The World of Parmenides, by Karl Popper, page 124:

what Freud might have described as a neurosis -- as a rejection of what Freud called the 'reality principle'. By the way, I am not a Freudian, and I even think that Freud's description of the world of the human mind may indeed be regarded as largely due to a convention or invention -- a very influence convention indeed.

Every rational discussion, that is, every discussion devoted to the search for truth, is based on principles, which in actual fact are ethical principles. I should like to share three of them.

• 1 The principle of fallibility. Perhaps I am wrong and perhaps you are right; but, of course, we may both be wrong.
• 2 The principle of rational discussion. We need to test critically and, of course, as impersonally as possible the various (criticizable) theories that are in dispute.
• 3 The principle of approximation to truth. We can nearly always come closer to the truth with the help of such critical discussions; and we can nearly always improve our understanding, even in cases where we do not reach agreement.

It is remarkable that these principles are epistemological and, at the same time, also ethical principles. For they imply, among other things, toleration: if I can learn from you, and if I want to learn, then in the interest of truth I have not only to tolerate you but also to recognize you as a potential equal; the potential unity of man and the potential equality of all humans are prerequisites for our willingness to discuss matters rationally. Of further importance is the principle that we can learn from a discussion, even when it does not lead to agreement. For a rational discussion can help to shed light upon some of our errors.

All this shows that ethical principles form the basis of science. The most important of all such ethical principles is the principle that objective truth is the fundamental regulative idea of all rational discussion. Further ethical principles embody our commitment to the search for truth and the idea of approximation to truth; and the importance of intellectual integrity and of fallibility, which lead us to a self-critical attitude and to toleration. It is also very important that we can learn in the field of ethics.

Karl Popper, The World of Parmenides, chapt 2, section 6, paragraph 5

See also chapt 2 Addendum 2 titled: Some Principles for a New Professional Ethics Based on Xenophanes' Theory of Truth

OSE volume 1 page 57:

the need to distinguish between two different elements in man's environment--his natural environment and his social environment. This is a distinction which is difficult to make and to grasp, as can be inferred from the fact that even now it is not clearly established in our minds ... Most of us, it seems, have a strong inclination to accept the peculiarities of our social environment as if they were 'natural'.

It is one of the characteristics of the magical attitude of a primitive tribal or 'closed' society that it lives in a charmed circle of unchanging taboos, of laws and customs which are felt to be as inevitable as the rising of the sun, or the cycle of the seasons, or similar obvious regularities of nature. And it is only after this magical 'closed society' has actually broken down that a theoretical understanding of the difference between 'nature' and 'society' can develop.

OSE volume 2 pages 89-90:

I am developing a view to which I subscribe myself ... the problem of the so-called rules of exogamy, i.e. the problem of explaining the wide distribution, among the most diverse cultures, of marriage laws apparently designed to prevent inbreeding ... [J.S.] Mill [and others] ... would try to explain these rules by an appeal to 'human nature' ... and something like this would also be the naive or popular explanation ... however, one could ask whether it is not the other way round ... whether the apparent instinct is not rather a product of education, the effect rather than the cause of the social rules and traditions demanding exogamy and forbidding incest ... [in this case] it would be difficult to determine which of the two theories is the correct one, the explanation of the traditional social rules by instinct or the explanation of an apparent instinct by traditional social rules ... [example where Karl Popper says experiments have shown that aversion to snakes, which was commonly thought to be instinct, is actually learned] ... This example should be taken as a warning. We are faced here with an aversion which is apparently universal, even beyond the human race ... The universal occurrence of a certain behavior is not a decisive argument in favour of its instinctive character, or of its being rooted in 'human nature'.

Here are two theories of how people make decisions.

One theory -- weighted decision making -- says that there are many factors that go into a decision. Each factor is given a weighting proportional to its importance, so it's not one vote per factor but rather the more important factors count for more. Then all the factors are added up, and the decision with the most support is made.

In this model, genes could have an influence in a decision for one side or another, and a 10% weighting, and thus would have some influence, and would sometimes tip the scales in close decisions. They could have a 50% influence in another type of decisions, and 90% in another. An environment could have different percent influence for each, and so on. Dozens of factors could be included. In general, there is no serious difficulty in proposing there's one more factor with a small weighting

In this model, the theory that genes have an influence, varying from 0% to 99%, and averaging around 50%, is plausible. It doesn't contradict anything about the model.

The second theory -- explanatory decision making -- says that decisions are made by conjecturing a set of possible decisions, and then criticizing each possibility. If only one possibility remains, that decision is made. If more than one remains, that is a significant problem (omitting details for brevity, just understand that this is considered a rare case). How options are ruled out does not depend on weighting the importance of anything. It is an all or nothing proposition -- either the option survives a criticism or it doesn't. (The only way it's not all-or-nothing is that we might propose a variant of an option which changes a few things in order to survive the criticism.)

In this model, we never add anything up to get a result. Nothing ever outweighs something else. Rather we always find a single explanation of why we think our decision is the best one.

In this model, the way to influence the decision making process is to offer conjectures, explanations and criticism. That takes thought, or pre-existing relevant knowledge. And influences are never 10% or 50%. Rather they are good ideas that are accepted (or accepted with minor changes) or they are bad ideas that are rejected in full.

