00:19:32]  Red: good. Well put And and and as I’ve argued I think science is powered by belief or dogmatism, right? Like I think that Einstein had to somehow make it through eight years of not having a best theory until he had a best theory and right that was absolutely driven by Dogmatic or faith -based or I don’t care what term you use you can use more negative or more positive ones here But somehow something sustained his belief that this was the right direction for eight years of hard work, right? And and then and then the same thing drove him towards a theory of quantum gravity that was totally wrong So, I mean He was Dogmatic dog dogmatism. I admit has a negative connotation And maybe it doesn’t deserve it like it’s the negative version of faith. Maybe maybe faith has a negative connotation amongst rationalists Belief I don’t know what we’re gonna call this, right? But there’s something about this this idea That it’s just not all bad that it absolutely is part of what powers science, right? I i’m not trying to say it’s all good either because clearly that’s not true I think dogmatism can be dangerous like just absolutely completely dangerous

[00:20:53]  Red: So what we’re gonna do is let’s let’s allow the prosecuting prosecuting attorney to present specific arguments against popper Unlike a regular court the jury that would be peter and myself We’re gonna deliberate after each piece of evidence I um, also have some quotes from popper that will be his defense attorney are going to raise and then we’ll deliberate on those separately And then I do have several comments ready to go of course Um, but I am curious how someone like peter looks at strevins is charges against popper And would really like to kind of put them out there get peter’s reaction Give quotes from both popper and strevins maybe and then come back and look at it again And we’re gonna just kind of keep doing that iterating trying to see if we can Get at the truth as best we can by doing this approach So let’s start with the problem of induction. So this is a long passage I’m going to read a long passage from pages 15 to 18 of strevins’s book So he goes over the problem of induction Which is that we appear to generalize from specific observations like fire burns But there’s no justification for why we make that assumption That isn’t itself circularly relying on a principal deduction. So let me read his actual approach to the problem of induction and then the

[00:22:13]  Blue: problem of induction in a common sense way is just that It seems to work so well But it there’s no real like logical or philosophical Basis for it that makes sense.

[00:22:24]  Red: Yeah. Yeah,

[00:22:24]  Blue: is that is that how? And in fact,

[00:22:26]  Red: let’s even just state up front popper’s solution to the problem of induction is that that induction doesn’t exist That actually we do conjecture and refutation Induction is just a myth and that there’s no need for induction because induction included this idea of justification And there is no need for justification instead You just severely test your conjectures and you go with the best one Okay, so in a nutshell that would be popper’s answer. Let’s see how well strevins presents Popper’s answer to the problem of induction. Okay So he says this is quoting now But that as hum observed is itself a kind of inductive thinking generalizing as it does from the past of the future We are using induction to justify induction Such circular reasoning cannot stand the snake in the garden Swallows swallows its own tail page 17. So hum Though this is me now though skeptical of induction as a form of justificationism continued to himself believe in induction So he raised this problem than induction hum raised this problem this idea that induction isn’t justified But hum was in self an inductivist. Okay, so now quoting Um strevins again, but like many skeptics hum was also a conservative He advised us to press on with induction in our everyday lives without asking awkward philosophical questions The english philosopher Bertrand Russell writing about hume 200 years later could not accept this philosophical Quietism if induction cannot be valid then quote. There is no intellectual difference between sanity and insanity That’s quoting russell. Obviously. That’s also from page 17 Continuing quoting strevins now or as russell put it our position Won’t differ from that of a lunatic who believes that he is a poached egg

[00:24:15]  Red: For all that there is still no widely accepted justification for inject induction popper saw no alternative But to accept hume’s argument unlike hume. However, he popper concluded that we must abandon inductive thinking altogether Science if it is to be a rational enterprise must not be must not regard the fact that say fire has been hot Enough to burn human skin in the past as a reason to think that it will be hot enough to burn Skin in the future or to put another way the fact that fire has burned us in the past may not in any way be counted as evidence for The hip the hypothesis that fire will not will be hot enough to burn us in the years to come Indeed science ought not to make any use whatsoever of the notion of evidence for So there can be no evidence for the hypothesis that the earth orbits the sun Since that implies that the earth will in the future continue to orbit the sun No evidence for newton’s theory of gravitation. No evidence for the theory of evolution No evidence in fact for anything that we’ve called a theory.

[00:25:24]  Red: That’s pages 17 to 18 This might sound like just the sort of insanity that russell feared but popper was no poached egg I love that science he thought Had a powerful replacement for the induct for the inductive thinking There may be no such thing as evidence for a theory But but what there can be and here popper recalled his youthful bedazzlement with einstein in 1919 is evidence against a theory page 18 Also page 18 to put it another way A true theory would always make true predictions false predictions can issue only from falsehood No assumptions about the uniformity of nature are needed to grasp that If your theory says that a comet will reappear in 76 years and it doesn’t turn up There is something wrong with the theory if it says that things can travel faster than the speed of light And it turns out that certain particles Gately skip along at a far greater speed There is something wrong with the theory and indeed if your theory says that you are a poached egg And you find yourself strolling the london streets on two sturdy legs far from the nearest breakfast establishment Then that theory too is wrong russell needn’t have worried About finding such an inductive finding such an inductive logic in unlike inductive thinking This is all just straightforward incontrovertible logic page 19. Okay so Was that a valid interpretation of popper’s view on induction and his falsificationism And if not was strevon’s straw manning popper so far. So peter we’re gonna now discuss that What do you think was that an accurate portrayal of popper or do you think he got anything wrong about popper in that portrayal?

[00:27:17]  Blue: Well, I guess the the word you used straw man Is is what I kept coming to a little bit But kind of a funny straw man too. I mean

[00:27:34]  Red: His discussion, let me actually reread this He says popper was no poached egg And then he says science he thought had a powerful placement for inductive thinking There may be no such thing as evidence for a theory But there there can be and here popper recalls his youthful bedazzlement by einstein in 1919 is evidence against a theory That surely is what almost every critical rationalist. I know says popper believed

[00:27:59]  Blue: Yeah,

[00:27:59]  Red: and in fact, I do think that is what popper believed

[00:28:02]  Blue: Yeah,

[00:28:03]  Red: um, he says to put another way a true theory will always make true predictions False predictions can only issue from falsehood. I I don’t think popper would have any problem with that at all

[00:28:11]  Blue: So a true way Trying to get my mind around that a true theory. It can only make True predictions. Yes, okay

[00:28:21]  Red: So false predictions can issue only from falsehood

[00:28:24]  Blue: Okay, but what is true and false and a fallible Universe due to a fallible person. I mean good

[00:28:33]  Red: question Hey Okay There is a nuance here that is a little difficult that I do feel popper talks about But it is just a little hard to wrap your mind around Popper believes very strongly. This is this is me brist talking as bruce the juror. Were you and I are deliberating? So i’m not preaching to you here. I’m giving you my opinion of of popper. Okay.

[00:28:56]  Blue: Okay.

[00:28:57]  Red: Okay. I think popper does Talk about two things one That no theory is ever known to be true and two That science is searching for true theories

[00:29:11]  Blue: Okay

[00:29:13]  Red: Unlike david deutch Who argues that no theory is true Popper actually argues we could theoretically have a true theory. Oh, that’s right.

[00:29:23]  Blue: I’ve heard it. Yeah. Now. I remember he said that, you know Okay, so we could just happen to stumble on something that is Absolutely true For eternity with certainty, but a human mind would never actually know it

[00:29:39]  Red: That’s right.

[00:29:40]  Blue: Okay.

