Objective Knowledge
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With an account, you can revise, criticize, and comment on ideas.Popper says there are three worlds (OK 107):
I suggest…that there are physical worlds and a world of states of consciousness, and that these two interact. And I believe that there is a third world…
Among the inmates of my ‘third world’ are, more especially, theoretical systems; but inmates just as important are problems and problem situations. And I will argue that the most important inmates of this world are critical arguments, and what may be called—in analogy to a physical state or to a state of conscious- ness—the state of a discussion or the state of a critical argument; and, of course, the contents of journals, books, and libraries.
According to Popper (ibid), opponents of world 3 “usually say that all these entities are, essentially, symbolic or linguistic expressions of subjective mental states”, that they’re merely, “means of communication…”
Popper counters this criticism with two thought experiments (107-108).
First, if all our machines and tools were destroyed, and so were our subjective knowledge of how to use them, but libraries were not, then we could re-learn to use them by reading books.
Second, if all libraries were also destroyed, we couldn’t re-learn from books. Civilization wouldn’t re-emerge for millennia.
Therefore, Popper argues, world 3 is important and real.