Limitations of Science

We are born;

Now, let us visit a museum.

As we enter, we are greeted by a painting and a sculpture; upon examining the first, we see that it seems to be a flat plane with many colours painted upon it—it seems to be real, for it is drawn convincingly, fooling our eyes into thinking it is indeed 3 dimensional. Then comes the invention of the magnifying glass, and then the microscope and ultimately we are able to conclude that the painting is indeed 2 dimensional and it is made up of even smaller things, called atoms! This is the major limitation of empiricism. Since we rely on sense data and observation, we are always bottlenecked by the technology of our time—Galileo was able to prove the heliocentric model significantly due to his advanced telescope.

Now we examine the stone sculpture, and postulate that all sculptures are made of stone—until we find a plaster one! All that is required to disprove an empirical observation is a single contrary example. Seeking comfort beyond this seemingly fragile belief, we look to the sculpture.

Lured by the promise of certainty we draw closer to the solid stone sculpture, only to be greeted by some cold facts, which seem self-evident; all marble is stone, and all stone is solid so all marble is solid, we conclude. But what makes it solid? Is it really? Why are we able to sculpt in marble and not in chalk? None of these deeper, epistemic questions can be asked, for we (now, as rationalists) believe that we stand at different viewpoints, and my perception of the sculpture is not the same as yours. Nothing is real, the museum does not exist and we are perceiving nothing. And since we live in personal realities, all the research you take up is rendered invalid from my worldview.

Thus, while exiting the museum, a unique thought besets us; the painting was empirically rich but the stone offered a strong basis for a rational argument. Despite its shortcomings, we can see the immense practical merits of empirical research, while still giving deductive reasoning its rightful place.

We leave the museum;

"For dust thou art, and to dust shall though return”