Conjecture

A guess about how the world works, what to do next, what the world should be like, why something is a Problem, or why something is a solution.

All Knowledge is conjectural. Certainty is impossible, but Progress occurs through improved guesses subjected to Criticism. Conjecture is the engine of Creativity — new explanations begin as bold guesses, not derivations from data.

Connections

• •Paired with Criticism — together they form the cycle of knowledge growth in Critical Rationalism
• •The source of all explanations and Knowledge
• •Drives Progress — each improved conjecture corrects prior errors
• •Replaces Inductivism and Empiricism as the true origin of ideas
• •Creativity is the ability to generate new conjectures
• •Corroboration occurs when a conjecture survives novel criticism
• •Even axioms and moral theories are conjectures
• •Error Correction works by replacing refuted conjectures with better ones