The process of scientific experimentation has much more to do with the process of painting a work of art than it has to do with constructing “transcendent mathematical formulations”. Indeed, it may be said that experimenting and painting are one and the same because they both have to do with manipulating one’s body in order to attain a desired result within the real world.
Any kind of after-the-fact interpretation of any of these results (whether it be the “meaning” of a painting or experimental results) falls under the purview of philosophy. In other words, experimental technique (the essence of science) is simply the means that allows philosophical interpretation to attempt to gain a deeper insight into the nature of the universe.
The problem is that most professional scientists don’t have an ounce’s worth of “philosophical muscle” so as to offer well grounded interpretations of the data that they collect, and this is compounded by the fact that there are far too few “natural philosophers” who are able to perform this vital function. Making matters even worse are the so-called “theoretical scientists” who inhabit such bizarre logical universes that nothing they say can possibly have any relevance within the world of everyday experience.
As a philosopher of dimensionality, I have taken it upon myself to offer meaningful interpretations of the very concepts (space and time) that allow there to be any sort of physical science whatever. Whenever a scientist tries to make a claim upon dimensionality itself (such as “universal spatial expansion”), I feel compelled to attempt to explain why it is that no relatively determined phenomena can possibly apply.
However, I realize that in so doing, I am going against the current of mainstream Western thought that likes to think that it has fully “mastered” the universe with all of its formulations. The West likes to think of dimensionality as just one more object that is open to observation rather than being the absolute ground of all possible forms of observability. To me, this line of thinking is a tragedy, and leads to a kind of “cultural egocentrism” that gives the world’s economic elite the moral license to do whatever necessary to bring other cultures “in line” with the global economic order.
Once it is understood that the universe is a transcendent singularity to which dimensionality cannot possibly apply, then a level of humility (cultural sensitivity) is bound to follow. My passion is to get people to realize that the universe, in itself, cannot possibly be “just one more object to be measured”. And because it cannot possibly be measured, it cannot possibly be dominated…
