I've been reading Thomas Nagel's "Mind and Cosmos" recently, and while I think it's actually a really terrible book and Nagel is incredibly uninformed on the theory of evolution, I do think he makes one really good point: the scientific method presupposes that the universe can be understood/observed/measured. It seems like such an obvious axiom, but I think it makes sense why we keep brushing up with observation / consciousness when we push the boundaries of science. It's sort of tautological in a way.