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Introduction

The map is not the territory.  The point seems obvious, but we keep on forgetting it.

We navigate the physical world with maps; we navigate the mental world with mental maps, which are connected to our language in complex ways.  These maps are absolutely vital, but we have to remember that the map is only a representation of the territory - not the real thing.  The map bears some relationship to the territory it describes - we hope - but it is useful to us precisely because it ignores a great deal.  To use the map correctly, we need to understand both what it tells us about the territory, and what it does not.

Science Does Not Exist

Most of us have a mental map which includes places like 'science' and 'religion'.  If you are one such person, then science does exist for you, as a place on your mental map of the world.

I constantly hear people making claims: "Science does this", "Religion does that", "Philosophy does something else" - and there is often some truth in these observations. But there is also a great deal which is missing. Fundamentally, all such claims are statements about some abstract entity which does not actually exist: that is, in the physical world, 'science' does not exist.

Scientists exist, and they are as varied as any other group of humans; they engage in a wide variety of activities, from filling in grant research applications to arguing about competing theories with colleagues, to conducting experiments, to writing and re-writing research papers, to speaking at gatherings, and much more.  All this activity can be influenced by all the usual factors which influence human activity - curiosity, pride in doing a good job, ambition, jealousy, politics, integrity, caution, and all the rest.  All of these things contribute to scientific activity, just they contribute to religious activity or philosophical activity.

This is not a claim that scientific activity is indistinguishable from religious or philosophical activity - simply a recognition that all such activity is, in the end, human activity, undertaken by fallible but generally well intentioned human beings, (and, sometimes, by foolish or malicious human beings), and therefore they all share a great deal which our mental maps tend to ignore.

In other words, science does not exist in the same sense that apples exist; it does exist in the same sense that love and debt exist.  For more on this distinction, please see the Framework which is used on many of the pages on this site.

Theories Do Not Rule

It is common to hear people say things like, "Newton's laws of motion require this," or "Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle prevents this," or "Einstein's Theory of Relativity prevents that."  These are verbal shorthands which (most) scientists understand.  The laws of Physics, or 'scientific theories' do not make anything happen, or prevent anything from happening: they simply describe what we see happening.

So, "Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle prevents this," actually means something like, "We believe that this will not happen, because if it did, that would be in conflict with Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which is extremely unlikely."

It is also important to remember that mathematical equations are only useful insofar as they describe the real world.  When I was younger, it was common for people to claim that 'science has proved that bees cannot fly'.  Of course, science had proved nothing of the sort, but when scientists plugged a bee's details into the equations they had for flight, the equations said the bee could not fly: this did not prove that a bee cannot fly; it only proved that they were using the wrong equations - or, maybe, the wrong figures.

More recently, the fact that some equations describing the universe do not contain a term relating to time, has led some people to claim this proves that time does not really exist.  The point is absurd; it only establishes the fairly obvious detail that some aspects of the universe can be described without reference to time.  But the claim itself is yet another example of people confusing the map - the equation - with the territory.