[00:29:41]  Red: So popper’s epistemology and we’re talking Popper’s epistemology here not deutch’s adjustments to it later adjustments improvements or not improvements depending on your point of view Popper’s original epistemology was rooted in the idea of truth and the search for truth whereas deutch replaced that with trying to get near to reality Right. He doesn’t like the word truth so much and Where popper was definitely focused on science is trying to seek the truth Okay So would popper thinks would popper object to the line from strevence to put another way a true theory will always make True predictions false predictions can only issue from falsehood I don’t think he would I think he would say yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying

[00:30:27]  Blue: I

[00:30:28]  Red: don’t think deutch would necessarily agree with that that statement and so therefore There may be many critical rationalists today that would not agree with that but I do think that is exactly what popper had in mind that We can know a theory to be false Because a false theory will make false predictions and then we can say oh well that theory must not therefore be false Now it’s it’s true that he didn’t necessarily believe And then you definitively know it to be false. He wasn’t a naive falsificationist by any means, right? But that is his underlying epistemology because remember popper is really about the relationship between the theory and The logic of the theory and the logic of the observation Okay, so popper isn’t saying you can know for sure That the theory is false with with a single falsehood He’s saying you can there is the potential to know the theory is false because false theories Will make false predictions and I do think that is the essence of the popper’s thinking on this subject So I would actually say I think at least that statement is a correct understanding of popper

[00:31:36]  Blue: okay

[00:31:37]  Red: um And then like this this sentence unlike inductive thinking this is all just straightforward in Controvertible logic I think that’s exactly what popper thinks right like popper said stuff like that over and over again We don’t need any inductive logic. There’s no need for inductive thinking. It’s just a myth There’s if it exists. It has no place in science. He says things like this over and over again. Um, okay um That instead Science is really just based on regular deductive logic. So there’s no need for a special inductive logic

[00:32:14]  Blue: Yeah,

[00:32:15]  Red: and so I I think that part of strevins is actually a pretty accurate depiction of popper also

[00:32:22]  Blue: Uh,

[00:32:22]  Red: um, what do you think maybe he straw man’s? um Popper on here

[00:32:27]  Blue: Well, okay to back up a second. So what you would say is that The deductive logic kind of like supersedes inductive logic So induction has some validity in the world, but it can be described more uh truthfully In a Critical rationalist framework

[00:32:57]  Red: Yes, I think that is exactly what popper believed, but there’s almost nobody agrees with me on that

[00:33:04]  Blue: I mean, it’s it’s kind of a common sense I mean, it’s not so outrageous. I don’t think I think

[00:33:12]  Red: popper’s Pistemology is 100 about absorption that you have progressive theories that replace the old theory And can solve all the problems the old one could plus some additional new problems So I think popper when he says induction’s a myth What he means is anything that you think is induction Any inductive inductive achievement you ever come across it’s actually critical rationalism I think that’s exactly what popper was saying.

[00:33:38]  Blue: Yeah.

[00:33:38]  Red: Now you can then say, well, does that mean induction’s wrong? Well, it depends if you think of induction as something distinct from critical rationalism Then yes, I think popper is saying that’s a myth But if you think of induction in terms of something more general That includes critical rationalism, then yeah, induction’s a real thing Like it’s just so happens that all the true examples of induction are always critical rationalism Or at least that was popper’s point of view that I think he was expressing

[00:34:06]  Blue: and no one agrees with you on that

[00:34:08]  Red: No, I mean it seems

[00:34:10]  Blue: pretty sensible

[00:34:11]  Red: I can’t think of anybody who agrees with me on that. I think that there is Like everyone I’ve talked to in the critrack community completely disagrees with me on this so And we’ll discuss that more. I mean a lot of this comes from Like Campbell’s evolution of histomology which we did an episode on

[00:34:30]  Blue: Yeah,

[00:34:30]  Red: and popper’s endorsement of it popper’s own thoughts on the subject I I don’t know if popper was as clear as he could have been right So there’s there’s this and I’m gonna do an episode on this where I actually show my struggle to try to make sense of What is being said And and all the different alternative readings that the critrack community has come up with on the exact same passages that I’m reading And why it is that I think the way I’m reading it’s the only one that actually makes sense And I think that all their readings have been refuted by something else that was said, right And so it’s there’s there’s a difficulty here though. Like I’m not I’m not saying. Oh, it’s just so obvious. It’s not obvious, right? I wish popper had been way more obvious about this Um, I think that it is a tough thing to try to get at What was popper actually saying and then try to put it succinctly and I think it’s been a huge struggle on my part And then here’s the thing. I’m not actually sure I’m agree with popper Right, there’s there’s what I think popper said and then there’s whether I think it’s right or not as a separate question

[00:35:34]  Red: And I’m I think I’m almost to the point where I agree with popper But like it’s been a struggle like I honestly have thought that pop maybe there was a form of induction that popper missed That had nothing to do with critical rationalism And I’ve toyed with that idea way back with episode 26 and I’ve never let go of that as a possibility And I still haven’t entirely given up on it But like once I came across debormeo’s theories. I started to realize I think I’ve missed something and I think popper was probably right Um, but I say popper was probably right and I mean something that nobody agrees with me that popper actually said So I mean there’s these different levels, right where there’s what I think popper said and then there’s whether popper was right Or not those are two different questions. We have to keep them separate in our minds

[00:36:16]  Blue: Yeah,

[00:36:16]  Red: so I think this one’s a fairly good account of both the problem of induction and popper’s solution to it

[00:36:24]  Blue: okay,

[00:36:25]  Red: so I I’ve I think the one thing That probably needs to be called out Is this idea of evidence for he multiple times says that popper did not believe in the concept of evidence for a theory And here’s the thing though I I have many many many many many many times seen crit rats jump down somebody’s throat Over use of the phrase evidence for or some equivalent phrase Usually responding to something like proper prove. There’s no such thing as evidence for a theory, right?

[00:36:59]  Blue: Yeah, that seems like just I agree with that just like a trick It doesn’t you know like the war on words as you put it Yeah Okay,

[00:37:07]  Red: but the fact that so many crit rats critical rationalists do perceive popper as saying that Is strevins wrong to portray popper as being against the concept of evidence for a theory Or is that an accurate portrayal and I think I think there’s tons of critical rationalists legitimate critical rationalists Ones that are like true scholars that know way more about this than I do That I think would probably agree with strevins on this right that that popper did say there’s no such thing as evidence for a theory um Now I would personally take issue with that assessment And thus I because of that I would take some issue with strevins’s wording here So I think that corroborating evidence is an indispensable part of popper’s epistemology And thus the phrase evidence for has an intuitive and direct popperian counterpart in Degrees of corroboration And I take the phrase evidence for to simply mean corroborating evidence i.e evidence that came out of a severe test that might have falsified the theory but didn’t Well, I

[00:38:16]  Blue: mean, I just hear you hear hear that is using somewhat Well, I know what these words mean, but language that’s going to be confusing to most People and most people just know That you hear oh, there’s evidence for this assertion Most people are just gonna you’re not going to convince people that that does is not a meaningless statement I mean in no universe is the average man on the street going to be like They would just look at you like you said something completely idiotic if you right if you tell them that I mean Of course, there’s evidence for things as we go through this world and you know, maybe not in a You know, of course and of course you can pick that apart too Which which has some validity But you know, we all go through life believing that we see evidence for all kinds of assertions even critical rationalists, I’ll bet

[00:39:09]  Red: right So, yeah, that okay, so that that would probably be the the thing that I would take the strongest issue with Strevins over I I did have argued that strevins was straw manning popper Because there is such a thing in popperian epistemology as evidence for a theory by which I really just mean corroborating evidence for theory

[00:39:32]  Blue: Yeah,

[00:39:33]  Red: um, but like I I have to acknowledge that nearly every critical rationalist. I’ve talked to disagrees with me on this, right

[00:39:40]  Blue: Okay,

[00:39:41]  Red: except maybe the increments guys. I I’ve they have been really comfortable with language like evidence for a theory so They might be a really notable exception to most critical rationalists. I’ve talked to Where they will they will just easily say, oh, this is evidence for this theory or something like that, right? so Not everybody disagrees with me on that, but I would definitely have to say that many people reading strevins Might agree with him here that popper did not believe in the concept of evidence for a theory now. Let me Nuance this just a little bit though I’m taking evidence for to mean corroborating evidence, right? Which I think is a super natural way of understanding the term evidence for and it just maps directly to an important part of popper’s epistemology so

[00:40:30]  Blue: and the the Other other way to look at it evidence is to say the evidence proves something. Yeah Beyond any reasonable doubt kind of fate Yeah,

[00:40:40]  Red: or or or even or even just probably verifies the theory, you know There’s there’s ways you could take the term evidence for that just wouldn’t be true

[00:40:49]  Blue: But you can as it as a general as something that supports a theory the the concept of evidence for has Validity

[00:40:59]  Red: to you. That’s right. It does

[00:41:01]  Blue: and to popper you

[00:41:02]  Red: think yes. Yes. I think so. Yes. Yeah,

[00:41:05]  Blue: okay

[00:41:06]  Red: Okay So it’s hard for me to argue strevins has popper rung here um, at least not without acknowledging that either I’m wrong or nearly everyone gets popper rung in the same way that strevins gets popper rung Even people who are big fans of popper. So I think that strevins I mean, I don’t want to say he gets a pass because I don’t think he does I think he’s got popper rung here but like He I kind of feel like He deserves a partial pass or something right because He’s right to a degree. He’s right in a way many critical rationalists Most critical rationalists would agree with him That he’s actually correctly understanding popper’s theory here

[00:41:49]  Blue: Okay

[00:41:50]  Red: Okay, so let’s talk about falsificationism. So Here is strevins’s criticism of popper’s falsificationism. So that last one I I gave him at least a partial pass We’re now out of the easy territory

[00:42:06]  Blue: Oh, that was easy. Okay. That was the easy one. Yeah Okay Okay,

[00:42:12]  Red: quote such as the logic according to popper that drives the scientific method Science gathers evidence not to validate theories, but to refute them to rule out Rule them out of the running the job of scientists is to go through the list of all possible theories and to eliminate as many as possible Or as popper said to falsify them Suppose that you have accumulated much evidence and discarded many theories Of the theories that remain on the list It is impossible According to popper to say that one is more likely to be true than any of the others Scientific theories if they are not falsified forever remain conjectures that last part was an actual quote from popper By the way, no matter how many true predictions a theory has made You have no more reason to believe it than to believe any of its Unfalsified rivals All right.

