Conceptual space: The full extent of human thought, knowledge and imagination, including science, fiction, woo, myth, the kitchen sink, and yes, here we find Bob, our uncle. Hi Bob!
Physical space: The natural world, famously the subject of scientific inquiry.
First quickie: Because some parts of conceptual space do, in fact, easily map to/correspond with/ have clear relation to physical space, this can lead to error/malpractice/misunderstanding in extending that validity to concepts that have no natural basis. BOLO: Untethered wackos and stone axe savages.
Second quikie: Because a great deal of human endeavor is social (politics, art, sports, farting around), the social aspect has a deep relationship with shared concepts. More basically, social convention determines meaning in language, such that meaning is arbitrarily assigned by us, not a part of nature. Making sense of human endeavor is therefore a task that falls to us alone, rather dumped by the universe into a quandary of our evolution's making.
Science: Both a practice and a body of knowledge. Output in the form of both confirmed observations and consensus around most likely/best explanation. Not in the business of "truth", but of simply being exhaustingly single-minded about properly answering the question, "What is the case?" with respect to the natural world at all scales. As body of knowledge, its forte, what gives it validity and reliability, and therefore usefulness, is its tether to a source of hard facts. Among other endeavors, science works in observed universals, at times called laws when any alternative to their working or the understanding of them would seem to make physics break. The beauty of science in terms of its authority is that anyone is free and (theoretically) capable of testing any observation, or surpassing the way in which reality itself is perceived at fundamental levels, such that the authority derives from method, not opinion (ideally; then there are science departments... and messy humans in them).
Description and reflection, then, not normative reasoning, is the realm of science.
Science is able to accomplish its work owing to the fact that (1) nature can be made sense of because (2) it follows rules, which yields the corrolary that we think these things of worth because we use the rules to make the environment more predictable, meaning we can and do employ basic if/then and similar heuristics in order to survive, as do many animals.
Observations:
(1) Humans are social animals.
(2) Humans are the apex predator on planet Earth (with a bow and curtsy to microbes)
Problem statement: Apex predators living in a social environment are subject to both a reasonably predictable and historically observed tendency to prey on each other, making complex society impossible unless constrained by implicit or explicit agreements not to do so.... And here we are, at philosophy's big question: How, then, shall we live?
Hello, science? Oh, hi! You are here! Right, because human artifacts are observable, as is human behavior. Good to know you are not entirely missing; good to have around. But, uh, no-go on the normative reasoning we need.
My view is that modern society was first society. The slow Neolithic revolution, so-called, featured an increased and observable level of cooperation beyond the family and single tribe, yielding writing, mathematics, astronomy, money, a trade economy, and private property as benefits. Society then became increasingly modern as we observe that the fruits of science and of human organization served to float all boats permanently.
Human organization includes civil society (civic organizations), religions, political institutions, and the arts, etc. But, but, but... how?
We can flip coins, or do philosophy!
