1. Talking much, especially about commonplace or trivial things; talkative.
2. Wordy.
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“Physical evidence only takes you so far” is a phrase I heard quite often in our discussions concerning the natural and supernatural. Indeed, the limits of our understanding have always been inevitably bound to what we have thus far discovered, and what our minds can currently make of it. However, I feel like exploring exactly what it is that waits farther than where physical evidence can take us.
Firstly, I must state the obvious: physical evidence can only make suggestions while existent: for example, if we hadn’t indirectly observed dark matter, what reason would we have to believe it exists? So our theories are only as informed as the evidence behind them.
Then, we must understand how theories build on one another—general relativity on Newtonian gravity, modern psychology on Freud’s psychoanalysis, and so on. Theories grow with several missteps, get refined, and better describe the external world as more information and better theories breach the fray.
And here is where we stop: curious minds seek understanding, find evidence, build theories, and try to make those theories match the world. This is a process I find essentially eternal: the search for truth, constantly informed by humble searching. If this is all that was meant by “physical evidence only takes you so far”, then I whole-heartedly agree. But I think what we often mean is something more.
I’ll continue this in a little while, when I have more time. Check the above post for a continuation.
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