Practicing scientists generally assume what non-scientists do – that whatever the answer to this question really is, we all must proceed as if the world is as it appears. So, we assume that the physical world has a metaphysical/ontological reality independent of human experience – that a falling tree does make a sound if there is no one there to hear it – that stars are born, burn, and then die without any humans bearing witness.
The corollary to this assumption is that human beings can experience that external world to the degree that our senses and our instruments allow it. By no means do all philosophers accept this view, and perhaps some scientists would not completely accept it. But for the practice of science to succeed, those who “do” science have to behave as if it were so. I will not complicate matters by delving into the challenges to this conceptualization of reality that Quantum Mechanics brings to the table, but it does introduce some difficulties (such as the inconvenient violation of the law of non-contradiction by the wave/particle duality of light). But at that small scale, as well as at the cosmological scale, concepts and words that have clear definitions at the macro level cease to have the same meanings.
If we can stipulate, then, that we can accept reality at face value, what do we do with that information? As we experience the world, can those experiences translate into and inform our explanations about how it functions, how it has functioned, and how it will in the future? In other words, can we have confidence in what we believe we are learning from the world? Is an epistemology based on interactions with nature reliable?
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