Is anyone else reminded of Wittgenstein's later work here? Popper does not take the route of treating sense-data at the absolute which can falsify theories. Instead he talks of decisions. In his Logic, he uses the metaphor of a jury. I think he's trying to jump over the quicksand between language and the world apart from language. This 'swampy' element is something like 'common sense.' I imagine, for instance, everything that goes into a making a legitimate measurement, including one that falsifies a theory. Wittgenstein's discussion of the standard meter comes to mind. Popper admits or tolerates a dimness at the base of critical rationalism.

Thoughts? — jas0n

I dont see Popper as compatible with the later Wittgenstein. Popper’s notion of falsification depends on certain assumptions concerning the invariance of method that Wittgenstein challenged. Many Wittgenstein scholars see his work as consistent with , and inspiring such figures as Kuhn and Feyerabend.

Try reading Husserl on this subject. He was very much aware of the ‘foundations’ science stood on (or rather, the lack of solidity).

His main approach was to create a ‘science of consciousness’ and make firmer the ground upon which the more traditional ‘sciences’ stand.

“The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology”

My current thinking, derived from Plato/Aristotle:

1) Scientific investigation is a function of metacognition (active intellect), which is caused by intention, is pure, linguistic, rational, and cultural, and results in declarative knowledge.

2) Metacognition is founded on cognition (passive intellect), which is caused by perception, is empirical, non-linguistic, non-rational, and cross-cultural, and results in empirical knowledge.

I dont see Popper as compatible with the later Wittgenstein. — Joshs

No doubt they are different thinkers on the whole. Yet it also seems that the flexibility of Popper's system is often overlooked. 'Convention' is a surprisingly prominent word in The Logic. The point made above about basic statements reminds me of passages from On Certainty.

I have put some time in w/ Husserl & I'm a fan, and his later stuff might be said to amplify Popper's point in different style. His earlier stuff, which I don't know as well, seems to be mired in subjectivity. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Husserl was after something like meaning-giving or meaning-bestowing fundamental intuitions. I don't see how such intuitions are checkable, though I empathize with the desire to give science something like an exact and profound meaning.

In essence, basic statements are for Popper logical constructs which embrace and include ‘observation statements’, but for methodological reasons he seeks to avoid that terminology, as it suggests that they are derived directly from, and known by, experience (2002: 12, footnote 2), which would conflate them with the “protocol” statements of logical positivism and reintroduce the empiricist idea that certain kinds of experiential reports are incorrigible. The “objectivity” requirement in Popper’s account of basic statements, by contrast, amounts to a rejection of the view that the truth of scientific statements can ever be reduced to individual or collective human experience. (2002: 25).

Popper therefore argues that there are no statements in science which cannot be interrogated: basic statements, which are used to test the universal theories of science, must themselves be inter-subjectively testable and are therefore open to the possibility of refutation. He acknowledges that this seems to present a practical difficulty, in that it appears to suggest that testability must occur ad infinitum, which he acknowledges is an operational absurdity: sooner or later all testing must come to an end. Where testing ends, he argues, is in a convention-based decision to accept a basic statement or statements; it is at that point that convention and intersubjective human agreement play an indispensable role in science:

Every test of a theory, whether resulting in its corroboration or falsification, must stop at some basic statement or other which we decide to accept. If we do not come to any decision, and do not accept some basic statement or other, then the test will have led nowhere. (2002: 86)

However, Popper contends that while such a decision is usually causally related to perceptual experience, it is not and cannot be justified by such experience; basic statements are experientially underdetermined.

Experiences can motivate a decision, and hence an acceptance or a rejection of a statement, but a basic statement cannot be justified by them—no more than by thumping the table. (2002: 87–88)

Statements can be justified only by other statements, and therefore testing comes to an end, not in the establishment of a correlation between propositional content and observable reality, as empiricism would hold, but by means of the conventional, inter-subjective acceptance of the truth of certain basic statements by the research community.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/#BasiStatFalsConv

He literally set out to create a ‘science of consciousness’. That is all. He was not dismissive of science merely critical of the physical sciences encroaching upon psychology and such - rightly so imo.

I like Husserl, and he's clearly pro-science. He sees the problem too, which is the clash of two 'obvious' realizations: (1) there is a world that precedes, outlasts, and contains me and everyone else and (2) only my functioning nervous system and living body allows me to be a me who is aware of is.

