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Doublethink and philosophy of science:

http://www.liferesearchuniversal.com/1984-17.html#seventeen
George Orwell: "Doublethink means the power of holding two
contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both
of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories
must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with
reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself
that reality is not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it
would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to
be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and
hence of guilt. Doublethink lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since
the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while
retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To
tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any
fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary
again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed,
to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take
account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably
necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to
exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is
tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this
knowledge ; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead
of the truth."

Karl Popper, "Quantum theory and the schism in physics". London:
Hutchinson, 1982, pp. 29-30:
"The decisive thing about Einstein’s theory, from my point of view, is
that it has shown that Newton’s theory - which has been more
successful than any other theory ever proposed - can be replaced by an
alternative theory which is of wider scope, and which is so related to
Newton’s theory that every success of Newtonian theory is also a
success for that theory, and which in fact makes slight adjustments to
some results of Newtonian theory. So for me, this logical situation is
more important than the question which of the two theories is in fact
the better approximation to the truth."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com