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 been proven true may, after an experiment, no longer be sufficient to explain reality. In that case, the law becomes false and must be replaced with a new one.

For example, if, when releasing an apple, it does not fall to the ground (experimental observation of reality), then the law of gravity would become false.

Are you ready to put critical rationalism into practice?

DEBRIEFING

At first, the ball follows a predictable movement. The law that your mind has generated is that the ball bounces off the walls and paddles (Law 1).

Based on your experience of reality, you formulated a law (Law 1) that allows you to interact with the environment.

However, at some point, an unexpected observation occurs: the ball bounces in the middle of the screen.

From this observation, you deduce a new law: the ball bounces off the walls and sometimes 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 just a few seconds, you have experienced Karl Popper's "critical rationalism".

ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS

Through this experience, you can make observations that would be impossible to reach by thinking about critical rationalism in an abstract way.

For example, when the ball suddenly changes direction in an unexpected way, one of your immediate reactions might be to pay closer attention to understand what is happening and adapt to the new laws governing the experience.

From that moment on, and for the remainder of the experience, your level of certainty in managing the situation tends to decrease.

You might feel a sense of difficulty in "coexisting" with the new laws that define the experience, as they have just changed and could change again.

Through this experience, you can get a small sense of what people went through when they had to face major shifts in understanding (such as during the Copernican Revolution).

Popper's theory describes, in an abstract way, what happens when a physical law is replaced, but it does not discuss the series of consequences that occur when this happens.

However, through this interactive experience, you can experiment with those consequences in a small but tangible way.