Part of transcendental philosophy's own meaning was that it arose out of reflections on conscious subjectivity through which the world, the scientific as well as the everyday intuitive world, comes to be known or achieves its ontic validity for us; thus transcendental philosophy recognised the necessity of developing a purely mental approach to the world. But if it had to deal with the mental, why did it not turn to the psychology that had been practiced so diligently for centuries? Or, if this no longer sufficed, why did it not work out a better psychology? One will naturally answer that the empirical man, the psychophysical being, himself belongs, in soul as well as body, to the constituted world. Thus human subjectivity is not transcendental subjectivity, and the psychological theories of knowledge of Locke and his successors serve as continued admonitions against "psychologism," against any use of psychology for transcendental purposes. But in exchange, transcendental philosophy always had to bear its cross of incomprehensibility.

The difference between empirical and transcendental subjectivity remained unavoidable; yet just as unavoidable, but also incomprehensible, was their identity. I myself, as transcendental ego, "constitute" the world, and at the same time, as soul, I am a human ego in the world. The understanding which prescribes its law to the world is my transcendental understanding, and it forms me, too, according to these laws; yet it is my - the philosopher's - psychic faculty. Can the ego which posits itself, of which Fichte speaks, be anything other than Fichte's own? If this is supposed to be not an actual absurdity but a paradox that can be resolved, what other method could help us achieve clarity than the interrogation of our inner experience and an analysis carried out within its framework? If one is to speak of a transcendental "consciousness in general," if I, this singular, individual ego, cannot be the bearer of the nature-constituting understanding, must I not ask how I can have, beyond my individual self-consciousness, a general, a transcendental intersubjective consciousness? The consciousness of intersubjectivity, then, must become a transcendental problem; but again, it is not apparent how it can become that except through an interrogation of myself, [one that appeals to] inner experience, i.e., in order to discover the manners of consciousness through which I attain and have others and a fellow mankind in general, and in order to understand the fact that I can distinguish, in myself between myself and others and can confer upon them the sense of being "of my kind."

https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/husserl.htm

A little later he writes:

All of modern philosophy, in the original sense of a universal ultimately grounding science, is, according to our presentation, at least since Kant and Hume, a single struggle between two ideas of science: the idea of an objectivistic philosophy on the ground of the pre-given world and the idea of a philosophy on the ground of absolute, transcendental subjectivity...

create a ‘science of consciousness’. — I like sushi

Do you not think such a science would also depend on the same swamp? How would theses in such a science be supported? Do we confer and co-articulate what we agree is an apt description of an otherwise private consciousness ?

Do we confer and co-articulate what we agree is an apt description of an otherwise private consciousness ? — jas0n

There is public observation (consciousness is a misnomer to use here as it pertains to individual consciousness -- the "collective consciousness" we hear from time to time mentioned in writings is a hip pop philosophy, nothing else. It doesn't mean a thing in philosophy).

So public observation has coherence and objectivity. The bridges would've had fallen a long time ago if it weren't the case. The thing that science philosophers often cry about is the dichotomy between "theory" and "observation", which the likes of Putnam (you can correct me on this, not sure) also have criticized for being mistaken as a dichotomy.

I said this in another thread -- objective reality means that reality (out there: là-bas) contains the components of the scientific theories we develop as a result of our observation. The theories themselves are our observations -- which coheres with reality.

The bridges would've had fallen a long time ago if it weren't the case. — L'éléphant

The issue in this context is how do we know the bridges haven't fallen? Let me be clear. We do know this. Do we explain knowing this in terms of sense-data? Or do we start with testimony? Can and should we formalize checking that the bridges haven't fallen? Popper wants to avoid an infinite regress.

Let's take a narrower example. Let's say a theory predicts a reading of between 23 and 25 kilograms. A scientist records a measurement of 24 kilograms. All is well, right? But what goes into taking a measurement? Do we worry about the device's proper functioning? The eyes reading the needle, scooping up sense-date? Is the scientist delusional? Should he measure 20 times, 2000 times? The point is that worry/doubt must come to an end at some point. We must trust in a swampy informal layer of 'experience' or 'common sense' or 'ordinary language.' This recalls On Certainty.

the dichotomy between "theory" and "observation", — L'éléphant

Excellent theme. This is also thinkable in terms of interpretation and fact. As I understand it, facts tend to include interpretations that are so uncontroversial that they are perhaps even unnoticed. We look 'through' our measuring devices. They become transparent for us.

