Mr. Okamoto: "But for the purposes of our investigation, we would like to know what really happened.
[Pi:] "What really happened?"
[Mr. Okamoto:] "Yes."
[Pi:] "So you want another story?"
[Mr. Okamoto:] "Uhh...no. We would like to know what really happened."
[Pi:] "Doesn't the telling of something always become a story?"
[Mr. Okamoto:] "Uhh...perhaps in English. In Japanese a story would have an element of invention in it. We don't want any invention. We want the 'straight facts,' as you say in English."
[Pi:] "Isn't telling about something – using words, English or Japanese – already an invention? Isn't just looking upon this world already something of an invention?
[Mr. Okamoto:] "Uhh..."
[Pi:] "The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? Doesn't that make life a story?" (3.99.205-14)
Pi makes a claim here that no matter how we present the events of our lives, we're always telling a story. That there's no such thing as "just the facts." And when we present "just the facts," we're actually telling a version of events (also known as a story). Do you agree? Can one version be more truthful than another? And what does it mean, in this situation, to be truthful?
[Mr. Okamoto:] "Your island is botanically impossible."
[Pi:] "Said the fly just before landing in the Venus flytrap."
[Mr. Okamoto:] "Why has no one else come upon it?"
[Pi:] "It's a big ocean crossed by busy ships. I went slowly, observing much."
[Mr. Okamoto:] "No scientist would believe you."
[Pi:] "These would be the same who dismissed Copernicus and Darwin. Have scientists finished coming upon new plants? In the Amazon basin, for example?" (3.99.51-56)
To Pi, Mr. Okamoto and Mr. Chiba have a limited view of science. The Japanese investigators think that science's method of rational inquiry discredits the miraculous. However, Pi thinks of science differently. He sees science as yet another gateway to the wondrous and miraculous. Perhaps it's not so hard to see his point. When Copernicus removed the earth from the celestial center of the universe, people must have been shocked. Because science brings us to new and undiscovered things, Pi's thinks science encourages our faith in the "hard to believe" (see Themes: Spirituality 3.99.109-113).
[Mr. Okamoto:] "We're just being reasonable."
[Pi:] "So am I! I applied my reason at every moment. Reason is excellent for getting food, clothing and shelter. Reason is the very best tool kit. Nothing beats reason for keeping tigers away. But be excessively reasonable and you risk throwing out the universe with the bathwater." (3.99.114-115)
Nice rebuttal, Pi. Mr. Pi Patel admits to reason's effectiveness: it helped him get food and water; it helped him train Richard Parker; all said, it let him fight for his own survival. But Pi also thinks Mr. Okamoto and Mr. Chiba should be careful with reason. Sure, it's an effective tool. Perhaps because reason is so effective, it tempts us to use only it to understand the world. However, if we limit our understanding of the world to what reason can explain, we'll miss some amazing things. For Pi, those include God, the miraculous, and his story.