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Re: Karl Popper/False positives...

It seems to me that the closing paragraph of Tim's explanation here returns us to the notion, one that circumscribes Rosennean Complexity, or any complexity theory, I think, that we are seekers of "truth", whatever that may be. It says that, absent collective agreement, none of us are keepers of "truth", in any absolute sense, whatever that may be. The followers of constructivism, especially social constructivism, say that knowledge gained in the context of social interactions, that knowledge is constructed in the mind of the learner. Any modeling tools used would be like scaffolds on which to construct that knowledge. C.S. Peirce might say that we seek ever-refined versions of truth.

I, for one, tend to believe that Rosennean Complexity (the underlying theories discussed here) is, perhaps, a "better" scaffold, but I don't see it as necessarily a truth in itself. I say that while Enya is singing in my ears (headphones on, MP3 player booming); I'm rather mellow right now.

Right now, working in the "artificial intelligence" world, I see several avenues of inquiry, one of which is the application of logical formalisms to the disambiguation of what is said, looking for computerized representations of what is "known" so that computers can be applied to sensemaking. My intuitions suggest to me that there may be a way to navigate that same information resource space with a different modeling formalism, one perhaps based on Rosennean Complexity or some manifestation of it. In the end, we are all engaged in a collective sensemaking waltz, one, I hope, that will lead to the ability, in humans, to better understand and solve problems, and, just maybe, create less problems in the future, whatever that means.

Jack

Tim Gwinn wrote:

Popper's falsifiability is a logical criteria, not an experimental one. That is, the idea of falsifiability is that, given the assertion in question, there can be constructed a statement which can potentially logically falsify the assertion. So, if the assertion is "All X are Y", then falsifiability means that there can be constructed a statement, such as "There exists an X which is not Y", which can then - at least in principle - by tested empirically.
He agrees that "it is never possible to prove conclusively that an empirical scientifc theory is false." That is, the best we can do is have a consensus on the logical level, and then establish a refutation at that logical level. But, if we do not agree on that level, then falsification is not possible. For example, if you have a theory "All X are Y" and I show an example of where "There exists an X which is not Y", you could alter your theory such that the case of X I showed did not belong to your theory, either by changing definitions or using ad-hoc hypotheses, etc.
See "Introduction 1982" in Popper's */Realism and the Aim of Science/* (Routledge, 1983).
Similarly, the use of modelling relations in science relies on having a consensus of encodings/decodings, since they are creative acts, unentailed from within the modelling relation. If two people do not agree on the encoding/decoding, then one may see the modelling relation as commuting and the other may see it as not.
Regards,
Tim


    -----Original Message-----
    *From:* ROSEN Forum [mailto:*** Behalf
    Of *Judith Rosen
    *Sent:* Tuesday, January 04, 2005 12:06 PM
    *To:* ***
    *Subject:* Re: Karl Popper/False positives...

*****Jack, *
** *So, what Karl Popper was saying was that there's no such thing as
a "false negative", right? There are false positives, but not
false negatives? Hmmm..... I'm not sure I agree with that. I'll
have to give it some thought and figure out why my alarms go off
at that idea.*
** *Judith*
** 

    Jack Park wrote: *Karl Popper also said that.
    I don't recall him using "sometimes". My recollection is that "negate
    and prove that" is the only way to "prove" anything, according to
    Popper.

Jack