Popper's view seems to make interpretation easier to understand and more exact than its murky substrate of fact. In some ways this is not surprising. Our science hovers above the domain of metaphysics which only aspires to play the role of a weight-bearing foundation.

We do know this. Do we explain knowing this in terms of sense-data? Or do we start with testimony? Can and should we formalize checking that the bridges haven't fallen? — jas0n

All of the above -- that's why I'm saying about no dichotomy exists.

All of the above -- that's why I'm saying about no dichotomy exists. — L'éléphant

I prefer to emphasize the limited applicability of the dichotomy. To eject it entirely is to eject Popper's conventional demarcation of science from non-science. IMO, familiar distinctions tend to be justified in familiar contexts and only become problematic when taken by philosophers as absolutes.

Let's get concrete again. How does one test whether a pill causes weight-loss? A controlled experiment, right? We measure the weight of the participants before and after. We might say that "participant #20 weighed 156 pounds" is fact because no justification is expected or given. We 'trust' in this measurement process. It's transparent for us. We might want to check the math and the application of statistical principles though. This would be checking the interpretation, which is such because it must be justified/supported.

Let's say a theory predicts a reading of between 23 and 25 kilograms. A scientist records a measurement of 24 kilograms. All is well, right? But what goes into taking a measurement? Do we worry about the device's proper functioning? The eyes reading the needle, scooping up sense-date? Is the scientist delusional? Should he measure 20 times, 2000 times? The point is that worry/doubt must come to an end at some point. We must trust in a swampy informal layer of 'experience' or 'common sense' or 'ordinary language.' This recalls On Certainty. — jas0n

Right. There is a point at which doubting is absurd. Which then we know what "absurd" amount is. So, yes, common sense, sense-data, formal measurements, device all play a role. Calibration is a thing -- we're good at calibrating different devices so that we're not being fooled or delusional. Like I said, the bridges would have fallen by now if that's not the case.

I prefer to emphasize the limited applicability of the dichotomy. To eject it entirely is to eject Popper's conventional demarcation of science from non-science. IMO, familiar distinctions tend to be justified in familiar contexts and only become problematic when taken by philosophers as absolutes. — jas0n

Oh no. When I said there's no dichotomy, I really meant that the philosophers meant within the scientific knowledge. So, the dichotomy matters in context. We're not comparing apples and oranges -- scientific observation and the arts, for example.

I like Husserl, and he's clearly pro-science. He sees the problem too, which is the clash of two 'obvious' realizations: (1) there is a world that precedes, outlasts, and contains me and everyone else and (2) only my functioning nervous system and living body allows me to be a me who is aware of is. — jas0n

Husserl is not an empirical realist. He does not believe it is coherent to make the claim that a world precedes, outlasts and contains me and everyone else like some kind of container. On the contrary , the natural ‘ world’ is constituted via progressively more advanced intentional acts, and cannot be assumed as ha i g an existence out side of these acts. The ‘world’, understood most primordially, has its origin in the subject-object structure of time consciousness. That is to say , the transcendental subject is only what it is as a constantly changing flow of associative syntheses that is every moment exposed to and changed by an outside. But this is. it an outside of worldly objects as empirical naturalism would have it.

“Certainly the world that is in being for me, the world about which I have always had ideas and spoken about meaningfully, has meaning and is accepted as valid by me because of my own apperceptive performances because of these experiences that run their course and are combined precisely in those performances—as well as other functions of consciousness, such as thinking. But is it not a piece of foolishness to suppose that world has being because of some performance of mine?