[00:43:09]  Blue: Yeah

[00:43:10]  Red: This is a tougher one peter Let’s let’s deliberate what is this an accurate summary of popper’s view of falsification Or to what degree is it or is it not

[00:43:21]  Blue: what I hear him saying is that okay when you have a theory Scientific theory or any theory about life. I guess I don’t I don’t know exactly But let’s just say any theory That you you you have a list of explanations for it For for why it’s true and then you falsify these explanations one by one Um And if there’s some if there’s two or three left you don’t really have any reason to believe than any one I mean, it seems like a simplified it doesn’t really ring true as how as as The the the best version of critical rationalism That Is is worth subscribing to to me.

[00:44:11]  Red: I I agree with you on that by the way, but please continue. No, it’s okay That’s about it. No, no, no, I you bias me

[00:44:17]  Blue: please

[00:44:19]  Red: okay, so One point of contention Might be here He says you have no more reason to believe it than to believe any of its unfalsified rivals Note that it is explicitly stated in terms of belief Okay, no more reason to believe it than to believe any of its unfalsified rivals So the context here is a belief your personal subjective belief and b we’re only talking about Unfalsified rivals not the falsified ones So popper does argue. Here’s a quote from popper from conjecture and refutation page 74 We search for truth even though we can never be sure we have found it And because the falsified theories are known or believed to be false while While the non falsified theories may still be true Now that does I have to admit sound remarkably close to what strevins just said Okay, so here’s a case where you can if you search through popper Find quotes that seem at least like they’re in the same ballpark as what strevins was say Okay However The defense attorney for popper is going to ask us to consider the following quotes from popper Okay, so i’m going to now read some quotes from popper now that the prosecuting attorney has given their evidence Let’s give the defense attorney a chance So conjecture refutations page 74 We do not prefer every non falsified theory Only one which in the light of criticism appears to be better than its competitors Which solves our problems, which is well tested and which we think or rather conjecture or hope Considering our provisional accepted theories that it will stand up to further tests

[00:46:08]  Blue: So we go with our gut feeling. I knew I had something right

[00:46:13]  Red: You know, okay,

[00:46:14]  Blue: you know what

[00:46:15]  Red: you’re joking, but you know what What is popper saying here like first of all, let’s acknowledge something The defense attorney is correct that so let me let me read what strevins said and let’s read what popper said There’s a clear contradiction Okay, he says It is impossible according to popper to say that one Unfalsified theory is more likely to be true than any of the other unfalsified theories But popper says we do not prefer every non falsified theory right there popper has Literally said the opposite of what strevins claims. He was saying Okay, so we can at this point say ah strevins is straw manning popper and we can be done Okay, but your joke that you just made Isn’t really a joke

[00:47:00]  Blue: Yeah,

[00:47:00]  Red: what is popper actually saying like like let me reread the quote from popper Try to put it to me what popper is saying in some concise explicit way We do not prefer every non falsified theory only one which in the light of criticism Appears to be better than its competitors which solves our problems Which is well tested and of which we think or rather conjecture or hope Considering other provisionally accepted theories that it will stand up to further tests So, I mean it is

[00:47:29]  Blue: kind of like trusting your gut. You just look I mean, what is trusting your gut? You look at the whole Array of evidence you have available to you and go with the theory that seems Seems right. I mean that that has some validity in this world. I think

[00:47:46]  Red: So there we go then is this this is possibly a case of popper Saying trust your gut and go with your quote unquote plausibility rankings just like strevins is arguing for Or maybe not. It’s a little hard to tell right? It’s it’s not stated in such a way that that we can definitively tell What he so that’s

[00:48:05]  Blue: that’s the strevins Version of trusting your gut is a plausibility ranking.

[00:48:10]  Red: That’s right.

[00:48:11]  Blue: Okay,

[00:48:11]  Red: so he strevins claims So let me be clear about what I think strevins position is That scientists have plausibility rankings, which is a term that is very basian and very inductivist Okay, that scientists Make their choices based on those plausibility rankings That they all have their gut feeling as to which theory is true and which theory is false Amongst the group of non falsified theories. They work on and defend And they’re not trying to falsify the theory. They believe in they’re trying to falsify the other theory

[00:48:45]  Blue: Yeah,

[00:48:45]  Red: right because they really believe their theory is right. There may be even dogmatic about it Right and they go after trying to destroy the other theory and trying to come up with ways to bolster their theory And we could talk about what it means to bolster a theory. There is actually a paparian version of that um And but that it but as strevins put it Their belief in their theories runs far ahead of falsification Okay, well,

[00:49:11]  Blue: you know what my gut is telling me that that’s actually it doesn’t seem like that Different than what popper is saying, you know when in in big picture Yeah, or just big picture. I mean when he says I may be Wrong and you may be right but together through an effort we get nearer to the truth I mean, what are we doing in a conversation where like making different assertions and trying to work out The truth of something together. I mean in some ways that’s a A way of making a plausibility ranking Right. Yeah.

[00:49:45]  Red: Okay. I mean All right. Let me let me point out something else here So here’s the things that popper says can differentiate between non -falsified theories. He says in light of criticism Okay, he says appears to be better than its competitors Which solves our problems solves problems better Yeah, which is well tested better better corroborate it better tested. Okay And of which we think or rather conjecture or hope When considering other accepted theories That it will stand up to further tests Okay, so he believes that though that’s a description of what how he thinks scientists Decide which of several unfalsified theories is the better one. Okay So one thing I want to put here is that one might argue that what popper just said there at least in part Was precisely popper’s degrees of corroboration was meant to be a rough measure of how well tested a non -falsified theory is Compared to its non -falsified competitors popper has certainly never claimed that a group of of Non -falsified theories if you have three non -falsified theories that they may all be equally strong Like popper has always claimed that one of those might have a much higher degree of corroboration than the other Right that it’s been more severely tested as essentially. Okay Which would then be a legitimate concept of evidence for a theory in the popperian sense, right? And he does mention that he says which is well tested So he does mention this idea of corroboration as one of the ways in which you can tell a difference between non -falsified theories So my initial impression here is is that strevins may be misinterpreting popper here But here’s the thing We just talked about how

[00:51:41]  Red: Critical rationalist today don’t in general believe in the concept of evidence for and I said Well, but there is this concept in popper of corroborating evidence. Okay, and that I think that’s the same as evidence for but here’s the trick Brett hall once told me he thought popper’s concept of corroboration was unnecessary and did not follow from popper’s overall theory And that that it was too much like the concept of evidence for and that he rejected The whole concept of degrees of corroboration And I know that’s not brett hall alone. In fact, I think that brett’s just expressing A majority of critical rationalist opinion that popper’s Views on corroboration in and of themselves his degrees of corroboration that most critical rationalists today find it somewhat questionable and so here we have critical rationalists challenging The very something that popper himself saw as very important in terms of determining which theory was the best theory to go with Which was his degrees of corroboration and Many critical rationalists today reject that whole It’s not just that the words evidence for mean something different to them. They’re rejecting the very concept of degrees of corroboration Okay, and when you when you Wait, I’m sorry.

[00:53:00]  Blue: Did popper use this term degrees of corroboration.

[00:53:03]  Red: Yes. He did

[00:53:04]  Blue: and so when you bring this up with them What do they say?

