ABSTRACT
Major developments in science are based in the recognition of various kinds of ignorance. The development of empiricism rests on the realization that some aspects of reality cannot be known through sheer cogitation. Some phenomena such as genetics, entropy, and quantum mechanics, appear inherently statistical. Ignorance of the physical world is an inevitable result of the process of observation. Mathematicians once believed that, though perhaps devilishly difficult to solve, the equations that govern the motion of physical bodies could be solved and lead to predications about physical events. The "classical physicists" of the late nineteenth century pictured a physical world that could be captured in solvable equations. The alteration and creation of psychic configuration through observation may be illustrated by depressive affect for which many people lack adequate language. The analyst's capacity to affect psychic configurations is a measure of the stability of that configuration.