Clearly, I must make my formulation more precise. In my Ego there is formed, from out of the proper sources of transcendental passivity and activity, my “representation of the world, ” my “picture of the world, ” whereas outside of me, naturally enough, there is the world itself. But is this really a good way of putting it? Does this talk about outer and inner, if it makes any sense at all, receive its meaning from anywhere else than from my formation and my preservation of meaning? Should I forget that the totality of everything that I can ever think of as in being resides within the universal realm of consciousness, within my realm, that of the Ego, and indeed within what is for me real or possible?” (Phenomenology and Anthropology)

“ The epoche creates a unique sort of philosophical solitude which is the fundamental methodical requirement for a truly radical philosophy. In this solitude I am not a single individual who has somehow willfully cut himself off from the society of mankind, perhaps even for theoretical reasons, or who is cut off by accident, as in a shipwreck, but who nevertheless knows that he still belongs to that society. I am not an ego, who still has his you, his we, his total community of co-subjects in natural validity. All of mankind, and the whole distinction and ordering of the personal pronouns, has become a phenomenon within my epoche; and so has the privilege of I-the- man among other men. “(Crisis, p.184)

“...it was wrong, methodically, to jump immediately into transcendental inter-subjectivity and to leap over the primal "I,"the ego of my epoche, which can never lose its uniqueness and personal indeclinability. It is only an apparent contradiction to this that the ego—through a particular constitutive accomplishment of its own—makes itself declinable, for itself, transcendentally; that, starting from itself and in itself, it constitutes transcendental intersubjectivity, to which it then adds itself as a merely privileged member, namely, as "I" among the transcendental others. This is what philosophical self-exposition in the epoche actually teaches us. It can show how the always singular I, in the original constituting life proceeding within it, constitutes a first sphere of objects, the "primordial" sphere; how it then, starting from this, in a motivated fashion, performs a constitutive accomplishment through which an intentional modification of itself and its primordiality achieves ontic validity under the title of "alien-perception," perception of others, of another "I" who is for himself an I as I am. ”(Crisis, p.185)

He literally set out to create a ‘science of consciousness’. That is all. He was not dismissive of science merely critical of the physical sciences encroaching upon psychology and such - rightly so imo. — I like sushi

Firstly, this ‘science of consciousness’ was based on radically different principles than that of empirical
science. Thus , he was not attempting a study of consciousness using methods that have anything whatsoever to do with what you would associate with empirical science. Second, his transcendental method , which is what he means by science of consciousness , doesn’t just apply to consciousness, it also applies to the natural empirical sciences, critiquing their limitations of self-understanding and grounding them in transcendental subjectivity.

Husserl is not an empirical realist. He does not believe it is coherent to make the claim that a world precedes, outlasts and contains me and everyone else. On the contrary , the natural ‘ world’ is constituted via progressively more advanced intentional acts. — Joshs

That seems to be the case, and I find that problematic. The plausibility of the thesis that the world is my dream depends upon common-sense experience of myself as a social animal who understands that sense organs can be damaged so that this or that human is shut out from a realm of color or sound. The very notion of an ego seems dependent on other egos. The notion of truth-telling seems to depend on some kind of community in relation to a shared world.

Should I forget that the totality of everything that I can ever think of as in being resides within the universal realm of consciousness, within my realm, that of the Ego, and indeed within what is for me real or possible? — Joshs

This basically collapses consciousness into being. If everything is X, then 'X' is useless, cuts no mustard at all. Did you hear about the solipsist who refused to turn around because everything was always in front of him anyway?

In this solitude I am not a single individual who has somehow willfully cut himself off from the society of mankind, perhaps even for theoretical reasons, or who is cut off by accident, as in a shipwreck, but who nevertheless knows that he still belongs to that society. I am not an ego, who still has his you, his we, his total community of co-subjects in natural validity. — Joshs

I think we can naturalize this psychedelic vision by talking about the way the 'same' system of language 'lives' in all us who have internalized various cultural norms and habits. The philosopher can methodically ignore whatever seems contingent in his 'lifestream,' hunting for a primordial structure (some kind of postulated self-presence or eternal 'Now' that frames or accompanies that which changes.)

Yet it also seems that the flexibility of Popper's system is often overlooked. 'Convention' is a surprisingly prominent word in The Logic. The point made above about basic statements reminds me of passages from On Certainty. — jas0n

Popper rejected Hegelian dialectic in favor of a Kantian notion of an assumption approach of science toward truth He could not accept the notion that all aspects of thought, empirical theorization and methods and practices of scientific verification are contingent. They belong to communities of research which, when they undergo change , displaces not only the former theories but the accepted methods of proof that were tied to theories. Wittgenstein agreed with Kuhn, against Popper, that scientific change is like change in the arts , a matter of aesthetic shifts rather than an asymptomatic approach of truth through falsification.

