perception is speculative

the belief in an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science. since, however, sense perception only gives information of this external world or of "physical reality" indirectly, we can only grasp the latter by speculative means. it follows from this that our notions of physical reality can never be final. we must always be ready to change these notions - that is to say, the axiomatic basis of physics - in order to do justice to perceived facts in the most perfect way logically.
- einstein