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CHAPTER Representation and Reality dence to support the presence of ETs around us. It must, however, be examined with care because our understanding of reality is flawed. The correct question is why this evidence is circumstantial. What follows requires more than an effort to understand, rather a tour de force of our intellect to leave behind our preconceptions. There- fore, it is possible that some of us will not immediately understand what this is all about. I am suggesting that mathematical language is like dictionary language: a representation of the idea, of the concept. However, the concept must be correct. All of science is based on three essential aspects: the concept we want to comprehend (relativity, for instance), the representations that describe it (equations) and the means to verify it (measuring instruments). Whereas the triptych con- cept-representation-means poses hardly any difficulties (and we will find out why) when it comes to easily accessible facts — both from an intellectual and a material point of view — non-trivial facts are a whole wee different story. Whereas the concept may not adequately describe reality, in the framework of the concept, the representations do not necessarily have to be clear. The fact determines the concept and recognizes its rele- vance or the absence thereof. The evidence of a fact then depends on the means of verification that can be used to affirm the recognized real- ity, used by our civilization to create progress. In fact, the functioning of the measuring instrument itself depends on the representations (equations) that have helped to establish it. I am not saying that the equations are flawed, but rather incomplete, either because the facts were incorrectly interpreted, or because there is no distinctive frame of 75 THERE IS A GREAT DEAL of circumstantial evi-