Popper's conjecture/criticism method
Rami Rustom
All people think (and thus learn) by the Popperian conjecture/criticism method. Even children.
Below is a true story:
Two siblings of age 4 years and 2.5 years live in a western country. They go on a trip to an Islamic country and they hear the call to prayer being said loud on speakers (which doesn't happen where they live).
The older sibling is interested in this difference, this error, i.e. an interesting problem.
The 4 year old conjectures:
> I think god here is different than god there.
The 2.5 year old criticizes:
> I think they are the same.
But they didn't find a good solution to the problem of god until 29 years later.
Why did they take so long to find the solution?
They learned anti-rational memes.
What sorts of memes do you think those were?
--Rami
Rami Rustom
> All people think (and thus learn) by the Popperian conjecture/criticism
> method. Even children.
>
> Below is a true story:
>
> Two siblings of age 4 years and 2.5 years live in a western country. They
> go on a trip to an Islamic country and they hear the call to prayer being
> said loud on speakers (which doesn't happen where they live).
>
> The older sibling is interested in this difference, this error, i.e. an
> interesting problem.
>
> The 4 year old conjectures:
>
> > I think god here is different than god there.
>
> The 2.5 year old criticizes:
>
> > I think they are the same.
As David Deutsch eludes to in a TCS article regarding how he thinks,
conjectures should be very random. _Creativity and Untidiness_:
http://www.takingchildrenseriously.com/node/95
So the unconscious is responsible conjecturing a thought and in this
phase, irrationality is acceptable and unavoidable. This step is very
chaotic. This is good and very necessary.
-- Then the unconscious serves the thought up to the conscious.
The conscious is responsible for criticizing and in this phase
rationality is necessary. This step is more ordered, although its not
necessary to be extremely ordered. Why? Because other people will be
providing more criticisms. And it would be bad to try to be too
ordered because it might keep you from presenting your conjecture to
the world, in which case other people would not be able to provide
criticisms, which is bad. But why do we want criticisms? Because
criticisms reveal errors. But why do we want errors? Because errors
are learning tools, i.e they cause more learning.
Lets define it more clearly:
1. The unconscious is responsible for creating conjectures (which
includes conjectured-criticisms) and in this phase, irrationality is
acceptable and unavoidable. This step is very chaotic.
-- Then the unconscious serves the thought (a conjecture or a
conjectured-criticism) up to the conscious.
2. The conscious is responsible for criticizing the thought, and in
this phase, rationality is necessary. And if the thought is a...
* conjecture, then the conscious should not attempt to limit entropy.
This step is chaotic but [by its nature] is less chaotic than compared
to step 1.
* conjectured-criticism, then the conscious should attempt to limit
entropy [but not too much]. This step is more ordered.
So the conscious should maximize [as much as possible] the entropy in
2a and minimize [not too much] the entropy in 2b.
And about the term *phase*. It could be replaced with *step*, but
*step* seems to suggest that it is instantaneous, i.e. one connection,
i.e. one thought whereby *phase* allows for longer periods of time,
i.e. thought trains. I think *phase* is more accurate than *step*.
---
So this is the mind's method of learning [thinking], it is Popper's
conjecture/criticism method. And what we do on this site is the same
thing, just on a larger scale, i.e. with another level of emergence.
Within this site, we are in a bubble. Inside the bubble we are
creating knowledge using the same method that our own minds use. We
have 125 people here. Thats 125 minds conjecturing and criticizing in
unison. So this site is a mind, a *societal mind* whose power is equal
to 125 single minds.
But outside this bubble, not much is going on. 6,000,000,000 people
that are not working in unison. Not much knowledge is being created
outside this bubble.
So what if we could increase the power of our societal mind? What if
we had a societal mind whose power was equal to 1,000 minds, or
1,000,000 minds?
Any ideas on how to do that?
--Rami
Anonymous Person
> On Jan 8, 12:24 pm, Rami Rustom <ramir...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> All people think (and thus learn) by the Popperian conjecture/criticism
>> method. Even children.
>>
>> Below is a true story:
>>
>> Two siblings of age 4 years and 2.5 years live in a western country. They
>> go on a trip to an Islamic country and they hear the call to prayer being
>> said loud on speakers (which doesn't happen where they live).