Some more Husserl quotes, that may come in handy,

All of modern philosophy, in the original sense of a universal ultimately grounding science, is, according to our presentation, at least since Kant and Hume, a single struggle between two ideas of science: the idea of an objectivistic philosophy on the ground of the pre-given world and the idea of a philosophy on the ground of absolute, transcendental subjectivity - the latter being something completely new and strange historically, breaking through in Berkeley, Hume, and Kant.
...
I myself use the word "transcendental" in the broadest sense for the original motif, discussed in detail above, which through Descartes confers meaning upon all modern philosophies, the motif which, in all of them, seeks to come to itself, so to speak - seeks to attain the genuine and pure form of its task and its systematic development. It is the motif of inquiring back into the ultimate source of all the formations of knowledge, the motif of the knower's reflecting upon himself and his knowing life in which all the scientific structures that are valid for him occur purposefully, are stored up as acquisitions, and have become and continue to become freely available. Working itself out radically, it is the motif of a universal philosophy which is grounded purely in this source and thus ultimately grounded. This source bears the title I-myself, with all of my actual and possible knowing life and, ultimately, my concrete life in general.
...
What is, in respect to sense and validity, the "objective world," objectively true being, and also the objective truth of science, once we have seen universally with Hume (and in respect to nature even with Berkeley) that "world" is a validity which has sprung up within subjectivity, indeed - speaking from my point of view, who am now philosophising - one which has sprung up within my subjectivity, with all the content it ever counts as having for me?
...
The naivete of speaking about "objectivity" without ever considering subjectivity as experiencing, knowing, and actually concretely accomplishing, the naivete of the scientist of nature or of the world in general, who is blind to the fact that all the truths he attains as objective truths and the objective world itself as the substratum of his formulae (the everyday world of experience as well as the higher-level conceptual world of knowledge) are his own life-construct developed within himself - this naivete is naturally no longer possible as soon as life becomes the point of focus. And must this liberation not come to anyone who seriously immerses himself in the Treatise and, after unmasking Hume's naturalistic presuppositions, becomes conscious of the power of his motivation?
...
But how is this most radical subjectivism, which subjectivises the world itself, comprehensible? The world-enigma in the deepest and most ultimate sense, the enigma of a world whose being is being through subjective accomplishment, and this with the self-evidence that another world cannot be at all conceivable - that, and nothing else, is Hume's problem.

The plausibility of the thesis that the world is my dream depends upon common-sense experience of myself as a social animal who understands that sense organs can be damaged so that this or that human is shut out from a realm of color or sound. The very notion of an ego seems dependent on other egos. The notion of truth-telling seems to depend on some kind of community in relation to a shared world. — jas0n

He does not believe the word is my dream, but that we don’t represent , mirror, or correspond to
an indepdentlt existing world. He , like Derrida , Nietzsche and Heidegger believes that a world is enacted , produced and continually transformed through my perceptual and intersubjective engagement. My anticipations of events are subject to continual validation or invalidation from an outside which is always already co-defined by my interpretations of it.

Popper rejected Hegelian dialectic in favor of a Kantian notion of an assumption approach of science toward truth He could not accept the notion that all aspects of thought, empirical theorization and methods and practices of scientific verification are contingent. — Joshs

I think you need to support this claim. I've been reading Popper's Logic, and I was surprised how flexible P was, probably because people like to paint papa Popper as the grinch who stole Christmas. He liked an alternative view (conventionalism) but defended his own. I think it's wrong to frame such a decision in terms of 'could not accept,' as if he was a child afraid of thunderstorms.

He does not believe the word is my dream. He , like Derrida , Nietzsche and Heidegger believes that a world is enacted , produced and continually transformed through my perceptual and intersubjective engagement. My anticipations of events are subject to continual validation or invalidation from an outside which is always already co-defined by my interpretations of it. — Joshs

If other subjects exist, then so does the world? Yes?

If you are retreating to a group of subjects constructing a kind of interpretative layer on top of some given layer, then that's just a reasonable version of indirect realism, seems to me.

They belong to communities of research which, when they undergo change , displaces not only the former theories but the accepted methods of proof that were tied to theories. — Joshs

I think there's some truth in this, but I don't know if it's best to leap from the impossibly of exactly specifying the nature of science to the worthlessness of decent approximation. Dictionaries are 'stupid' and yet useful.