[00:53:08]  Red: I did bring it up and I was having discussion with brett hall on your facebook page And he said I do not think popper was correct to have a degrees of corroboration I think that was an old school thinking. Okay, so they do at least

[00:53:20]  Blue: recognize that they’re disagreeing with popper. Yes. Yes Okay

[00:53:27]  Red: Okay, so Strevins also might raise any objections. So let’s imagine strevins is a prosecuting attorney. He’s gonna raise an objection here He’s gonna say okay guys. Yes, you’re right technically that statement from popper does say That you can prefer one non falsified theory over another But it’s not like every scientist agrees on which theory is in light of criticism the best one In fact, there is overwhelming evidence that scientists do not agree on which of several non falsified theories is the best one So doesn’t that mean popper is wrong? Okay. Yeah, okay. Maybe strevins is going a little too far when he says um that the popper says there’s no reason to uh believe one non falsified theory over another uh, not un falsified theory but What we have here is this is the prosecuting attorney talking not bruce here, but strevins. I can imagine objecting But wait the problem here is is that you’re acting like There’s you can just simply decide oh this theory in light of criticism or in light of how many How well tested the theory is or in light of other provisionally accepted theories That we can then tell which is the best theory and strevins is actually saying that’s just not how Science works science works on scientists having gut feelings beliefs and irrational Irrational moments where they run way ahead of the evidence and they go this is the right theory dogmatically so Okay, and then it’s got nothing to do with some You know sterilized form of which theory was the best criticized which Solved the problem the best that yeah, sure you can ask those questions But that just isn’t how science actually works. That’s strevins’s point

[00:55:26]  Blue: But your big picture assertion is that popper would actually agree with that

[00:55:33]  Red: I think maybe popper would agree with that. Yeah, but I don’t think people I I don’t know I mean, I I think part of what I’m trying to do is I’m trying to figure that out, right We’ve got quotes where popper seems to agree with it and you’ve got quotes where popper seems to not agree with it

[00:55:46]  Blue: Okay, and

[00:55:47]  Red: so it’s a little tough, right? So I have tended to read popper closer to strevins’s epistemology than strevins does that is why we’re doing this, right? But I’m I’m questioning whether I’m reading popper, right? I’m questioning whether I do have the the correct read of popper here. Okay um So why not just call it so strevins would argue why not just call it what it is every scientist has different Positability rankings or in other words different beliefs about which theory is the best one And it’s just based on their subjective You know probabilities in their mind maybe if we’re using the Bayesian approach as to which is the best theory So based on this does that change your thoughts any or are you going to go with your original thoughts on this?

[00:56:31]  Blue: well, I mean as How did you describe me a informed layman or something an expert layman or something, okay as as a as a layman My with who does not have strong dogmatic feelings About it I I I just my interpretation of critical rationalism is that You know largely influenced by you is that it’s more interesting and more nuanced than probably Then the critics certainly suggest and many of the proponents of it suggest As well. I mean you can see a lot inside this this thing called critical rationalism and it absorbs a lot of different kinds of ideas and the It seems to me just just a correct fallibly correct interpretation of how Well Humans actually move closer to truth in this universe, but it’s a really mysterious mysterious thing with lots of nuances and lots of unknowns and um From that perspective, I think he he is Steel manning popper a little bit, but straw manning straw manning popper a little bit, but it’s uh You know, I mean it’s not like What he’s saying is is totally crazy either.

[00:58:22]  Red: Yeah You know, I guess I kind of agree with you So I definitely think that popper. I think strictly speaking. He is straw manning popper Um here at least in so far as popper does claim that there can be reasons to Prefer one let’s say preference that I believe I need to address the word belief here still um To prefer one theory over another even if you have a group of non -false my theories Like I just gave you the quote there There’s there’s just no doubt that popper did did not say that there was no reason to prefer one over the other but I do think That it’s a little unclear How if at all popper’s view differs from strevins Like would popper popper might would popper have a problem with the idea of plausibility ranking Like he definitely would have a problem with I think with the idea of a probability ranking

[00:59:15]  Blue: Yeah, but plausibility is different than probability. Yeah, are

[00:59:20]  Red: they are they like I’m not even sure that’s true I mean, okay probability

[00:59:24]  Blue: Probability makes it sound like you’re putting a number on it.

[00:59:27]  Red: Yes, that’s

[00:59:28]  Blue: that makes me bristle a little bit Yeah, the num the number thing, but if plausibility you’re like, huh, you know, that’s just that’s really what you’re doing Like I was saying in a conversation is that you’re trying to Move certain things you think up in the plausibility ranking and other things down And I think personally popper would agree with that. I’m gonna say

[00:59:49]  Red: All right So we’re gonna say mostly straw man on this one Maybe with the caveat that there are probably a number of critical rationalists That would present popper as saying something more similar to strevins than we take Yes,

[01:00:04]  Blue: in in my plausibility ranking for The for him making a straw man of popper. I think has gone up.

[01:00:13]  Red: Okay Let’s talk about belief now because I’ve emphasized that word several times for reasons that I’m sure you’ve already guessed so So this brings us to the second big point of contention in the previous statement strevins is arguing specifically that no matter How many true predictions that theory is made You have no more. This is quoting strevins. No matter how many true predictions that theory is made you have no more reason to believe it Okay So and this is his Trying to explain popper. Okay So he continues. Let me repeat that Popper is sometimes said by the new oxford american dictionary, for example to have claimed that no theory can be proved definitively to be true but He has held a far more radical view than this Popper thought that of of the theories that have not been positively disproved We have absolutely no reason to believe one rather than another It is not that Even our best theory cannot be definitively proved It is that there is no such thing as a best theory only a surviving theory and all surviving theories are equal Pages 19 to 20 by the way Now we’ve already shown that popper did not claim all unfalsified theories are equal So we’re calling straw man on that one. It looks like though That idea does perhaps represent many modern critical rational meant represent modern critical rationalist thinking Even if popper himself did not necessarily accept that view

[01:01:43]  Blue: Well, when you say it represents their thinking, I think I think part of the problem is that it It represents what they say, but it doesn’t I’m not sure How that’s that’s that’s a fair that’s a fair point

[01:01:54]  Red: Okay, let’s let’s talk about that for a second is actually you’re good to call me out on that because you’ve got you’re making a good point It does represent the explicit theories that they advance

[01:02:05]  Blue: Yeah,

[01:02:05]  Red: but it isn’t necessarily What they actually subscribe to in terms of how they behave

[01:02:11]  Blue: Yeah, well that it comes down to, you know, how do we how do we demonstrate what we believe? More truthfully, is it the way we behave or what we say? I mean, that’s It’s something I think about all the time. That’s

[01:02:25]  Red: a that’s a fair corrective. I didn’t think of so. Thank you for raising that So it should be noted that the context here though is reasons to believe One theory over another. Okay, so strevins points point is one of Seven sorry strevins point is one of showing evidence He is asking us to check what’s really happens in real life with real scientists Do scientists find reason to believe in one theory over another even though none of them are yet falsified Oh, you know what? This is very similar to what you just said. It’s that you were saying about critical rationalists and I’m I’m saying it about scientists. I guess Okay, what do scientists actually do what we find is and this I think is just a fact that every scientist and his mother Do have personal reasons to prefer believing in one theory over another even out of a group of unfalsified theories So now even popper does seem to have admitted this to some degree So we’re not necessarily saying that’s at odds with popper. We’re still Not claiming that this this is this could still be considered a straw man of popper But scientists don’t just agree on which theory happens to be the Scientists don’t agree on which theory happens to be the best one to accept In fact, it’s not even close that scientists agree on which is of several unfalsified theories. Which one’s the best? So while we’re on the subject strevins adds this charge against popper quote

[01:03:52]  Red: Popper, this is me making up something strevins might say it’s not a real quote from popper Popper, you’re acting like there is some neat division between unfalsified theories and unfalsified theories Popper specifically talks as if it’s just obvious division and the existence of the division is available to us We can easily sort falsified theories from unfalsified theories. They’re just two separate categories But I strevins am arguing that no such division exists at least at any one given moment in time You never actually falsify a theory It’s true that due to bachonian convergence and due to the iron rule of explanation that over time opinions By which I mean beliefs says strevins converge But it is a very long and slow process and there is never some point at which a theory suddenly changes status from Unfalsified to falsified and we don’t have to then consider it again And we’re only looking at the the unfalsified theories In other words strevins is arguing that science is explicitly about belief and belief is the driving driving force of science whereas strevins Um Whereas strevins is claiming that popper is saying that science has no need for belief Because you can falsify or criticize a theory and just go with the best one Okay, now none of that’s an actual quote from strevins, but that is how I read strevins and as his criticism of popper here So is this if i’m getting strevins correct? Is this strevins? is what he is claiming um, is it Incorrect in theory is it incorrect in practice? Is this maybe a valid criticism of popper? I guess is the question So is it true that popper sometimes?

