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Let's go back to the essentialist-constructionist objection. We don't have to access the orders of nature unmediated. All we have to do is learn how they work, and figure out how to manipulate them with our own instrumentation, hence musical string instruments of all sorts based on the same general principles, with wildly different results.
In more modern example, we still don't know what gravity is, in itself, but as Newton said, we can write a mathematical equation that describes how it acts as a force on all things.
^^^ CB: Notice the difference between your two examples here, Chuck. Your musical example tests theory with practice ( with instruments). Your physics example remains theoretical. The practical test through experimentation or industry is still to be formulated.
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>From a scientific point of view, we can use the example of gravity or
light as a counter-example. We don't need to grasp the essence of
these phenomenon. All we need to do is have a reliable and useful
symbolic system that describes how these phenomenon work. We can then
manipulate the symbolic system (mathematics) and figure out from these
manipulations how to make things. We may not know what the EM spectrum
is in itself, but we know enough about how it works to build a world
of electronic technology based on what we know, and most of this
technology works most of the time.
CG
^^^^ CB: Yes. If we can make it "work" for us in practice that is all we need. We know ( all we need to know about) a thing-in-itself by discovering how to make it a thing-for-us. By learning how to make it.
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