If other subjects exist, then so does the world? Yes? — jas0n

I only know of other subjects and a ‘world’ to the extent that I can construe these entities on some dimension of similarity with respect to my ongoing system of interpretation. Whatever is wholly outside of this system is invisible to me. Thus, a ‘world’ is built up and continually transformed as variations on an ongoing theme.

Thoughts? — jas0n

I see no mention of Peirce. Did I miss something?

If we think of basic statements as facts and theories as interpretations, then facts turn out to be more 'complex' than interpretations (or to be a different kind of interpretation.) — jas0n

The tricky bit here is that measurements are where the facts - as theoretical entities - must interface with the physical reality they puport to measure. So there is the further thing of an epistemic cut.

Logically, a measurement is constructed to be a binary switch. What number should I attach to some modelled aspect of the world? And then a measurement is made by plunging the mechanical switch into the boiling flux of world. The switch is tripped and you pull your measuring implement out to read off the appropriate numerals.

So the mystery is all about the epistemic cut - the ability to make measurements that depends on being able to produce mechanical switches that interface between the logically/mathematically organised theory and the unbroken physical flow of the world - the thing in itself - that can trip the switch in a suitable fashion, giving some account of itself in terms of digits to be read off dials.

A measuring stick doesn’t seem immediately like a switch, but it is. You can only read off some definite number and write it down in your log when you decide the analog continuity of the reality looks close enough - for all practical purposes - to one digit and not some other digit.

The epistemic cut is a further refinement developed by Howard Pattee and Robert Rosen in the 1960s, if you are looking for a formal understanding of the pragmatism that grounds the scientific method - and indeed, life and mind as reality-modelling systems in general.

I only know of other subjects and a ‘world’ to the extent that I can construe these entities on some dimension of similarity with respect to my ongoing system of interpretation. Whatever is wholly outside of this system is invisible to me. Thus, a ‘world’ is built up and continually transformed. — Joshs

If one assumes that an ego is 'given' or 'primary,' then perhaps one can cast everything else as an appearance for that ego. But I don't think this story is plausible. To me it makes more sense to take the ego and the world as 'equiprimordial' or conceptually independent.

Note that I grant the importance of a functioning nervous system in a particular human body. I don't think John Smith continues to feel or think after his cremation. I can't say much about what the world/universe is/was once all life is extinguished or before life arrived. So the subjective aspect should be acknowledged.

I see no mention of Peirce. Did I miss something? — apokrisis

I like what I know of Pierce, and I'm fairly familiar w/ pragmatism (James, Rorty). It'd be great to hear what you can add from that angle.

A measuring stick doesn’t seem immediately like a switch, but it is. You can only read off some definite number and write it down on your log when you decide the analog continuity of the reality looks close enough - for all practical purposes - to one digit and not some other digit. — apokrisis

I agree that it's a switch. Measurements seem to be forced to choose one among a finite number of options. (A Turing machine has an arbitrarily long tape, but real devices are finite.)

I've been reading Popper's Logic, and I was surprised how flexible P was, probably because people like to paint papa Popper as the grinch who stole Christmas. He liked an alternative view (conventionalism) but defended his own. I think it's wrong to frame such a decision in terms of 'could not accept,' as if he was a child afraid of thunderstorms — jas0n

The key for me is that Popper believed that determination of anomalies and the impetus of scientific revolutions were rational affairs, making use of settled method. Kuhn disagreed with this rationalism.


“If, as in the standard picture, scientific revolutions are like normal science but better, then revolutionary science will at all times be regarded as something positive, to be sought, promoted, and welcomed. Revolutions are to be sought on Popper’s view also, but not because they add to positive knowledge of the truth of theories but because they add to the negative knowledge that the relevant theories are false. Kuhn rejected both the traditional and Popperian views in this regard. He claims that normal science can succeed in making progress only if there is a strong commitment by the relevant scientific community to their shared theoretical beliefs, values, instruments and techniques, and even metaphysics. This constellation of shared commitments Kuhn at one point calls a ‘disciplinary matrix’ (1970a, 182) although elsewhere he often uses the term ‘paradigm’. Because commitment to the disciplinary matrix is a pre-requisite for successful normal science, an inculcation of that commitment is a key element in scientific training and in the formation of the mind-set of a successful scientist. This tension between the desire for innovation and the necessary conservativeness of most scientists was the subject of one of Kuhn’s first essays in the theory of science, “The Essential Tension” (1959). The unusual emphasis on a conservative attitude distinguishes Kuhn not only from the heroic element of the standard picture but also from Popper and his depiction of the scientist forever attempting to refute her most important theories.