[01:05:37]  Red: Speaks as if theories can be easily sorted into falsified and unfalsified So it turns out that this is a complex subject and we just did a whole episode on falsificationism And is it falsifiable go listen to that one if you want more on this So a few podcasts ago um, we talked about um, we showed examples of where popper especially in his early years Does say things that seemed to indicate that he thought you could really and truly falsify theory using a single basic statement as an observation For example, here’s one I did not use but that is an actual quote from popper from his book two fundamentals It says if a potential falsifier actually occurs and thus an observation statement a basic statement Inconsistent with the given theory is true or which amounts to the same thing if an an event prohibited by the theory does occur Then the theory is falsified. It is false refuted such a false Such a false falsified theory is evidently falsifiable and therefore it is an empirical scientific character Even though on a count of its refutation. It is excluded as false But not as unscientific from the hypotheses of accepted science So that quote right there popper is without a doubt Say doing exactly what I see strevins accusing him of That he’s claiming that there’s this easy way that you just look at is this theory falsified or not And then you’re looking at the unfalsified theories and then you’re preferring them based on You know, maybe corroboration, maybe based on criticism Maybe based on light of other theories that are provisionally accepted But that really you just have to consider the unfalsified theories strevins is saying That is not true.

[01:07:26]  Red: That is not how Science works in practice or in theory popper is wrong on that point And I just gave you a quote where popper really does seem to be saying that Do you following what I’m trying to say here is that there it seems to be at least in terms of this one quote that I happen to pull out It does seem like popper is making a claim that theories either falsified or not Where strevins is claiming that it just isn’t how it works like you do not actually falsify theories You have evidence you recall from the episode we did on his theory That what you do is you come up with an experiment and you do the experiment and it may It may not go towards your theory But that that may be because something was wrong with one of the auxiliary theories and you have every right Under under scientific thinking to then come up with a new test that tests the auxiliary theory Okay, now we know popper that is the no ad hoc rule that is what popper taught so From that point of view strevins and popper is saying the same thing But if that’s true, how can you make sense of that quote? I just gave from popper like that’s quote from popper of if potential falsifier actually occurs and thus an observation statement A basic statement inconsistent with a given theory It’s true or which amounts to the same thing if an invent prohibited by the theory does occur then the theory is falsified It’s just a false statement. It is just technically false.

[01:08:47]  Red: I don’t know what else to say Right and this is the problem that I feel like I bump into with popper all the time If you look at the broader Epistemology, he’s building and if you look at it in terms of the lens of the no ad hoc rule I don’t see him as necessarily at odds with what what strevins is saying But if you look at the actual quote of what he said It’s hard to deny that strevins didn’t have a point here Right that popper is acting like theories are either falsified or not. It just isn’t how it works Right, you never falsify a theory. You never do it Right, you it’s always an open question of can you come up with an auxiliary theory? That’s alternately testable and can you come up with a way to Test that that was the the problem instead and you get to do that forever Until you exhaust every non ad hoc theory you can think of right as long as you can keep creatively coming up with new tests You get to do it forever. Basically, right?

[01:09:42]  Blue: Are you describing popper popper’s ratchet here?

[01:09:45]  Red: Yes, I am

[01:09:45]  Blue: in a sense. Yeah, so that kind of In some ways popper’s ratchet Thinking of popper in that using that term, which is your term, correct?

[01:09:55]  Red: That’s my term. Yeah.

[01:09:56]  Blue: Yeah, and where where you I’m struggling for the define popper’s ratchet.

[01:10:03]  Red: So popper’s ratchet is this idea. It’s really just a form It’s it’s the outcome of following the no ad hoc rule.

[01:10:09]  Blue: So yes, so the

[01:10:10]  Red: idea is that if your theory if if a Counter evidence comes up for your theory. Yeah, it does not falsify your theory You have every right to instead come up and test one of your auxiliary theories to come up with an independent test for The auxiliary theory that you think is wrong And do that test and if it shows that that that was the auxiliary theory that was wrong You’re still in business you never and because you can it’s just a matter of creativity, right? Like you may personally run out of alternative theories To test and at which point maybe you either become a pseudoscientist or maybe you give up and you move on to something else

[01:10:51]  Blue: Or or maybe you just get more creative, right and you spend more time trying to figure out Okay, what is it that I misunderstood here and how do I make this correct right in a testable way and and Because it’s like the halting problem You never get to know if the reason why you ran out of testable theories is because your theory was false Or if it’s just because you weren’t creative enough You never get to know that right? Well, that it seems like that perspective kind of blows The the criticisms that we’re talking about Of of popper Sort of out of the water in a way if that’s an incorrect interpretation of more nuanced deep interpretation of what popper was saying then It’s yeah, it seems it seems it seems the best pushback Yeah,

[01:11:41]  Red: so popper’s ratchet then is that you always you always have to increase the amount of testability, right? It doesn’t matter which theory you do it, right? Yeah, you don’t get to save your theory by making your theory less testable You only get to save your theory by making one of your theories. It may be the auxiliary theory more testable You you have to always ratchet towards increased testability

[01:12:03]  Blue: Okay, I like how you put that

[01:12:06]  Red: Okay, you know what I agree with you on this So let’s I have more to say here and I’m actually moving towards something that I think is an important point But let’s just take it aside here Strevins is making A specific claim I think against popper Which is that popper put everything in terms of falsification ism And then you get the occasional comment where he says Well, yeah, sure. Maybe you have good you can use criticism to choose between Unfalsified theories, right? And strevins is saying That’s just wrong and and I just read this quote from popper popper does come across like he’s saying that sometimes not always Like we found some Quotes from popper where he clearly isn’t agreeing with strevins Isn’t agreeing with the way strevins is portraying popper But we found some quotes where he kind of is Okay, and this makes sense. I think two fundamentals was one of the earlier books um, I think popper just got better at this over time where he started to Having heard criticisms of his theories. He got better at nuancing it better and explaining it better But that that makes sense to me, right? Like I can see an early popper Sincerely thinking that it’s just pure falsification And then later starting to realize there’s something more going on here, right And I don’t think popper ever really made the no ad hoc rule as central as I make it, right? So you’re not going to find popper’s ratchet that term anywhere within popper And you can find the ideas in popper.

[01:13:36]  Red: There’s like five or six really strong points where like in the past podcast Where I actually quote popper and develop it using the quotes from popper So I don’t think there’s any doubt that popper agreed conceptually with what i’m talking about But there’s only five or six. There’s strong statements. I don’t think there’s any doubt There’s like I they’re not statements that are easily interpreted in some other way But I don’t think that you’re going to find That people who read popper in general come away with the popper’s ratchet view view of popper in mind Because it just isn’t the way he words things in general, right? And because of that I think what I want to say here is this That strevins does have popper wrong and he is strawmaning popper But that popper the reason why he is is because popper really did mis explain it in his earlier works That’s I think the stance I personally want to take here Put this another way I think strevins is correct at times that popper does outright say you can refute a theory with a single observation Observation even though this is a false statement even under popper’s more nuanced epistemology So it seems strevins criticism of popper does have some teeth At least if we’re looking at earlier statements from popper and only those statements, which which I admit is kind of unfair, right? Um, the thing is is that people aren’t all going to be scholars of popper They’re not all going to read every single one of his books They’re going to just read a book by popper And they’re going to come away with what they come away with, right?

