…on today’s memorable quotation

Gethyn and I were having a conversation over dinner recently, and he cautioned his horrified wife that, although he enjoys reading her hero and appreciates some of what he imparts, he unfortunately found himself not in a position to accept the entirety of philosophy about Nature; moreover, he put forward that humanity does not perceive, wholly, what nature in reality is.

As one who disseminates his love for and knowledge of Physics to others, he cited the brilliant Professor Stephen Hawking:

“These examples bring us to a conclusion: there is no picture- or theory-independent concept of reality. Instead we adopt a view that we call model-dependent realism: the idea that a physical theory or world picture is a model (generally of a mathematical nature) and a set of rules that connect the elements of the model to observations. This provides a framework with which to interpret modern science.”

~ Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design, 2010

His, by now appeased and less-horrified, spouse smiled faintly; not unlike a Buddha, because she not only concurred with Professor Hawking; but, so did her hero, and she had a citation at the ready to counter that science could not endure without nature, and indeed exists to illuminate facets of the very thing which we do not comprehend.

To wit…

“It presently learns, that, since the dawn of history, there has been a constant accumulation and classifying of facts. But what is classification, but the perceiving that these objects are not chaotic, and are not foreign; but, have a law which is also a law of the human mind? The Astronomer discovers that geometry, a pure abstraction of the human mind, is the measure of planetary motion. The Chemist finds proportions and intelligible method throughout matter; and science is nothing but the finding of analogy, identity; in the most remote parts.”

~ Emerson, The American Scholar, 1838

The Physicist comes round and his wife beams broadly!