As to the starting point of science, I do not say that science starts from intuitions but that it starts from problems; that we arrive at a new theory, in the main, by trying to solve problems; that these problems arise in our attempts to understand the world as we know it […]. [209]
Tag: learning
The bucket theory of the mind
The commonsense theory is simple. If you or I wish to know something not yet known about the world, we have to open our eyes and look around. And we have to open our ears and listen to noises, and especially to those made by other people. Thus our various senses are our sources of knowledge — the sources of the entries into our minds.
I have often called this the bucket theory of the mind. …
In the philosophical world this theory is better known under the more dignified name of the tabula rasa theory of the mind: our mind is an empty slate upon which the senses engrave their messages. But the main point of the tabula rasa theory goes beyond the commonsense bucket theory: I mean its emphasis on the perfect emptiness of the mind at birth. For our discussion this is merely a minor point of discrepancy between the two theories, for it does not matter whether we are or are not born with some ‘innate ideas’ in our bucket — more perhaps in the case of intelligent children, fewer in the case of morons. The important thesis of the bucket theory is that we learn most, if not all, of what we do learn through the entry of experience into our sense openings; so that all knowledge consists of information received through our senses; that is, by experience.
In this form, this thoroughly mistaken theory is still very much alive. It still plays a part in theores of teaching, or in ‘information theory’, for example … . [60-1]
Discussion and the growth of ideas
The Western rationalist tradition, which derives from the Greeks, is the tradition of critical discussion–of examining and testing propositions or theories by attempting to refute them. This critical rational method must not be mistaken for a method of proof, that is to say, for a method of finally establishing truth; nor is it a method which always secures agreement. Its value lies, rather, in the fact that participants in a discussion will, to some extent, change their minds, and part as wiser men.
It is often asserted that discussion is only possible between people who have a common language and accept common basic assumptions. I think that this is a mistake. All that is needed is a readiness to learn from one’s partner in the discussion, which includes a genuine wish to understand what he intends to say. If this readiness is there, the discussion will be the more fruitful the more the partners’ backgrounds differ. Thus the value of a discussion depends largely upon the variety of the competing views. Had there been no Tower of Babel, we should invent it. The liberal does not dream of a perfect consensus of opinion; he hopes only for the mutual fertilisation of opinions and the consequent growth of ideas. [474]
The success of science
Der ungeheure wissenschaftliche Fortschritt in den letzten Jahrhunderten ist vor allem wohl darauf zurückzuführen, daß in diesem Bereich der Hang zur Dogmatisierung immer wieder überwunden werden, daß sich die Tradition des kritischen Denkens in der Konkurrenz der Ideen und Argumente immer wieder durchsetzen konnte. Die in diesem Bereich oft vorherrschende positive Akzentuierung neuer und kühner Ideen, eine entsprechende Einstellung der relativen Unvoreingenommenheit und Irrtumstoleranz, bei der der Andersdenkende meist nicht als Ketzer diffamiert, sondern oft sogar als willkommener Diskussionspartner betrachtet wird und man bereit ist, unter Umständen von ihm zu lernen, findet in anderen Bereichen, vor allem da, wo institutionell verankerte ideologische Bindungen bestehen, im allgemeinen keine Entsprechung.
The belief in the ignorance of experts
As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. …
I am trying to inspire the teacher at the bottom to have some hope and some self-confidence in common sense and natural intelligence. The experts who are leading you may be wrong. …
I think we live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television — words, books, and so on — are unscientific. As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name of science. …
Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers of the preceding generation. [187-8]
The learning machine
My aim is to show how over ten years of fruitful work he remained engaged with the social aspects of the quest for knowledge, working out, supplementing, and generalising ideas about society that were embryonic in his philosophy of science. A fully fleshed-out vision of politics and society emerged which today would be termed the knowledge-using, knowledge-gathering, knowledge-embodying society. It is, in many ways, a magnificent vision and an intellectual tour de force. Popper presents society as a learning machine, and the learning machine as a Socratic seminar writ large.
Wholehearted though my admiration is for this vision, I take seriously Poppers injunction that we learn from criticism. In criticism I argue that there are serious deficiencies in holding up the Socratic seminar as a model for life in society in general, and for scientific work in particular. The republic of science Popper envisions is susceptible to the corruptions of power just as is the broader body politic, and its citizens need the kind of checks on power that Popper demanded on governments. Even more troubling: the central Socratic and scientific value of truth conflicts at times with other values important for social life. [6]
Science: learning from experience
But, in reality, scientific theories are not ‘derived’ from anything. We do not read them in nature, nor does nature write them into us. They are guesses – bold conjectures. Human minds create them by rearranging, combining, altering and adding to existing ideas with the intention of improving upon them. We do not begin with ‘white paper’ at birth, but with inborn expectations and intentions and an innate ability to improve upon them using thought and experience. Experience is indeed essential to science, but its role is different from that supposed by empiricism. It is not the source from which theories are derived. Its main use is to choose between theories that have already been guessed. That is what ‘learning from experience’ is. [4]
The catalysts of reason
School ought not be about factual knowledge. That simply shouldn’t matter. Facts aren’t so clear cut anyway, and it is hard to remember them unless you can make regular use of them. Education ought to be about preparation for real life. The intellectual issue in real life is reasoning, not recitation. We need to avoid telling students how things are and instead help them discover things for themselves. The job of a school and a teacher is to serve as the catalyst for that discovery. [22]
The key to science
In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is — if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. That is all there is to it. [156]
Measuring student progress
After teaching 10 years, the only good measure of student progress I know is the number of open problems they can successfully characterize.
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