ABSTRACT
A world defined by human agreement at least promises to be more dependable than unfathomable ways of nature. Since humanly invented systems are in principle knowable by definition, they represent a relatively secure knowledge. Whereas events in the physical world are acts of nature, events in scientific world are acts of human beings. The chaos of human world, as much as the chaos of nature, may have inspired the early search for underlying unity, simple truths, and reliable procedures that could be widely agreed upon. While conceptual models are needed to mediate a scientific concept of nature, they subtly eclipse nature itself as object of study. "First-order" description is an account of events in the physical world. While this restriction obviously serves to keep science within proper bounds, and is responsible for much of its success, it also represents a limit on the kind and the terms of reflection that may be undertaken.
