Mazviita Chirimuuta

That's the title of his new book.

And he is an out and out pluralist about science.

So he says that because there is contingency in the history of science, it means there are paths not taken.

But we could maximise the acquisition of knowledge if we just like explored as many of those different paths as possible.

which isn't something that I say in the book myself, because I think there are also reasons why it makes sense to narrow views and parts of inquiry.

And also we don't have like unlimited resources.

But yeah, sure, there are opportunity costs that come along with like taking a certain path and there are others not pursued.

That's very much associated with scientific realism.

So there's this view that there is one way nature is and science succeeds insofar as scientific representations conform to this one way that nature is.

from my view, sort of takes very seriously the idea that nature could just be sort of inexhaustibly complex.

So if you ever try to sort of, if you ever pin it down in one representation, there are ways also that it could be represented sort of inexhaustibly many different varieties of ways that you can investigate it.

And then also ways that any one representation is lacking.

So there's a kind of,

inherent sort of lack of convergence that that picture brings about.

One of the ways of expressing this is to say that nature is protean.

There's this mythological character called Proteus.

He was a shapeshifter, this sort of mythological being that lived in the sea and he would keep changing his shape.

But if you could pin him down,

he would answer you a question and tell you the truth.

But the thing was, you had to pin him down.