[01:15:12]  Red: So if popper’s logic of scientific discovery includes some technically incorrect statements People aren’t going to go. Oh, yeah popper changed his mind on that Especially if popper never really claimed to change his mind on that, right? They’re going to simply have this quote from popper from his early book and they’re going to say oh, that’s wrong And from that point of view, you could almost understand why they kind of reject popper and then don’t look further, right? Um, and I do think this is a problem that we bump into here because when it comes right down to it Let me just go on a limb and say this I think strevins is stating something more clearly I think popper did have something similar in mind even if strevins didn’t see it But I think strevins is stating it far more clearly And I think strevins is therefore in some sense an improvement on popper here Okay, that what he is saying is falsificationism isn’t is is really institutionally what causes progress Nowhere in popper will you find something stated that? That empirical evidence falsificationism Is a speech code Strevins calls it that right? It’s this idea that you need to put all your arguments in terms of the hardest most powerful false of falsifications, right that actually

[01:16:33]  Blue: says it’s a speech code Yeah,

[01:16:35]  Red: he said he says the speech code, right Individual scientists use anything they want to decide what to work on Okay, and it’s got it may have nothing to do with falsificationism It may have nothing to do with criticism even Except in some very vague sense that everything can be counted as a criticism Okay, scientists work on what they work on because they believe it

[01:17:00]  Blue: Yeah And

[01:17:01]  Red: that belief runs way far ahead of the actual critical discussion I do not find anywhere in popper where he says that where strevins says it and I think strevins is right Okay But I don’t think it’s necessarily incompatible with popper if you understand popper in terms of popper’s ratchet Right if you think of popper not in terms of a sort of pure falsification of theories But instead in terms of popper’s ratchet I think strevins is maybe a you know, half -notch improvement on popper at least in this one particular area I mean, right not maybe in general um So That’s why i’m gonna say yeah, I think strevins is wrong here But I do think his wrong criticism had some teeth um I would definitely argue that popper does a better job in his later books And starts to really emphasize that his falsificationism is really not about falsifying theories per se But about the logical relationship of theory to empirical evidence And how that allows progress to happen Okay, which is I think exactly equivalent to strevins’s iron rule of explanation. I think Um those two are more similar than it first appears um Okay, but with this we kind of took an aside there. This isn’t even the most interesting part.

[01:18:26]  Red: Okay I want to emphasize strevins puts this all in terms of belief Okay, the idea of belief is interesting because deutch has pop david deutch has popularized this idea That a critical rationalist doesn’t believe anything and that there is no need for belief except in on our podcast We interviewed him and we um The angry guys intermittent interviewed him and asked him about this and we did too But I think it was on the increments podcast They asked him about this and he said well, there there may be need for the word belief, you know like in religion You know, you go to your religious leader and you say, what do we believe on this subject and and outside of that Deutch has really kind of said there’s just no need for belief belief is just Something that’s unnecessary and it’s just not a part of critical rationalism So um now let me say here that despite this popularization from uh david deutch that there are critical rationalists that um That that do not agree with david deutch on this that they think beliefs are Not as problematic as deutch is suggesting The increment guys in particular the reason why they asked deutch this question was because they were they didn’t really Agree that beliefs were necessarily as problematic as that you could just remove your beliefs, right? That was why they were kind of asking him questions around around this In fact, it’s interesting that I did a podcast Not long afterwards.

[01:19:59]  Red: We did our podcast on popper and god and and the joseph agassi paper about phideism And I in one of those I said I believe in beliefs and I kind of expressed the idea that I Didn’t agree with deutch on this that I think beliefs are a necessary part of science I had one of the increment guys reach out to me and just send me a little note saying hey Glad to see that you actually agreed with us on this Okay, so there’s a bit of a rift amongst critical rationalists on this where You’ve got kind of the deutchian critical rationalists who believe that that there is no need for belief And then maybe me and the increments guys maybe some others Who think that’s not that’s not really true human beings absolutely do have beliefs And and that is part of how we actually come up with and decide what we’re going to work on and therefore it is a part of science At least it’s part of the science of what research programs you’re going to be doing Now here’s the thing though Deutch may have popularized this idea, but it’s pure popper And I don’t know if I don’t even know if everybody realizes this that deutch is actually just Getting this from popper. So here’s an actual quote from popper. This is in search of a better world page six I’m opposed to the thesis that a scientist that the scientist must believe in his theory as far as I’m concerned I do not believe in belief as em foster says and I especially do not believe in belief in science I believe at most that belief has a place in ethics And even here only in a few instances

[01:21:36]  Red: So it deutch is actually just I think correctly Repeating what popper says here. Okay. So deutch may have popularized it Maybe not everybody realizes that this came from popper But this idea that there is that science has no need for belief That’s pure popper. Okay So now Wait a minute Before we go too far on this. Let me just say the back in episodes 106 and 107 That was the popper and god and the fightiest ones Popper Very strongly said that the choice to be rational was in fact an irrational act Isn’t that a case of belief? So doesn’t that mean that popper did believe in beliefs then? How’s that different than having a belief if you’re going to irrationally believe in rationality? Doesn’t that just mean you believe in rationality? Maybe even just irrationally so? um So I think this is a little bit of a problem It might be a contradiction even but maybe not and here’s why You might argue What popper meant in the above quote when he talked about maybe you do need belief in the matter of ethics That might be what he was talking about right? He might have he might have had in mind Yes, the initial belief in rationality is a matter of belief But after that you don’t need it that might be what popper said that’s a possible way to interpret or read popper Although this is just an interpretation.

[01:23:07]  Red: I don’t know for sure if that’s what he intended or not I’m just doing my best to come up with a steel man possible way to not make this a contradiction if that makes sense Okay So the issue here being that popper does allow for belief in some cases And I think deutch Strengthens this I think deutch Really has no place for belief Outside of say religion which deutch is an atheist. So he’s got no need for it at all in his mind. Okay um So maybe let’s just stop for just a second as I know I’m maybe getting a little bit confusing But I feel like this is a really important point. Okay, strevins is claiming That popper believes there’s no need to believe more in one theory over another We have a quote from popper where he says you should you can prefer one theory over another But if you do it in terms of the word belief, it does seem popper actually was against believing in one theory more than another There’s maybe an open question of what’s the difference between prefer and believe right? I’m going to ask that question in just a second But peter maybe give me some thoughts at this point Maybe you weren’t even aware before right now that popper believed that you didn’t need um beliefs in science at least

[01:24:21]  Blue: I’m kind of digesting that. I mean, I guess I Heard I I don’t recall hearing that stated so directly I’m not sure if it if it’s a statement from popper that completely rings true for me because I can think of definitions of belief where scientists do Or anyone we do have beliefs and All kinds of things.

[01:24:48]  Red: Yeah, I guess it depends on how you’re defining belief in a way So let’s let’s turn nuance that because I think that’s a fair point. Okay I think the word belief is so broad and has so many sub meanings That we may be facing a very serious problem with a claim like there’s no I don’t believe in beliefs Right,

[01:25:06]  Blue: well like what your example about how einstein at the big when he first Had his what do you what do you call it the happy realization? Yeah, the happy happiest moment of his life We when he first had that and then spent eight years or whatever trying to Trying to Make it more than a belief. I guess I mean, but it started with something that seemed a lot like a belief in a way

[01:25:35]  Red: Yeah,

[01:25:36]  Blue: so a realization. I guess you could say but you know, I mean maybe Of course people Believe things of course scientists believe things for all kinds of whole complicated interwoven web of good and bad reasons. So I’m I’m not sure if that statement and it’s something I completely subscribe to but It depends what how you define belief and you know, I think

[01:26:04]  Red: that’s What’s a version of belief that you would agree with it on maybe let’s do that because that might make it easier

[01:26:11]  Blue: well, I mean we should I think it If you think of a dogmatic belief, I mean belief It it can have the connotation of a dogmatic belief or It can’t have the connotation of just something that currently makes sense to you and I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that Okay, so you’re

[01:26:36]  Red: making a distinction between A dogmatic belief which by the way here since what we did say maybe dogmatic beliefs are okay I think you really mean a strongly dogmatic belief, right where you’re religiously holding to this idea and you are absolutely not open to Allowing it to be falsified That would be the bad version of belief. Yeah, and then there’d be the better version of belief which Um, how did you just put it you put it in a good way so remind me

[01:27:06]  Blue: Uh, that it’s just something that you happen to think It’s true that you put out there and for criticism and you’re open to other perspectives and you know, it’s not But that it’s not it’s not like you’re you’re saying that it’s that the the infallible truth.

[01:27:26]  Red: Yeah so I think that’s a good distinction peter and Let me I have Debated this with numerous crit rats trying to ask them questions around this and some have been quite helpful Some have been less than helpful because they’re very dogmatic about their belief and non -belief But others have put this in ways that I think I can agree with right like I had one put it to me one of the better ones Put it to me as well mean of course human beings have beliefs in some sense it’s it’s a very general term the very idea that that You have a collection of theories you falsify all but one And so now that’s your best theory. That’s soul surviving theories your best theory So you you embrace it as true I can this guy said I can totally see how the word belief might mean that and if it does then clearly clearly That’s compatible with critical rationalism with science, etc. Okay His argument though was that the word belief is so vague That it it just carries too much connotation to Religion dogma things like that And therefore he didn’t prefer the term belief and he was putting it definitively in terms of Use of a term which was really good because that’s a good answer that he was willing to put it that way. Okay Um, it’s non -essentialist when when you can acknowledge that the word has multiple meanings And you’re you’re only talking about for yourself.

