To use words to point beyond words; to use well-formulated sentences to point out that there exist aspects of reality that are not captured by well-formulated sentences is a form of mental judo. It points to a different use of language than that with which we are familiar. Yet if we were talking about music, everyone would recognize the difference between the music itself and a description of the music. So it is with science and the natural world that science describes.
Reality is not a data bank, nor can it be reduced to a finite set of laws or to a deductive system. Any system inevitably misses something. Words, symbols, and systems are all incomplete. Strangely enough, what is missed is not so much some extremely complex and subtle theoretical structure, a kind of superstring theory. The essence of what is missed is something that is not at all abstract or complex. It is the very process of abstraction, the representation of reality by language and mathematical symbols, which misses something.
William Byers, en The Blind Spot
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