Science can ONLY give us a one-dimensional shadow version of the concrete reality which, in its actuality, in its concreteness, transcends mere ideas of that reality which are merely descriptive of that reality. For instance, the equations "explaining" the movement of Jupiter around the Sun are ENTIRELY DIFFERENT THAN the ACTUALITY of the planet Jupiter actually revolving around the actual Sun. The equation is merely an abstract description of how that system behaves--not the system itself.

Thus, the reality transcends the human description because the description is a drastic and relatively ephemeral condensation of the reality, upon which all descriptions are dependent. To reiterate, science gives us a SHADOW of the actuality, from which it gains what reality it has; that reality which is wholly dependent on the actuality. Science is to reality what a painted portrait is to a human being.

Equations and theories and models, then, in a sense, are just air: they don't "breathe fire," they don't summon things into existence, they don't "explain" them; rather, these abstractions emanate FROM existing things which are really real, which are equations and models and theories, so to speak, that have had "fire" breathed into them and which give them their being, which makes them actual existing things. This "fire-breather" must be some kind of "god." If anything can be called "divine," it can. Of course, people differ over whether or not it is self-aware in some sense or "breathes fire" to some purposeful end. But this is another question altogether.

In any case, this may be part of the riddle of consciousness: an abstract understanding of the human brain (the only way it can be scientifically "understood"), may never provide us with the key to consciousness: it may be that consciousness only exists when these abstractions are fleshed in reality and that this reality cannot be abstracted in a meaningful way back into theory. This possibly inescapable discrepancy between fact and theory would be due, then, to the fundamental and vital difference between something really existing and the mere idea (scientific or otherwise) of that something, which exists, in a rather different sense, in the mind of the beholder.

Science, then, is a product of the natural world (and, of course, I'm viewing human beings as a part of the natural world): the natural world is not a product of science. There are two senses of the word science: 1) the PROCESS of science itself, which is objective (or at least relatively objective) reasoning on the basis of evidence, the purpose of which is to construct a theory about the nature of some particular function or aspect of reality. (and we do this all the time--science is just a further, more refined and self-conscious application of the same instinct and ability that enables us to judge distances, plan for the future, and judge what our friends or enemies may do next); and 2) the things that science has DISCOVERED that, if science is right, are real and existing things or valid theories or ideas. For instance, science has "discovered" the moons around Jupiter: we can assume they were always there and would still be there even if no one knew about them. The same goes for the processes of the human brain or the movement of Jupiter around the sun or the atom itself, just to name a few examples. The discoveries science makes with respect to these things is not imposed upon these systems, rather the discoveries of science emanate from these systems which (ideally) impose something of their own nature upon science: thus it is the system that defines the scientific answer, not the scientific answer that defines the system. Science is a reflection of reality.
There are those today who would deny that there is such a reality, though, if this is so, I cannot understand why they themselves still seem to possess a kind of continuous or seamless self-conscious reality. If they're right and there are no regularities (and what is "reality," when understood from the highest peak, but one vast regularity? At least this is the aspiration and the hope and the dream), then their existence and mine, and the existence of all the other forms of regularity in the world, would be even more mysterious than they already are. If the fundamentals of reality are so inherently (and not just seemingly) vague and malleable and contradictory and irrepressible and fickle and unquantifiable, then how can such extraordinarily complex beings such as ourselves (or how can the stars or galaxies or the atmospheric system), continue to maintain their coherence? After all, it would not take a very great change in the structure of our "biological reality" to kill us. For instance, what if our blood suddenly turned to water or ceased to carry oxygen? The fact that, respectively, it doesn't and that it does is a regularity upon which our lives moment to moment depend. It would be quite easy to multiply such examples endlessly to further demonstrate how regularities are necessary to our existence. (Another example: if it wasn't for that regularity we call the sun or the regularity of life on earth over the past several billion years, we never could have evolved to be talking here today)

Certainly our theories of reality are affected by our biases (which, in fact, with reference to Kant, may be built into us via that "perceptual equipment"--physical and mental--which, in practical terms, define what exactly it is a human person can DO, and which, having been geared of necessity toward our kind of life in the merely phenomenal world, may be ILL-equipped for grasping the fundamental nature of REAL and not just APPARENT reality. Suffice it to say that, in any case, science deals with apparant reality, in whatever sense we choose to grant that phrase); certainly humans are fallible; certainly the world often appears hopelessly contradictory and confused: yet these facts are no reason to presume that all reality-seeking is a wild goose chase. Just because the glass is not full, that hardly means we must declare it empty. Tentative knowledge of the world--as comprehended and experienced through the various modes of human apprehension--is certainly better than nothing and, furthermore, has been proven capable of reaping practical and spiritual benefits.

Now, back to the main thrust of the discussion:

Actual things have a complexity that is beyond human comprehension, although they can be condensed, reduced, and generalized to the point of being generally and simplisticly comprehensible. But what do I mean by "comprehensible?" Obviously, to comprehend something is to understand it or, at least, to "get the gist of it." However, I think one must seriously wonder whether what is lost in this process is not of critical importance--this is, in fact, probably the case when we approach the deeper and more complex depths and modes of reality.

