ABSTRACT
The goal-structure of scientific inquiry covers a good deal of ground. It is diversified and complex, spreading across both the cognitive/theoretical and active/practical sectors. Any claim to the realization of a theoretically complete science of physics would be one that affords “a complete, consistent, and unified theory of physical interaction that would describe all possible observations.” One can never feel secure in writing finis on the basis of purely theoretical considerations. As science grows and develops, it poses new issues of power and control, reformulating and reshaping those demands whose realization represents “control over nature.” The difficulties encountered in using physical control as a standard of “perfection” in science all also hold with respect to prediction, which, after all, is simply a mode of cognitive control. Science itself sets the limits to predictability—insisting that some phenomena are inherently unpredictable.