This conservative resistance to the attempted refutation of key theories means that revolutions are not sought except under extreme circumstances. Popper’s philosophy requires that a single reproducible, anomalous phenomenon be enough to result in the rejection of a theory (Popper 1959, 86–7). Kuhn’s view is that during normal science scientists neither test nor seek to confirm the guiding theories of their disciplinary matrix. Nor do they regard anomalous results as falsifying those theories. (It is only speculative puzzle-solutions that can be falsified in a Popperian fashion during normal science (1970b, 19).) Rather, anomalies are ignored or explained away if at all possible. It is only the accumulation of particularly troublesome anomalies that poses a serious problem for the existing disciplinary matrix. A particularly troublesome anomaly is one that undermines the practice of normal science. For example, an anomaly might reveal inadequacies in some commonly used piece of equipment, perhaps by casting doubt on the underlying theory. If much of normal science relies upon this piece of equipment, normal science will find it difficult to continue with confidence until this anomaly is addressed. A widespread failure in such confidence Kuhn calls a ‘crisis’ (1962/1970a, 66–76).

The most interesting response to crisis will be the search for a revised disciplinary matrix, a revision that will allow for the elimination of at least the most pressing anomalies and optimally the solution of many outstanding, unsolved puzzles. Such a revision will be a scientific revolution. According to Popper the revolutionary overthrow of a theory is one that is logically required by an anomaly. According to Kuhn however, there are no rules for deciding the significance of a puzzle and for weighing puzzles and their solutions against one another. The decision to opt for a revision of a disciplinary matrix is not one that is rationally compelled; nor is the particular choice of revision rationally compelled. For this reason the revolutionary phase is particularly open to competition among differing ideas and rational disagreement about their relative merits. Kuhn does briefly mention that extra-scientific factors might help decide the outcome of a scientific revolution—the nationalities and personalities of leading protagonists, for example (1962/1970a, 152–3). This suggestion grew in the hands of some sociologists and historians of science into the thesis that the outcome of a scientific revolution, indeed of any step in the development of science, is always determined by socio-political factors. Kuhn himself repudiated such ideas and his work makes it clear that the factors determining the outcome of a scientific dispute, particularly in modern science, are almost always to be found within science, specifically in connexion with the puzzle-solving power of the competing ideas.”
( Stanford Encyclopedia)

Logically, a measurement is constructed to be a binary switch. What number should I attach to some modelled aspect of the world? And then a measurement is made by plunging the mechanical switch into the boiling flux of world. The switch is tripped and you pull your measuring implement out to read off the appropriate numerals. — apokrisis

This makes excellent sense. I'd add that Popper is also including the social element of technique and communication. I have to 'believe' in a purported measurement. Did the technician do it correctly ? Record it correctly? Did the device perform correctly? Was the device constructed directly ?Do we worry about 'sense-data' tickling technicians soul? Or do we 'black box' the issue ? 'Look through' the whole mess, in a manifestation of trust, as if transparent and toward/at what is currently/actually a matter of living doubt?

Popper’s philosophy requires that a single reproducible, anomalous phenomenon be enough to result in the rejection of a theory (Popper 1959, 86–7). — Joshs

I'd prefer to quote Popper himself, but I don't have a digital copy.

The logic of his theory is utterly simple: a universal statement is falsified by a single genuine counter-instance. Methodologically, however, the situation is complex: decisions about whether to accept an apparently falsifying observation as an actual falsification can be problematic, as observational bias and measurement error, for example, can yield results which are only apparently incompatible with the theory under scrutiny.

Thus, while advocating falsifiability as the criterion of demarcation for science, Popper explicitly allows for the fact that in practice a single conflicting or counter-instance is never sufficient methodologically for falsification, and that scientific theories are often retained even though much of the available evidence conflicts with them, or is anomalous with respect to them.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/#BasiStatFalsConv

One way to look at this is: evidence against a scientific thesis should be possible. Maybe we don't drop it right away. Life is complex. But it should at least look bad when it fails at prediction. It has to be specific enough to fail.