Hello to all my FQXi Community friends. I am pleased to join you again this year, and I trust that we will be able once again to learn much from each other. My essay this year is the fourth in a series, and it addresses two themes my earlier essays each touched upon in different ways. First, we need to recognize and accept the fact that a complete empirical description of physical reality is inaccessible to us as reflective participants inside that reality. Second, our perception and investigation of this physical reality through science rests on guiding principles constructed on faith. I highlight some of the shared beliefs that appropriately guide the scientific enterprise, and provide a specific critique of certain common articles of faith that I believe interfere with productive inquiry. My plea is for a broader and more open conversation about the articles of faith that provide the foundation for our understanding of the physical world. My hope is that by doing so we will invite a deeper humility and a greater capacity for the experience of wonder, joy, love, beauty and meaningful participation, including the full and enthusiastic pursuit of science, in this most marvelous world we live in.
George Gantz