[01:28:54]  Red: You’re not trying to criticize other people’s use of the word belief You’re just saying I personally am choosing not to use the word belief Because there’s just too much potential to get the wrong connotation That really strikes me as a pretty good subjectively good personal answer not not the answer I’m coming up with personally either like I will use the word belief just fine and I think it’s fine

[01:29:15]  Blue: But

[01:29:16]  Red: I can I can totally see where this guy’s coming from now in the same conversation on twitter Threads with other crit rats. I had all sorts of total garbage being said Right, like oh because belief always means that you believe it no matter what and it’s like well, that’s totally untrue You’re being an essentialist when you say that it’s totally untrue That is just not what the word believe means to most people in most cases, right? And I just some of the ridiculous defensive things crit rats were saying trying to defend this idea And so I was glad that at least someone could like lay it out for me in a way where I could go Yes, I can see what you mean, right? I’m still not sure it’s the way I’m gonna live my life But subjectively this seems really reasonable to me Okay, that it’s just the word belief itself. It’s just not a great word Okay, so that’d be that’d be be one way we could go about criticizing the word belief But let me just say that that’s that’s just not the way I think deutch or popper come across Like this reasonable read of it Seems like maybe it does it too much justice I mean if popper had actually said or deutch had actually said Well, there’s nothing wrong with using the word belief in most cases You know, but like I don’t personally prefer to then like I would just not be taking issue with it, right? That but I’ve never heard deutch say that I’ve never that quote.

[01:30:41]  Red: I just read from popper He does not say that right there It’s there’s something more being asserted here or at least seems like something more is being asserted That really becomes more questionable and feels like it deserves some pushback if that makes any sense, okay It’s unclear a little what they mean like I remember the increment guys talked about this in one of their podcasts They said like I’m not even sure What the deutch and crit rats mean when they talk about you don’t have beliefs Do they mean literally human beings don’t have beliefs and like like let me just ask this in terms of popper So if popper is here saying Um Well, you know beliefs don’t exist Well, then okay popper’s wrong. We can just consider him falsified. We can move on right like there’s there’s nothing else We need to discuss here Okay, or you know, are they saying something more like normatively you shouldn’t have beliefs like I I get the feeling that’s what deutch And maybe popper really meant But like I’ve never seen a clear statement where they make it clear what they’re really trying to say Well,

[01:31:46]  Blue: here’s what I I asked chat gbt for a quote from david doge about belief And from that scientific american article Or interview I think it is he says I think that belief is an irrational state of mind And I try to avoid it as far as I’m concerned I do not believe in belief as em forester says and I especially do not believe in belief in science

[01:32:14]  Red: Which is almost exactly a quote from popper notice that

[01:32:16]  Blue: so he’s So but he’s saying he’s almost I don’t know it almost sounds like a little bit of an ironic statement to say you you do not believe In belief yeah in the science I I but it’s all it almost seems to be recognizing in some way that The word is a complicated word

[01:32:37]  Red: Let me also say that in deutch’s case this wouldn’t have been true for popper. There’s the problem of bayesianism so um I mean, I think there were bayians around in early bayians Reasoning was definitely around in popper’s time, but a bayesian epistemology wasn’t so you wouldn’t have had a community that considered themselves competing with popper on this Yeah,

[01:33:00]  Blue: yeah

[01:33:01]  Red: um, deutch as we know We did an episode on words and concepts and talked about What does deutch even mean when he says there’s there’s no such thing as randomness or no such thing as stochasticity deutch has a definitely strong stance against anything around randomness probability stochasticity things like that and In bayesian reasoning There’s this idea that you have a belief. Okay the belief state bayesian use bayesian reasoning uses probability theory probability calculus Not to work out frequencies like dice rolling or something like that But to instead work out the plausibility of a theory or a one -off event something like that um, and they try to do it based on they try to put numbers to it, right? and When you do these updates with bayesian reasoning Whether it’s the good kind or the bad kind They call that a belief state because what you’re doing is is you’re measuring How true you think the the theory is based on the current set of evidence? Okay, so you you know 80 believe in this theory, but it’s 20 criticized still something along those lines, right compared to its competitors And I think that that really that whole idea that you can place numbers on theories like this Just galls critical rationalists now I have to tell you I’m intentionally studying bayesian reasoning to try to make sense of this myself and to form my formulate my own opinion As to whether the critical rationalists are right to be so galled by this And let me just say that my initial criticism of the crit rat community on this would be that every crit rat Including David Deutch.

[01:34:50]  Red: I’ve seen him say this in interviews We’ll say well, bayesian reasoning is fine in certain circumstances, but I’ve never seen them explain what those circumstances are And they always say well, there’s bayesian reasoning, which is fine, but there’s there’s or bayesian statistics sometimes they say depending on what they mean Um, but bayesian epistemology, that’s false. That’s just inductivism But I’ve never actually seen any of them take a serious attempt to try to explain under what circumstances It’s fine in what circumstances. It’s not I don’t think that’s a small criticism I think the fact that they have not addressed that is a gaping hole in their criticism And that’s actually what started interesting me was I wanted to know myself under what circumstances You should be using bayesian reasoning and what circumstances you shouldn’t And I wanted to figure that out and give an answer to that question and that was what drove me to start studying it now let me just say that Even David Deutch seems to agree that in some cases Bayesian reasoning is appropriate The word happens to be belief in those cases, right? They use the term belief That’s just the term that is officially used by that whole discipline And it’s not a bad term like the whole it’s the whole idea is is that you have this mathematical model You know, you’re trying to determine what the odds are of one thing versus another, you know, based on what Frequencies you know exist.

[01:36:20]  Red: Let’s say Um, so you come up with this idea that given these symptoms There’s a something percent chance that you are maybe this test you took a test or something like that There’s a something percent chance you have such and such disease Okay, you never know for sure if you have that disease or not. That’s just not the way reality works Okay, so you base it based on some sort of bayesian analysis And therefore that that final number that you come up with that’s called your belief And if new evidence comes in later, you do a bayesian update and you update that belief And it just doesn’t even seem like a bad term to me like this idea that there’s something wrong with it I I can’t figure out why it would be a problem like what else would you call it that would it would have been better Right, the whole idea is is that you either do or don’t have the disease You don’t know if you do or don’t have the disease But you’re trying to use evidence you’re trying to use frequencies that you know exist And you’re trying to come up with an answer Now, I don’t think very many critical rationalists would have a problem with a Bayesian analysis in a case like this Because it’s one of the cases that would be considered appropriate, right? So, you know, how does that fit into critical rationalism and why is the word belief so bad in this case, right?

[01:37:35]  Red: It’s it’s just a word like it is it’s not like I’ve got some better word that we I can offer instead And if I did it wouldn’t historically be the right word I no one would understand what I’m talking about because there’s tons of historical precedent of calling that a belief Um, no, is this the same as human beliefs in dogma? No, it’s not it’s just it’s just a word guys It’s it happened to be the word that somebody picked It was the best one they could come up with and it actually does kind of invoke the right idea in in these cases, right? So, I don’t know. It’s just I struggle a little here I I can buy the idea that the word belief may not be the best word because it’s too general But I struggle with the idea that it’s somehow problematic um Now let me just say Popper does give an explanation as to what he means So let me give an actual quote of popper explaining his actual views on beliefs in a bit more detail Okay

[01:38:32]  Blue: So

[01:38:33]  Red: This is from unedited quest page 97 It may be mentioned although this is not A thesis of logic of scientific discovery that the proposed solution of the problem of induction Also shows the way to the solution of the of the older problem the problem of the rationality of our beliefs For we may first replace the idea of belief by that of action And we may say that actions or inactions are rational if they are carried out in accordance with The state prevailing at the time of the critical scientific discussion There is no better synonym for rational than critical Belief of course is never rational. It is rational to suspend belief. That’s the end of the quote So here popper is explicitly sees rationality of belief as um Better understood as rationality of action Which is defined in popper’s words as action quote carried out in accordance with the state of the critical scientific discussion at the time Okay, he even explicitly states beliefs of course are never rational. It is rational to suspend belief Now let me peter let me let me make a point here and ask you a serious question Can you or somebody explain to me? What’s the difference between believing in something and acting as if it’s true? Is there a difference between those two because if there is I admit I don’t see what it is

[01:40:02]  Blue: I Don’t know the the way the way I’m just I’m feeling in my life is that I’m just riding a wave of Emotion honestly I I don’t see a difference either

[01:40:16]  Red: I don’t right and and I think that’s why I’ve pushed back on this aspect of poppers

[01:40:22]  Blue: Yeah,

[01:40:23]  Red: writings. Okay Now however in defensive popper state of view Let me now Try to interpret it in a somewhat More positive way that I think I can agree with.

