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Thank you for your reply!

me: In nature, we do observe collectives of organisms which act with a single mind – such as bees, ants, schools of fish, musk oxen, penguins...
you: You would choose to believe there is something like ESP going on, rather than search for more mundane explanations?

If we take "extra-sensory perception" to mean that which is not sensory perception - then I would suggest this: once we have exhausted all of our sensory abilities to explain the collective behavior of bees, ants, etc. we must turn to the mathematics, philosophy or theology - the non-corporeal, non-spatial, non-temporal - for an explanation.

IOW, if they are not communicating in a physical sense then there must be something else going on.

You are essentially saying that we cannot verify the existence of other people or know whether they are empty puppets. I'm sure you don't really do this in real life. Perhaps it's an act of faith, but we all assume we can judge the character of other people's consciousness by careful observation. I would trust the judgement on this issue to neurosurgeons and neurologists before I would trust armchair pundits.

Personally, I chose not to judge people. That is a matter of faith.

But to answer your question more fully - yes, we relate to other people based upon our own interpretation and confidence in what they reveal to us. Still we do not know of a certainty whether our understanding is true.

When it comes to relying on professional assessments of the character of any person's mind, I would never turn to neurosurgeons or neurologists. For me, "character" is better understood by theologians and philosophers.

As for your map problem: science is more like a grainy photograph that becomes clearer and sharper with time. The outlines of large objects remain unchanged, but the resolution becomes sharper as more data becomes available. Mistakes are made by inferring details before they are clear, but these are corrected over time. We seldom see situations where large scale objects have to be reinterpreted. There really isn't any other human enterprise that works this way.

To the contrary, our greatest advancements occur when the "large scale objects" of your metaphor are reinterpreted: geocentricity, relativity, quantum mechanics, big bang, heritable traits, non-Euclidian geometry, string theory.

As Nicolo Dallaporta said (paraphrased) the crime of modern science is that it has become so massive and thus, so specialized, there are few big thinkers as in the days of Einstein and Heisenberg.

But for me, there is great hope for another reinterpretation coming from the geometric physics corner. Einstein believed it was there but didn't live long enough to formalize the theory that the base wood of matter transmutes to the pure marble of geometry.

To the contrary, our greatest advancements occur when the "large scale objects" of your metaphor are reinterpreted: geocentricity, relativity, quantum mechanics, big bang, heritable traits, non-Euclidian geometry, string theory.

OK, my metaphor can be misread. Quantum effects and relativity take place on scales that are completely outside out ordinary experience. You are correct that they are big ideas, but I had in mind the fact that older formulations still work within the observational boundaries of the people who made them.

The switch from geocentricity is really close to my point. Copernicus envisioned circular orbits. His was the first really revolutionary scientific idea. But orbits aren't circular; they are elliptical, and with relativity tossed in, more complex yet.

But if you diagrammed the solar system on a piece of paper, the difference between circular orbits and the true elliptical orbits would mostly fall within the width of your pencil lead. This is what I meant by science progressively adding resolution to a picture.

Einstein believed it was there but didn't live long enough to formalize the theory that the base wood of matter transmutes to the pure marble of geometry.

Einstein's greatest regret, recently communicated to me via extra-dimensional freepmail, is this: "Oy, Patrick, I vish I had liffed long enough to enjoy der blessings of Viagra!"