In this model, the theory that genes have an influence on decisions, averaging around 50%, is incoherent. It's incompatible with this model. The only time genes could have an influence is when they encode ideas which could be considered in the decision making process, and then accepted or rejected on their merits (the result would be exactly the same if the idea came from a friend or a gene -- it depends entirely on what the idea is).

http://www.ox.ac.uk/oxford_debates/michaelmas_2008_laissezfaire_capitalism/opposers_opening.html

They have a debate about whether "The current financial crisis sounds the death knell for laissez-faire capitalism"

These quotes are from the (supposedly) *pro* capitalist person. She begins:

It is too early to sound the death knell for laissez-faire economics. Although tarnished, the capitalist system still ...

then, after saying capitalism is tarnished and may die later, she says

government and institutions are acknowledged even in the fundamental precepts of a capitalist system ...

With these foundations provided by government, markets develop. ...

Examining real examples, it has always been the case that government has played a large role in even free markets

So her defense of markets is: don't worry, the Government has been involved the whole time.

Her solution to the current crisis is: increase the role of Government in the market:

Regulators did not keep up with the market and allowed bankers to take on too much risk and gamble with our money ...

The banking system should not have been permitted by the government to ...

Then she brings out her very best argument for capitalism:

Finally, perhaps the main reason why laissez-faire capitalism is not dead, or even nearly so, is because there is no viable alternative.

In other words, she thinks capitalism sucks (but no one has a better idea).

Tom Robinson said to me:

Bad people try hard to get you to hate them.

People put more effort into labelling their opponent's position than into deciding where the truth lies.

Popper
OSE p174-5

There are many people living in a modern society who have no, or extremely few, intimate personal contacts, who live in anonymity and isolation, and consequently in unhappiness. For although society has become abstract, the biological makeup of man has not changed much; men have social needs which they cannot satisfy in an abstract society.

It is unfortunate that Popper has swallowed this propaganda. This sort of biological fatalism is a way of denying that people bear responsibility for their personality traits. There are no arguments that biology determines personality or needs. There never have been. No one has ever invented a quality explanation of how it could be the case. So why did Popper adopt the idea?

Calling these things "needs" is used for the purpose of advocating violence. If I want something, I am not justified to take it. If I need it, and declare that you do not need it, then I have a case to force you to give it to me (not a good case, but one that the new left will find convincing). If all people have a particular "need" then that is used as a justification that the Government provide it, in order that it be guaranteed to everyone. And if I don't want it, and don't want to pay for it, that's my tough luck (which is a euphemism for my turn to be forced to sacrifice what I wanted). And if I need something which my society does not provide for (including providing ways it can be attained) then I am doomed to unhappiness, so I will ask my society to change, and if it does not I am justified in starting a violent revoultion to change it. If two people need contradictory things, and cannot talk the other person into conceding, then there is nothing let for them to do but fight it out. Why has Popper used the language of the violent new left?

bad starting question: what is good?

good starting question: how should i live?

initial answer: in a way that creates a lot of knowledge

some might object that this is vague, abstract, and useless, and won't help them with practical problems.

that, of course, is due to their lack of knowledge :)

anyhow, i'll connect it to 4 practical issues.

1) how do i save money for a car?

by getting a job and spending less money.

but i don't know how to do that!

well then you need more knowledge. you need to learn about those things.

how do i do that?

think about them, read books, make guesses at the answer, and then subject the guesses to criticism, use trial and error, etc (read Karl Popper's books for more details, or it's in my blog archives somewhere)

2) i don't like criticism. is it ok if i don't listen to it?

suppose you're wrong about 10 things. everyone makes mistakes sometimes, so that's nothing special. if you never listen to criticism (including self-criticism) then you'll never find out about the areas where you're mistaken. if you do listen to criticism, it might sometimes help you identify one of those areas. the policy of ignoring all criticism prevents *correcting errors*.

what does that have to do with creating knowledge?

if you have 3 good ideas and 3 bad ideas, and then you correct an error and now you have 4 good ideas, and 2 bad ideas, then you have more knowledge. knowledge is the good parts of your ideas but not the bad parts.

3) my kid keeps asking for stuff and i say "shut up; i'll make the decisions in my house" and ignore him. is that ok?

if one of his requests is a good idea you'll never learn that by ignoring all his requests. your policy prevents creating knowledge of which of his requests are good. it also prevents you helping him create knowledge about his requests. if he learned more, then he'd make less bad requests because he'd know how to evaluate them himself. so, no it is not ok.

4) should i get married?

marriage means promising to be together forever. to reasonably make that promise you have to have a plan for how you will avoid drifting apart. if, after 10 years, you find that you have completely different interests than your spouse, and no interest in doing anything with them, then you will spend all your time apart and your marriage will be pointless and you've broken your promise. so you gotta have a way to prevent drifting apart. what causes or risks drifting? new interests. when you learn new things you change, if you change you might end up different than your spouse. the growth of knowledge is unpredictable, so you can't guarantee your spouse will change in the same ways. preventing drift means keeping change and learning under control. so marriage is the opposite of open-ending knowledge creation. so you should not marry.