By way of illustration, the difference between a five-minute summation of a performance of a play by Shakespeare and the actual live viewing of that performance is so great that the amount of information lost may be enough that, in the end, the actual reality of the experience has been hopelessly compromised. This may be inevitable. In fact, no amount of time spent on mere description--not even if all the audience members took detailed notes--would do the trick: anyone who was not there will never know what happened the way those who were there will. (and to take the analogy further, even they have only limited knowledge of all that happened....)

And yet, the person hearing the description, even though not seeing the play, still knows MORE about that subject than he or she would have if they had NEITHER seen the play NOR heard about it! Similarly, scientific knowledge is far from complete and only gives us more complete and correct or less complete and correct descriptions: yet even a very limited description is an improvement, is an advance in knowledge.

Science, to extend my initial analogy still further, is the process whereby we endeavor to discover what a production of Shakespeare was like without having been there: we try to interview the audience, examine the stage after the performance, talk to the actors, the director, etc. (Maybe we can make some of the actors repeat their actions by accelerating them to near the speed of light in giant rings and smashing them together?) Of course, such "complete access" is difficult to achieve--we may have to be content with the information garnered from three audience members, an extra, and a lighting person, for instance. But obviously, even with total access to all the participants, we will never be able to experience, to really know first hand, that single completed performance: the actual reality of it is forever lost to us. All we have are approximations. All we have are more or less likely theories.

With respect to human beings as well, we will only be able to understand them in a general sense, according to a general outline as it were, because the complete human reality is too complicated for anyone to really comprehend beyond a general level. We already face this problem in the fields of learning: "we" know a lot about history, for instance. But is there anyone who is completely up to date on the entire field of history? Of course not: the amount of information passes the comprehension of any one person, be she ever so bright. The same goes for the biological being man: we will only understand ourselves in this general sense. Even experts, then, can only have partial knowledge.

Which raises the question of generalism vs. specialization. The generalist seeks to acquire as many portraits of reality as possible, whether they be sketches or pieces of paintings or arms from sculptures; with this confusing array of objects and bits and pieces (and hints and necessarily incomplete insights), she heroically attempts to construct a macro-picture of reality (both human and non-human) within which to situate herself, her actions and her being. This act of situating herself within the frame she has perceived is, ideally, undertaken with the utmost care and awareness and respect for uncertainties and what forever must remain unknown. And it is one of the great human adventures.

The specialist, on the other hand, takes a piece (often a tiny piece) of the great puzzle and blows it up into a kind of artificial macro-picture. Thus, within his frame, he has, like everyone, many smaller bits and pieces culled from a lifetime of relations, experiences, and learning; yet the bulk of his time and space--the mass of the area circumscribed by his frame--is occupied by his enlarged bit, which is artificially inflated for the sake of more careful, detailed, and deep contemplation and study.

Thus there are two basic strategies: the generalist strategy and the specialist strategy. Both have virtues to recommend them. The generalist explores broadly, the specialist deeply; the generalist seeks to integrate all her pictures together into a single vision, while the specialist keeps his non-specialty pictures off the table to better facilitate understanding of his object of investigation; the generalist, by knowing a little about much, can attain a well-considered vision of the whole world by which she can situate herself as a fully rounded creature, while the specialist, by knowing much about little, attains a depth of insight and a sensitivity to detail that can reveal a world within a grain a sand, and, furthermore, can justly experience the heady satisfaction of having mastered a subject to the best of his ability.

Perhaps the experience of the specialist might also aid him in confronting the broader questions of existence should he eventually turn his eye to them as well. But the danger, of course, is that the specialist becomes so immersed in his narrow field of interest that he fails to ever lift his head away from his object and stand back up in the open air. The danger the generalist runs, of course, is that she spends so much time in the air and touches so lightly on everything that her understanding loses real solidity and becomes trivial and capricious. Ideally, perhaps, there needs to be a mixing and mating of the two strategies.

In conclusion, the key difference between science and existing things is that existing things really exist and science (or, rather, scientific theories) are merely a description of them, its own existence being wholly dependent on those previously existing things. The fact that, fundamentally, no one knows why anything exists perhaps gives existing things a transcendent dimension. (because their ultimate cause or reason for being lies beyond the apprehensible phenomenal or mental realm) We do NOT not know why things exist because of our possessing incomplete knowledge which, in the future, perhaps we may yet perfect: rather, it is more likely that, being, as we are, "in the system," we will never be capable of "getting outside" the system to the (holy?) place where the true source of all existing things resides, and thus will never be able to view reality as a whole and truly understand it. In this sense, all existing things are incomprehensible and, one might say, divine.

Bonus comments:

Evolution and brains: Our brains evolved to provide us with greater understanding with respect to the way things work: if we were not able to understand the way things work, we would have died out, our brains would have been useless, and we wouldn't have been here to wonder about how we can understand anything. We HAVE brains and we ARE here precisely because they and we WORK!

A second analogy of science involving theater: Science is a short summary of the script of a play in performance.