[consilient]

> is the claim that 85% of the universe is made of something that no one has ever observed directly.

The only thing anyone has ever observed directly is the contents of their own mind. All empirical work, without exception, is mediated by instruments, whether they're retinas or telescopes or 50,000 metric tons of purified water hooked up to a photomultiplier tube. Low-energy electromagnetic interactions happen to be the channel we're naturally best-equipped to use in our daily lives, but they have no special epistemic significance.

[JackFr]

I take your point, but I would argue that retinas and brains are categorically different than telescopes and photomultiplier tubes.

But the point you make brings up an interesting analogy though. If we consider optical illusions — where the mental model our brains create at a preconscious level lead us to incorrect conclusions about reality (insofar as an objective reality can exist) — can that inform our understanding of the models we use to interpret our astronomical observations?