[01:40:35]  Blue: Okay

[01:40:36]  Red: Let me say that I do sometimes wish people suspended beliefs a lot more than they do Okay, since all theories are only conjectural and since we do have a really bad tendency to fool ourselves It does seem like it would be really really nice. Maybe even really really really nice If say ai doomers and crit rat and our co -capitalist Maybe showed a little more epistemic humility about their beliefs and their chosen You know systems that they’re really excited about

[01:41:06]  Blue: Sure

[01:41:07]  Red: Um, and I kind of wonder if this is what poppers really trying to get at right is is an almost normative idea that Look what you really do is you criticize your theories as best you can Science does anyhow And so because of that you might one might argue That you’re better off Not really believing anything right that you you really just kind of look at well What’s the what’s the state of the critical rationalist discussion? What’s it of the scientific discussion? Let’s say to be a bit more clear there And you know just at this point science Has a consensus of sorts. There’s never a total consensus About these these areas and here’s the evidence why you know, you can almost kind of see an argument here That this would be better if We really were a little better at just not being so dogmatic all the time about our beliefs, right Whether you want to call that Whatever you want to call that I I can see an argument to that to that effect So to with that in mind Let me now Take the role of Strevin’s attorney here And let me actually offer an attack. I can imagine Strevin saying here. Okay to try to prosecute popper So he might say Say, well, you know what Bruce guys? There are several crit rap beliefs that that the crit rap community believes far stronger than the actual state of the critical rationalist discretion So we can think of certain parenting styles being the sole moral style theories around that The two sources hypothesis ai being orthogonal to agi. By the way, I have a good quote from deutch where he disagrees with that Just just saying traditional schools being a net negative

[01:43:04]  Red: Maybe even at the college level a little unclear Tests being immoral not ineffective immoral The disobedience criteria animals not having feelings because only universal explainers are conscious And everything else is an automaton All of an animal’s knowledge being in its genes all humans being equally intelligent And genetic influences on humans ranging from zero to very little That’s just a few right like these are real things that real critical rationalists will argue about Not, you know, I’m kind of open This is just an idea they believe it right they do They honestly believe it to their core that this is the truth And i’m not even saying these theories are wrong, right? I think if we look over that list of theories I just gave i’m not trying to call them out as false theories, right? A lot of them I don’t know to be false I would say in fact that list ranges from the pretty okay to the very bad some of them are pretty bad Some of them are maybe not that bad But I think all of them have one thing in common the critrack community believes these theories Their belief of these theories has Significantly outrun the actual state of the critical discussion and that that’s an objective fact Okay at a minimum each of these theories has real problems that the critrack community will often ignore And I’ve tried to get them to address it and they won’t okay And all of them have very strong Competing theories every single one of those theories.

[01:44:41]  Red: I just listed have Really powerful competing theories that have not by any stretch of the imagination been falsified Okay So these are beliefs that are very strongly held by many in the critical critical rationalist community Despite their belief that there is no need for beliefs. So strevins here makes the argument Look, you’re just wrong about this guys Belief is a part of being human. It’s just the way it works, right? It’s and scientists use it just like the critical rationalist community uses it to decide what theories they’re gonna back Which theories they’re gonna argue in favor of and search for evidence to support for This is strevins’s point, right? This is just reality. Okay Well,

[01:45:32]  Blue: it’s it’s very it to me. It just illustrates just how hard it is even when you join an anti tribal anti dogma kind of community or tribe or whatever you want to call it like It’s just really hard for humans to Think out of that outside of that For for any of us

[01:45:52]  Red: Yeah, and I do think that’s strevins’s point here, right? This is trying to make room for this So popper was at least in those early books trying to argue against belief And strevins is trying to argue in favor of belief And and this is a case where I just find myself entirely in the strevins camp, right? It’s I think the evidence is overwhelming Like I just think there’s just overwhelming evidence that popper was just wrong about this Other than you can choose to read him in a way I just gave away you might be able to choose to read him where I can agree with him in principle at least But sure let let me say this even in that case though. I have a concern. Let me express it. Okay It seems like this brings us to a question or maybe questions Okay, the first is is popper’s belief against belief normative or descriptive what I mean here is is popper saying Yes, people have beliefs, but they shouldn’t or is he saying people don’t really have beliefs if it’s the later obviously By counter example, we can declare popper falsified. We can move on But if it’s the former let’s assume. It’s the former Then is he right that we should strive to not have beliefs if he if he’s right In a normative sense, is it realistic? Does it make sense to charge scientists something like hey scientists? Suspend your beliefs because all theories are just conjectural And is that likely to be a positive change that scientists will be able to just go Oh, hey, that’s a good point from now on.

[01:47:18]  Red: I’m going to just suspend my beliefs from here on in and it’ll most likely be successful Right, or is it maybe even as I’ve argued elsewhere dangerous? And that scientists would more likely end up like the crit rap and crit rap and bayesian communities Full of beliefs that they sincerely but wrongly think are soul surviving theories or more probable theories depending on the wording of each community here, okay, I I don’t I Honestly, I put this forward as obviously, you know where I stand. I think it’s more dangerous than helpful right, even if I admit that There’s a point to what popper saying which I do admit I do admit. I wish people suspended beliefs more often okay Even even when I take that into consideration I see popper’s statement that I quoted there As just dangerously bad like I just don’t see a way around it And I really do think that like maybe we can have a discussion about Should we believe as much as we do and as often as we do and should we run so far ahead of the critical discussion like we do Okay, maybe that’s a fair discussion But I absolutely do not believe that does this any good at all to say I don’t believe in beliefs Like I I see that as if anything just dangerous and I just can’t accept it And does that make sense?

[01:48:40]  Blue: Yes, and seems like a pretty good concluding statement if you’re going there

[01:48:45]  Red: Okay, let me say this then for this section. Okay, so let’s reread the quote from strevins. So this is what strevins Had said his charge against popper Suppose you have accumulated much evidence and discarded many theories of the theories that remain on the list And it’s impossible according to popper to say that one is more likely to be true than the others Scientific theories if they are not falsified forever remain conjectures that that was a quote from popper no matter how Many true predictions a theory has made you have no more reason to believe it than to believe any of its Unfalsified rivals now that we’ve had this full discussion going back and forth looking at how it maybe is And sometimes isn’t a misinterpretation of popper Is this a fair criticism of popper to what degree to what in what ways Is this a fair criticism of popper and in what ways is it a strawman of popper now that we’ve looked at the full evidence It seems to me that the issue here is that he put it in terms of belief Right.

[01:49:42]  Blue: Yeah,

[01:49:43]  Red: probably knowing that popper didn’t really believe in beliefs

[01:49:47]  Blue: Yeah, I

[01:49:47]  Red: think it makes the whole criticism difficult to parse

[01:49:51]  Blue: Well, I gotta say largely thanks to your influence. I’ve I’ve had my mind on, you know the singularity and the far future of the universe and Immortality and so many of these other out, you know, out there Issues that it’s sometimes hard to come back to these Conversations about epistemology But I I have I have enjoyed this conversation And I’ve I’ve enjoyed listening to your to your perspective here. So thank you bruce.

[01:50:23]  Red: All right. Thank you, peter

[01:50:31]  Blue: Hello again If you’ve made it this far, please consider giving us a nice rating on whatever platform you use or even making a financial contribution Through the link provided in the show notes As you probably know, we are a podcast loosely tied together by the popper dutch theory of knowledge We believe david dutch’s four strands tie everything together So we discuss science knowledge computation politics art and especially the search for artificial general intelligence Also, please consider connecting with bruce on x at b neelson 01 Also, please consider joining the facebook group the mini worlds of david dutch Where bruce and I first started connecting. Thank you

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