Critical rationalism - Karl Popper

Through the concept of "critical rationalism", Karl Popper argues that a single experimental observation contradicting a physical law is enough to consider that law false.

A physical law that has always proved true may, following an experiment, no longer be sufficient to explain reality. The law is then shown to be false, and a new one must be formulated.

For example, if you let go of an apple and it does not fall to the ground (an experimental observation of reality), the law of gravity becomes false.

Are you ready to put critical rationalism into practice?

DEBRIEFING

At first, the ball moves predictably. The law your mind has generated is that the ball bounces off the walls and paddles (law 1).

So, from your experience of reality, you generated a law (law 1) that allows you to interact with the environment.

At a certain point, however, your observation of reality gave you unexpected information: the ball bounced in the middle of the screen.

From this observation, you inferred a new law: the ball bounces off the walls and can sometimes bounce in the middle of the screen (law 2).

At that moment, your mind judged law 1 to be false and replaced it with law 2: in a few seconds, you experienced Karl Popper’s "critical rationalism".

FURTHER REFLECTIONS

During this experience, you can make observations that would be impossible to reach by thinking about critical rationalism in purely abstract terms.

For example, when the ball unexpectedly changes direction, one reaction may be to start paying closer attention to understand what is happening and readjust to the new laws governing the experience.

From that moment and throughout the experience, your level of certainty about your ability to handle the situation tends to decrease.

You might find it difficult to "live with" the new laws shaping the experience: since they have just changed, they could change again.

By going through this experience, you can gain a small sense of what happens when people face major changes of this kind (for example, during the Copernican Revolution).

Popper’s theory describes, in abstract terms, what a change in a physical law entails, but does not address a series of consequences that arise when it happens.

Through this interactive experience, you can feel those consequences for yourself, even if only on a small scale.