Believe Differently

Recently I have been reading a lot of philosophy of science. The subject interests me from an epistemological perspective. It is close to an a priori position for me but I am convinced that there is no foundation upon which, or from which, we can base our understanding of our world, despite the fact that many thinking and intelligent people regard the scientific method as supplying such a platform.

For them, a scientific theory, once “proven”, describes reality as it actually is in itself. They have bought into the re-envisioned interpretation of scientific history as presented in their school text books and the story of science as a body of knowledge that simply progresses, adding, as it were, fact to fact, as it builds up an increasingly complete picture of our reality. Whilst, maybe, I can understand this view as most people are unaware of the u turns, wrong turns and double u turns that have occurred in the development of many of our scientific descriptions of reality, what I find harder to understand is that people forget that a description of a thing is not the thing itself.

Descriptions, thoughts captured in verbal signifiers, can never be the thing they describe. Not only that but they are intrinsically attached to our empirical perception of the world. They describe our macro reality, the reality we perceive and comprehend which is not the same as reality as it exists before our perception. They are necessarily analogical and as such are imprisoned within our a priori view.

Our descriptions, at the end of the day, are really nothing more than metaphors. We might label them theories, or even go further, and label some of them as facts, but actually, after all is said and done, they are nothing more than analogies. Reality is described as being like something, operational labels are assigned and defined in descriptions which in turn find their meaning in the context of other descriptions, which reciprocally find their meaning in still larger descriptions; modern myths which like their ancient predecessors, function to try and help us grasp hold of our world, understand it, and tame it.

These stories, sophisticated though they undoubtedly are, do not tell us about reality as it actually is but about reality as it appears – and the two are not the same. More than that though, because a description of a thing is not the thing, neither do they fully inform us of the reality that appears; rather, in a very real sense, they actually shape what appears. They form the backdrop and plausibility structures against and upon which we as characters, set within our own stories, live out our lives. They alternatively resource and resist our understanding and grasp of nature, and shape and colour our world view. 1

But it should not be forgotten, new stories can be written, and the old rewritten, our world can be re-imagined, and it is thanks to the creativity of such authors that scientific understanding progresses.

1. If these remarks seem strange see more on my section entitled  Faith & Science and particularly take a look at my posts entitled Scientific Truth part I and part II [↩]