DETERMINISTIC SIGNALS IN USA PRECIPITATION RECORDS .2.

The ideal aim before the mind of the physicist is to understand the external world of reality. But the means which he uses to attain this end are what are known in physical science as measurements, and these give no direct information about external reality. They are only a register or representation of reactions to physical phenomena. As such they contain no explicit information and have to be interpreted. As Helmholtz said, measurements furnish the physicist with a sign which he must interpret, just as a language expert interprets the text of some prehistoric document that belongs to a culture utterly unknown. The first thing which the language expert assumes-and must assume if his work is to have any practical meaning-is that the document in question contains some reasonable message which has been stated according to some system of grammatical rules or symbols. In the same way the physicist must assume that the physical universe is governed by some system of laws which can be understood, even though he cannot hold out to himself the prospect of being able to understand them in a comprehensive way or to discover their character and manner of operation with anything like a full degree of certitude (author's italics).