A (very) quick attempt, perhaps this will suffice? (Let me know if not. )
I begin with the tersest possible defense of my claim that Popper argued that “you actually have to look at things to draw accurate maps of them...”, even though this particular example is particularily trivial:
Page 19:
(Thus the statement, ‘It will rain or not rain here tomorrow’ will not
be regarded as empirical, simply because it cannot be refuted; whereas
the statement, ‘It will rain here tomorrow’ will be regarded as
empirical.)
To paraphrase: You have to look actually out the window to discover whether it is raining or not.
Continuing, page 16:
The task of formulating an acceptable definition of the idea of an
‘empirical science’ is not without its difficulties. Some of these arise
from the fact that there must be many theoretical systems with a logical structure
very similar to the one which at any particular time is the accepted
system of empirical science. This situation is sometimes described by
saying that there is a great number—presumably an infinite number—
of ‘logically possible worlds’. Yet the system called ‘empirical science’
is intended to represent only one world: the ‘real world’ or the ‘world of
our experience’.*1
Various objections might be raised against the criterion of demarcation here proposed. In the first place, it may well seem somewhat
wrong-headed to suggest that science, which is supposed to give us
positive information, should be characterized as satisfying a negative
requirement such as refutability. However, I shall show, in sections 31
to 46, that this objection has little weight, since the amount of positive
information about the world which is conveyed by a scientific statement is the greater the more likely it is to clash, because of its logical
character, with possible singular statements. (Not for nothing do
we call the laws of nature ‘laws’: the more they prohibit the more
they say.)
My proposal is based upon an
asymmetry between verifiability and falsifiability; an asymmetry which
results from the logical form of universal statements.4 For these are
never derivable from singular statements, but can be contradicted by
singular statements. Consequently it is possible by means of purely
deductive inferences (with the help of the modus tollens of classical
logic) to argue from the truth of singular statements to the falsity of
universal statements. Such an argument to the falsity of universal
statements is the only strictly deductive kind of inference that proceeds,
as it were, in the ‘inductive direction’; that is, from singular to
universal statements.
4 This asymmetry is now more fully discussed in section *22 of my Postscript.
According to my proposal, what characterizes the empirical method is its manner of exposing to falsification,
in every conceivable way, the system to be tested. Its aim is not to save
the lives of untenable systems but, on the contrary, to select the one
which is by comparison the fittest, by exposing them all to the fiercest
struggle for survival.
[a number of indicative, but not decisive quotes omitted]
I had hoped to find some decisive sound bite in part one, which is a brief discussion of the epistemological problems facing any theory of scientific method, and an outline of Popper’s framework, but it looks like I shall have to go deeper. Will look into this over the weekend.
I also found another, though much more recent candidate, David Deutsch in The Beginning of Infinity, Chapter 1 on “The Reach of Explanations”. Tough I’m beginning to suspect that although they both point out that “you have to look at things to draw accurate maps of them...”, and describe “causal processes producing map-territory correspondences” (for example, between some state of affairs and the output of some scientific instument) both Deutsch and Popper seem to have omitted what one may call the “neuroscience of epistemology.” (Where the photon reflects off your shoelace, gets absorbed by your retina, leading to information about the configuration of the world becoming entangled with some corresponding state of your brain, and so on.) This is admittedly quite a crucial step, which Yudkowsky’s explanation does cover, and which I cannot recall to have seen elsewhere.
A (very) quick attempt, perhaps this will suffice? (Let me know if not. )
I begin with the tersest possible defense of my claim that Popper argued that “you actually have to look at things to draw accurate maps of them...”, even though this particular example is particularily trivial:
Page 19:
To paraphrase: You have to look actually out the window to discover whether it is raining or not.
Continuing, page 16:
(Oops, comment too long.)
(Continued)
Page 20:
[a number of indicative, but not decisive quotes omitted]
I had hoped to find some decisive sound bite in part one, which is a brief discussion of the epistemological problems facing any theory of scientific method, and an outline of Popper’s framework, but it looks like I shall have to go deeper. Will look into this over the weekend.
I also found another, though much more recent candidate, David Deutsch in The Beginning of Infinity, Chapter 1 on “The Reach of Explanations”. Tough I’m beginning to suspect that although they both point out that “you have to look at things to draw accurate maps of them...”, and describe “causal processes producing map-territory correspondences” (for example, between some state of affairs and the output of some scientific instument) both Deutsch and Popper seem to have omitted what one may call the “neuroscience of epistemology.” (Where the photon reflects off your shoelace, gets absorbed by your retina, leading to information about the configuration of the world becoming entangled with some corresponding state of your brain, and so on.) This is admittedly quite a crucial step, which Yudkowsky’s explanation does cover, and which I cannot recall to have seen elsewhere.