>>
>> The older sibling is interested in this difference, this error, i.e. an
>> interesting problem.
>>
>> The 4 year old conjectures:
>>
>> > I think god here is different than god there.
>>
>> The 2.5 year old criticizes:
>>
>> > I think they are the same.
>
> So how does the mind do this conjecture/criticism method?
>
> As David Deutsch eludes
Did you mean "alludes"?
If so did you mean something like "hints at" or more like "mentions
without discussing at length"? You didn't mean making allusions, I
think.
You can avoid this kind of problem by using simple language to
increase clarity and information successfully communicated. Avoid
impressive words and use words with well known and specific meanings.
> to in a TCS article regarding how he thinks,
> conjectures should be very random. _Creativity and Untidiness_:
> http://www.takingchildrenseriously.com/node/95
>
> So the unconscious is responsible conjecturing a thought and in this
> phase, irrationality is acceptable and unavoidable.
Why would irrationality be good or unavoidable?
I think rational thinking is possible, and deviations can never be
expected to improve anything.
> This step is very
> chaotic. This is good and very necessary.
>
> -- Then the unconscious serves the thought up to the conscious.
>
> The conscious is responsible for criticizing and in this phase
> rationality is necessary. This step is more ordered, although its not
> necessary to be extremely ordered. Why? Because other people will be
> providing more criticisms. And it would be bad to try to be too
> ordered because it might keep you from presenting your conjecture to
> the world, in which case other people would not be able to provide
> criticisms, which is bad. But why do we want criticisms? Because
> criticisms reveal errors. But why do we want errors? Because errors
> are learning tools, i.e they cause more learning.
>
> Lets define it more clearly:
>
> 1. The unconscious is responsible for creating conjectures (which
> includes conjectured-criticisms) and in this phase, irrationality is
> acceptable and unavoidable. This step is very chaotic.
>
> -- Then the unconscious serves the thought (a conjecture or a
> conjectured-criticism) up to the conscious.
>
> 2. The conscious is responsible for criticizing the thought, and in
> this phase, rationality is necessary. And if the thought is a...
> * conjecture, then the conscious should not attempt to limit entropy.
Using the word "entropy" instead of repeating "chaos" is a mistake
called (in)elegant variation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elegant_variation
And entropy is best known as a physics word. Transplanting it without
explanation makes your ideas harder to understand.
> This step is chaotic but [by its nature] is less chaotic than compared
> to step 1.
> * conjectured-criticism, then the conscious should attempt to limit
> entropy [but not too much]. This step is more ordered.
>
> So the conscious should maximize [as much as possible] the entropy in
> 2a and minimize [not too much] the entropy in 2b.
>
> And about the term *phase*. It could be replaced with *step*, but
> *step* seems to suggest that it is instantaneous, i.e. one connection,
> i.e. one thought whereby *phase* allows for longer periods of time,
> i.e. thought trains. I think *phase* is more accurate than *step*.
>
> ---
>
> So this is the mind's method of learning [thinking], it is Popper's
> conjecture/criticism method. And what we do on this site is the same
> thing, just on a larger scale, i.e. with another level of emergence.
>
> Within this site, we are in a bubble. Inside the bubble we are
> creating knowledge using the same method that our own minds use. We
> have 125 people here. Thats 125 minds conjecturing and criticizing in
> unison.
No, we have diversity too.
Some are not reading the posts, some read without much thinking, some
think out of sync.
> So this site is a mind, a *societal mind* whose power is equal
> to 125 single minds.
I don't think they add up linearly like that. Nor do I agree each mind
has an equal value of 1.
> But outside this bubble, not much is going on. 6,000,000,000 people
> that are not working in unison. Not much knowledge is being created
> outside this bubble.
I'd venture rather more knowledge is being created *everywhere else* than here.
Just for a start, 99.999% of science isn't done here. That's hard to
compete with for sheer quantity of knowledge.
> So what if we could increase the power of our societal mind? What if
> we had a societal mind whose power was equal to 1,000 minds, or
> 1,000,000 minds?
>
> Any ideas on how to do that?
Better education. TCS. Persuasion.
Rami Rustom
> On Sun, Jan 8, 2012 at 10:35 PM, Rami Rustom <rami...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Jan 8, 12:24 pm, Rami Rustom <ramir...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> All people think (and thus learn) by the Popperian conjecture/criticism
> >> method. Even children.
