I haven't read Popper's work. But I have read Darwin's On the Origin of Species, and Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, for what that's worth. To say that organic life is about problem-solving is horribly reductionist (and entirely typical of evo psych accounts which bear very little relation to actual human life). What 'problem' was the architect of a Greek temple solving? Obviously, the engineering and logistic issues involved, but that wasn't the prime motivation, was it? Sure, Leonardo solved a lot of engineering and ballistic problems, but what 'problem' was he solving with the Mona Lisa? No doubt I'm an ignoramus, so please bear with me.
My understanding is that you're suppose to see the concept of "problem" as very abstract and general. So for example for a simple living organism it might be "how to avoid being killed" and "how to find food". In your examples the "problem" being solved by the Greek architect could be stated as "how to make a temple that my patron will be happy to pay me for and/or that my community will enjoy; for Leonardo it would be "how to make a nice portrait of Ms. Lisa del Giocondo". All of these also comprise many subproblems, like the engineering ones you mention.
I think this is basically right, but also kind of uninformative, and the tendency of critical rationalists to fit everything into neat concepts like "problem-solving" is as often a flaw as it is a useful trick.
I haven't read Popper's work. But I have read Darwin's On the Origin of Species, and Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, for what that's worth. To say that organic life is about problem-solving is horribly reductionist (and entirely typical of evo psych accounts which bear very little relation to actual human life). What 'problem' was the architect of a Greek temple solving? Obviously, the engineering and logistic issues involved, but that wasn't the prime motivation, was it? Sure, Leonardo solved a lot of engineering and ballistic problems, but what 'problem' was he solving with the Mona Lisa? No doubt I'm an ignoramus, so please bear with me.
My understanding is that you're suppose to see the concept of "problem" as very abstract and general. So for example for a simple living organism it might be "how to avoid being killed" and "how to find food". In your examples the "problem" being solved by the Greek architect could be stated as "how to make a temple that my patron will be happy to pay me for and/or that my community will enjoy; for Leonardo it would be "how to make a nice portrait of Ms. Lisa del Giocondo". All of these also comprise many subproblems, like the engineering ones you mention.
I think this is basically right, but also kind of uninformative, and the tendency of critical rationalists to fit everything into neat concepts like "problem-solving" is as often a flaw as it is a useful trick.
Typo in the first sentence 🙈
Ugh. Thanks, fixed!
That was fast 😮