How much can we know?

How much can we know?

Good article in Nature on the limitations of science and epistemology. Still, science is an indispensable, accurate and useful methodology within those limitations. Some key excerpts:

“What we observe is not nature itself but nature as discerned through data we collect from machines. In consequence, the scientific worldview depends on the information we can acquire through our instruments. And given that our tools are limited, our view of the world is necessarily myopic. We can see only so far into the nature of things, and our ever shifting scientific worldview reflects this fundamental limitation on how we perceive reality.”

“Paradoxically, it is through our consciousness that we make sense of the world, even if only imperfectly. Can we fully understand something of which we are a part? Like the mythic snake that bites its own tail, we are stuck within a circle that begins and ends with our lived experience of the world. We cannot detach our descriptions of reality from how we experience reality. This is the playing field where the game of science unfolds, and if we play by the rules we can see only so much of what lies beyond.”

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