What is and what ought to be? Why does this occur and how does this occur? Why does this phenomena appear hard to others and simple to a few unconventional geniuses? What is rational and what is irrational? What is science and when does it become pseudoscience? Is nature fundamentally based on simple principles?

Answers to these philosophical questions hold the key to science. My understanding and careful rumination on the topic lands me to the idea that the central reason behind why humans have exploited the fruits of scientific discovery is that nature is deeply symmetrical. Let’s decode that statement. The idea behind symmetry is that modifications to a symmetrical entity do not change the nature of the entity. Therefore, nature is innately and ontologically symmetrical. People may discover various ways of describing the properties of water molecules but all of them would land on the same collective behaviour when observed. Similarly, one could formulate many ways of understanding why planets revolve around the Sun and all would find a common understanding in the end. In other words, the invariance of phenomena over time is what human understanding banks on. The idea that some phenomena are very consistently predictable helps us understand the fundamental principles of how we can exploit the constancy. Variations do exist and drive science forward, making the models more robust. However, where there is no invariance of certain fundamental properties over time, there is no science. 

Psychology, for this reason, is a pseudoscience because there is nothing constant across human behaviour that can be fundamentally understood. Human brains, however are remarkably similar and that’s why neuroscience and cognitive science are very robust sciences. 

Science is then defined as the process where humans develop mental models of the observed phenomena that possess some type of symmetry. That is the fundamental is. All models are what humans think ought to be. The why’s have always been irrelevant in the scientific process since unlike civil and criminal law, intention has no role in physical laws. A genius is also easily defined as someone who sees the symmetry others miss and simplifies how what is ought to be. To be human is to understand the irrationality and fallibility of human mind.