Think maybe as Spooky says it all bends into itself. That a complete explanation ultimately requires some sort of unity or all knowingness.
As in you need a reasonably accurate view of the nature of that part of the the total reality you are working in (bearing in mind that our internal landscape is a part of the same reality as the external) to design an experimental method which is correct - which takes proper account of all of the variables.
And you need an open mind - what passes for this in science at present generally has so much invested in defending (or being seen to defend) a partial view of reality that it can't (won't) open to perceive the big picture.
And so by definition it cannot conceive of a correct (or at least a comprehensive) methodology. Put another way - if you don't ask the right questions, you can't hope to get the answers that matter.
Part of this is just fine, and 100% supported by scientific method. It's clear that gaining an understanding of reality is a sort of a catch 22 problem - you need to know the answer (the unity or all knowingness above) to get the design of the experimental method exactly right.
Which means that it's inevitable that our (conscious) understanding can only be partial, and can only unfold through trial, error and proving/disproving of incomplete trial hypotheses using methods which at times will be based on wrong assumptions.
The bit that's quite another issue, and is surely the critical enabler is that of openness of mind. Openness does not mean naivety or inability to be logical. It just means an ability to rest easily and allow our innate intelligence to work without ego driven grasping - without denying or trying to force fit conceptual theories to the evidence. (these theories could be as much happy clappy belief in the insupportable, as a fear based insistence that the world runs on the dog eat dog principle or the above refusal of science to open to the possibility of certain wider realities)
The closed mindedness is in my experience nothing to do with scientific method per se, and everything to do with the culture which has grown up around research and academia which decides in a really aggressive way what sort of view is respectable, and what is not. No serious academic can for example be seen to even entertain 'wrong' views - it would finish his career.
Which I guess explains why Buddhism teaches right from day one (in the four noble truths) that egotistical grasping leads to the delusion which is right at the root of our unhappiness.
From a very old and i think rather lovely teaching called the Dhammapada which kind of hits the nail on the head:
We are what we think
All that we are arises with our thoughts
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with an impure mind
And trouble will follow you
As the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart.
We are what we think
All that we are arises with our thoughts
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with a pure mind
And happiness will follow you
As your shadow, unshakable.....
contd.
More here:
http://www.angelfire.com/ca/SHALOM/dhammapada.html One of the most powerful ways this works must surely be to block the ability of many to open to even the possibility that there are greater realities in play than a simplistic Newtonian competing separate selves/dog eat dog take on reality admits - this opening is the door to the spiritual path, the eventual seeing that the world actually runs on love and all that that entails.
This opening is surely the most important step possible for all of humanity, representing it does no less than the restoration of communication with Spirit/God/the true nature of mind or whatever. It's the source of the intuition or knowing (wisdom and compassion) that's needed to balance the self interest driven drive to destruction of ourselves and our planet that so many are engaged in.
My own experience says that once you open life finds ways to bring all sorts of 'proof' into your awareness, but that until you do you simply are not capable of picking up the signals. It's probably not by accident that this most fundamental of choices is not forced upon us, which probably goes some way to explaining why it's so unprovable if you're not in that space yet.......
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