In his essay “Spirit in the Sanctuary,” George Santayana pressed a key nerve in the relation between reality and what we can know about it:

Our ideas are signs, not portions, of what exists beyond us, and it is only when experiment and calculation succeed in penetrating beneath the image, that (for instance, in mathematical physics) we may gain some more precise, although still symbolic, notion of the forces that surround us. We and our knowledge are a part of nature: it is therefore inevitable that the rest of nature, in its concreteness, should be external to us. We cannot share the full reality that other events carry with them. Absolute truth is hidden from us, and the deeper our science goes, the more ghostly it becomes.

The metaphysical realm alluded to is where materialists face an abyss if, for instance, they were pressed to explain how matter becomes a cathedral or a sonata or a mathematical hunch or a recipe for pizza – yes, all the endless “stuff” that is intangible to scientific scrutiny that is nonetheless part of living in the real world.

I offer the following rumination on this subject as a layman who makes no claim to expertise in any particular field of knowledge and holds no prejudice against the power of the human brain.

Mathematics and physics rightly leave metaphysical problems at the door behind them. The reason, I believe, is that rigorously rational modes of dealing with existence are beyond the reach of science. Strictly rational approaches to knowledge and resultant methodologies work exceedingly well for things like transplanting human organs, taking pictures of Saturn, or harnessing the power of bacteria, but such probing into everything there is to know about “what’s out there” ultimately hits an impenetrable wall. Stringently rational processes for attaining complete knowledge of the world share a common flaw: the systems created for such full knowledge invariably collide with that wall. Einstein met that wall when he struggled for a quarter of a century to formulate a Unified Field Theory aimed at unifying knowledge of all cosmic forces.

The demarcation between what can be known by calculation and experiment and what cannot be known that way is generally missed (or ignored) by specialists who approach knowledge along a strictly rational path. Any “wall” encountered along the way is climbed over or deconstructed.

It would seem that despite the many capable minds at the task of “knowing what the world is all about” and the state-of-the-art hardware and software invested in that quest, the goal keeps moving away instead of getting closer. Ironically the process required a “principle of uncertainty,” introduced by Werner Heisenberg in 1927, in order to continue unraveling the puzzles regarding matter and the forces acting upon it.

Does too sharp a peering into the nature of matter increase the extent and magnitude of the puzzles to be solved? Does the maze of pathways to full knowledge keep sprouting new paths endlessly?

I pause to ask, is it really possible – by refining ever further the tools and methods used in probing the nature of the world – to pull all the attained strands of knowledge together and justifiably shout “Eureka!” as the exact nature of the world is delivered to the human mind?

I doubt it. To begin with, rationally structured systems are not exempt from unforeseen snagging eventualities that may force root changes in basic assumptions. The greater the complexity of the system, the greater the likelihood of an encounter with that rogue “principle” known as Murphy’s Law.

While a complete understanding of the world is a worthy goal, work that deals with highly rarefied bits of data, whether to splice a gene, digitally remove noise from a signal, work with nano particles, etc. ad-infinitum is apt to make some believe that pressing on this manner of knowing is the way to full knowledge of the world. It would seem, however, that as the size of the objects being examined is reduced, the knowledge sought ironically shrinks too, as the mystery expands and leaves the observers dangling over a widening abyss of uncertainty.

Given the important practical benefits of intensive scientific probing, it needs to be pointed out that total reliance on the scientific method of knowing as a replacement for of all other methods of knowing, is in effect, an endorsement of scientism: the use of science for unscientific aims. Scientism is a cozy niche of intellectuals who substitute faux science for authentic science and substitute themselves for God.

And so, the first condition for understanding the world gets bypassed, out of an assumed devotion to “enlightenment,” while the spiritual portal of reality is ignored – a gateway harped on by philosophers, theologians, and thinkers in all walks of life since the beginning of time.

Example:

“ The little that is won [from the realm of the spirit], weighs more than all that is won in all the other sciences.’ Will this statement [of Thomas Aquinas] be judged as fantastic by our scientists and technocrats? Perhaps, but it is true nevertheless because of the dignity of the object studied and the dignity of the end in view.” (Walter Brugger, Philosophical Dictionary)

Example:

“The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the power of all true science. He to whom this emo­tion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms – this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.” (Albert Einstein)

In the final analysis, disregarding the spiritual counterpart to reality because it is, for instance, impervious to math and science, may well result in going through life never having become acquainted with the real world.

Anthony J. DeBlasi is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brooklyn College and a lifelong defender of Western culture.