How the boundaries of our mind and methods shape the boundaries of science

What are the limits of science and where do we draw their boundaries? Influential theories about the size of the universe, superstrings, the historical origin of life, the general causes of democratisation and the emergence of our consciousness exist across science. But can these influential theories be scientifically reliable if we cannot yet empirically test them rigorously? There is a vast literature on the foundations and boundaries of our mind, but it has not yet been directly linked to how our mind and methods shape the foundations and boundaries of our knowledge and science. In doing so, this paper aims to provide a novel explanation of how our cognitive, sensory and methodological abilities and constraints drive the present limits of science – influencing the theories about the world we are able to develop and test and those we are not yet able to. By integrating evidence from our evolved mind and the constraints of the methods and instruments developed using our mind we explain what types of phenomena are accessible to scientific investigation, and what phenomena are presently not. The central conclusion is that we reach the present limits of science, and what science itself is, when our theories involve phenomena that are not observable and thus the theories are not verifiable and empirically reliable using our mind, methods and instruments (thus called here the OVER criterion of science). These are the features of phenomena that fall beyond our sensory range that we are not able to perceive and are not presently accessible to our mind including the methods and instruments we develop with our mind – such as the phenomena outlined above. This criterion applies to all scientific theories across the natural and social sciences that aim to explain real phenomena in the world. Scientific theories and their present limits can be better explained and advanced in light of this interdisciplinary and methods-driven framework. The paper concludes by outlining how we can develop new methods and instruments that reduce our cognitive and methodological constraints and thus push the boundaries of science.