> >>
> >> Below is a true story:
> >>
> >> Two siblings of age 4 years and 2.5 years live in a western country. They
> >> go on a trip to an Islamic country and they hear the call to prayer being
> >> said loud on speakers (which doesn't happen where they live).
> >>
> >> The older sibling is interested in this difference, this error, i.e. an
> >> interesting problem.
> >>
> >> The 4 year old conjectures:
> >>
> >> > I think god here is different than god there.
> >>
> >> The 2.5 year old criticizes:
> >>
> >> > I think they are the same.
> >
> > So how does the mind do this conjecture/criticism method?
> >
> > As David Deutsch eludes
>
> Did you mean "alludes"?
Yes.
> If so did you mean something like "hints at" or more like "mentions
> without discussing at length"? You didn't mean making allusions, I
> think.
I meant "hints at".
> You can avoid this kind of problem by using simple language to
> increase clarity and information successfully communicated. Avoid
> impressive words and use words with well known and specific meanings.
I agree. But alludes is the only word that popped in my head.
> > to in a TCS article regarding how he thinks,
> > conjectures should be very random. _Creativity and Untidiness_:
> > http://www.takingchildrenseriously.com/node/95
> >
> > So the unconscious is responsible conjecturing a thought and in this
> > phase, irrationality is acceptable and unavoidable.
>
> Why would irrationality be good or unavoidable?
I said acceptable not good. It is acceptable and unavoidable because
the unconscious *is* irrational, i.e. it is not truth-seeking. And it
is that way because it is a random thought generator.
The unconscious's method is *good* because sometimes the random
thoughts turn out to be good ones. And it is the job of the conscious
to determine which ones are good and which are bad.
So I'm suggesting that the unconscious is irrational because it does
not attempt to seek truth. It is the conscious that is rational, i.e.
it attempts to criticize the random thoughts from the unconscious.
> I think rational thinking is possible, and deviations can never be expected to improve anything.
I didn't mean to suggest that the conscious should not think
rationally. I meant that the unconscious produces new ideas and the
conscious may immediately deem the thought irrational, but it should
not quit so quickly. It should let the idea bloom. How? By asking
questions about it. Developing it. Modeling it. After much
contemplation, the conscious might deem the idea a good one.
> > This step is very
> > chaotic. This is good and very necessary.
> >
> > -- Then the unconscious serves the thought up to the conscious.
> >
> > The conscious is responsible for criticizing and in this phase
> > rationality is necessary. This step is more ordered, although its not
> > necessary to be extremely ordered. Why? Because other people will be
> > providing more criticisms. And it would be bad to try to be too
> > ordered because it might keep you from presenting your conjecture to
> > the world, in which case other people would not be able to provide
> > criticisms, which is bad. But why do we want criticisms? Because
> > criticisms reveal errors. But why do we want errors? Because errors
> > are learning tools, i.e they cause more learning.
> >
> > Lets define it more clearly:
> >
> > 1. The unconscious is responsible for creating conjectures (which
> > includes conjectured-criticisms) and in this phase, irrationality is
> > acceptable and unavoidable. This step is very chaotic.
> >
> > -- Then the unconscious serves the thought (a conjecture or a
> > conjectured-criticism) up to the conscious.
> >
> > 2. The conscious is responsible for criticizing the thought, and in
> > this phase, rationality is necessary. And if the thought is a...
> > * conjecture, then the conscious should not attempt to limit entropy.
>
> Using the word "entropy" instead of repeating "chaos" is a mistake
> called (in)elegant variation.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elegant_variation
Interesting. I came to the conclusion that using different words
[inelegant variation] is good because it increases learning [by the
reader]. Thats what I've noticed when reading other people's writing.
But in this case I didn't do it purposely. My choice of using
different words has become habit.
> And entropy is best known as a physics word. Transplanting it without
> explanation makes your ideas harder to understand.
But this is a physics situation. The brain and the knowledge contained
within it is a physical system.
I think I've explained the relationship between the brain and mind a
few times on this list. And I didn't want to reexplain here mostly
because I've done a lot of that and I think people would get annoyed
of the re-explanations over and over again. But maybe I didn't use the
term entropy in those explanations.
-- Rami