Popper's three worlds

Template:Short description Template:Redirect Template:Multiple issues Popper's three worlds is a way of looking at and understanding reality, developed by the British philosopher Karl Popper in many lectures and books, for example "Objective Knowledge - An Evolutionary Approach" (1972) and "The Self And Its Brain" (1977). Popper's theory involves three interacting worlds, called worldTemplate:Nbsp1, worldTemplate:Nbsp2 and worldTemplate:Nbsp3.Template:Sfn

Worlds 1, 2 and 3Edit

These three "worlds" are not proposed as isolated universes but rather are realms or levels within the known universe.

Their numbering reflects their temporal order within the known universe and that the later realms emerged as products of developments within the preceding realms. A one-word description of each realm is that World 1 is the material realm, World 2 is the mental realm, and World 3 is the cultural realm - though, in the detail of Popper's theory, each "World" or realm transcends what might be typically understood by the respective terms "material", "mental" and "cultural".

Popper's theory of these three "worlds" is evolutionary and cosmological. As is consistent with the known universe as presently described by the natural sciences, Popper maintains that the known universe did not contain any WorldTemplate:Nbsp2 or WorldTemplate:Nbsp3 at its inception - at its inception there was only a "WorldTemplate:Nbsp1", a realm where everything consisted of physical states and processes. Moreover, that "WorldTemplate:Nbsp1" was for a very long time devoid of any living matter, and was for that time a WorldTemplate:Nbsp1 lacking any biological level. The biological level is a level within WorldTemplate:Nbsp1 that emerged from its physical-chemical evolution over a vast tract of time, as a lifeless universe eventually gave rise to living organisms, such as those on earth. In a similar sense to this emergence of life within WorldTemplate:Nbsp1 itself, Popper maintains that a "WorldTemplate:Nbsp2" of mental life later emerged as a product of biological evolution, and that subsequently a "WorldTemplate:Nbsp3" of cultural objects emerged as a product of evolution within the human "WorldTemplate:Nbsp2". This cosmological approach is directly opposed to any form of reductionism that argues that we can ultimately explain whatever comes later in the known universe in terms of what came before. Against this, Popper argues that we should instead see the universe as "creative" and indeterministic, and as having given rise to genuinely new levels or realms - like biological life, "WorldTemplate:Nbsp2" and "WorldTemplate:Nbsp3" - that were not there from its beginning and which are not fully 'reducible' to (or fully explicable in terms of) what was there at its beginning.

The three worlds may be understood, in terms of this evolutionary and cosmological framework, as containing three categories of entity:

WorldTemplate:Nbsp1: the realm of states and processes as studied by the natural sciences.

These include the states and processes that we seek to explain by physics and by chemistry, and also those states and processes that subsequently emerge with life and which we seek to explain by biology.

WorldTemplate:Nbsp2: the realm of mental states and processes.

These include sensations and thoughts, and include both conscious and unconscious mental states and processes. WorldTemplate:Nbsp2 includes all animal as well as human mental experience. These mental states and processes only emerge as a product of biological activity by living organisms, and so only emerged subsequent to the emergence of living organisms within WorldTemplate:Nbsp1. Mental states and processes are the products of evolutionary developments in the World 1 of animal brains and nervous systems, but constitute a new realm of World 2 that co-evolved by its interaction with the World 1 of brains and nervous systems.

WorldTemplate:Nbsp3: the realm of the 'products of thought' when considered as objects in their own right.

These products emerge from human "WorldTemplate:Nbsp2" activity, but when considered as WorldTemplate:Nbsp3 objects in their own right they have rebound effects on human WorldTemplate:Nbsp2 thought processes. Through these rebound effects, WorldTemplate:Nbsp3 'objects' may - via WorldTemplate:Nbsp2-based human action on WorldTemplate:Nbsp1 - have an indirect but powerful effect on WorldTemplate:Nbsp1. In Popper's view, WorldTemplate:Nbsp3 'objects' encompass a very wide range of entities, from scientific theories to works of art, from laws to institutions.

Popper makes two key claims regarding the role of WorldTemplate:Nbsp3 in the known universe. First, Popper argues that, despite the many continuities and correspondences between the human and animal WorldTemplate:Nbsp2, (1) only humans consider their mental products as objects in their own right in a WorldTemplate:Nbsp3 sense and (2) only humans have access to WorldTemplate:Nbsp3 objects. Second, WorldTemplate:Nbsp3 has no direct effect on WorldTemplate:Nbsp1 but only affects WorldTemplate:Nbsp1 as mediated by the human WorldTemplate:Nbsp2: for example, a theory of nuclear reactions will never of itself cause a nuclear reactor to be built, yet the existence of a nuclear reactor is not the result of a purely WorldTemplate:Nbsp1 process but is the eventual product of complex interactions between particular WorldTemplate:Nbsp3 theories and human WorldTemplate:Nbsp2 mental activity, and also particular World 2 and World 1 mind-brain-body interactions, leading to particular WorldTemplate:Nbsp1 human actions (to construct a nuclear reactor) only made feasible by this complex set of interactions.

More on worldTemplate:Nbsp3Edit

Popper's worldTemplate:Nbsp3 contains the products of thought. This includes abstract objects such as scientific theories, stories, myths and works of art.Template:Sfn Popper says that his worldTemplate:Nbsp3 has much in common with Plato's theory of Forms or Ideas.Template:Sfn But, worldTemplate:Nbsp3 is not to be conceived as a Platonic realm, because unlike the Platonic world of forms, which is non changing and exists independently of human beings, Popper's worldTemplate:Nbsp3 is created by human beings and is not fixed.<ref name="Niiniluoto2006p61"/> It corresponds to the current state of our knowledge and culture.<ref name="Eccles1970p165"/>

The interaction of worldTemplate:Nbsp1 and worldTemplate:Nbsp2Edit

The theory of interaction between worldTemplate:Nbsp1 and worldTemplate:Nbsp2 is an alternative theory to Cartesian dualism, which is based on the theory that the universe is composed of two essential substances: res cogitans and res extensa. Popperian cosmology rejects this essentialism, but maintains the common sense view that physical and mental states exist, and they interact.

The interaction of worldTemplate:Nbsp2 and worldTemplate:Nbsp3Edit

The interaction of worldTemplate:Nbsp2 and worldTemplate:Nbsp3 is based on the theory that worldTemplate:Nbsp3 is partially autonomous. For example, the development of scientific theories in worldTemplate:Nbsp3 leads to unintended consequences, in that problems and contradictions are discovered by worldTemplate:Nbsp2. Another example is that the process of learning causes worldTemplate:Nbsp3 to change worldTemplate:Nbsp2.

The interaction of worldTemplate:Nbsp3 and worldTemplate:Nbsp1Edit

The worldTemplate:Nbsp3 objects are embodied in worldTemplate:Nbsp1. For example, the intrinsic value of Hamlet as a worldTemplate:Nbsp3 object is embodied many times in worldTemplate:Nbsp1. But, this representation of an object of worldTemplate:Nbsp3 in worldTemplate:Nbsp1Template:Sfn is not considered an interaction in Popper's view. Instead, for Popper, because worldTemplate:Nbsp3 is a world of abstractions, it can only interact with worldTemplate:Nbsp1 through worldTemplate:Nbsp2.<ref name="Eccles1970p165b"/><ref name="Popper1972p155"/>

ReferencesEdit

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Works citedEdit

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