I agree that it'll be while before we fully understand the brain but I don't have any doubts that we'll get there eventually. I am curious though, why would we need to understand the greater universe perfectly as well?
> How can one turn the sinking, horrified feeling when one loses a love into a function?"
The same way the brain does. Those complex feelings can eventually be resolved into dumb neurophysics. Love, fear, anxiety etc. al are just electrical impulses tickling chemicals. Is there anything in our brains that we could never approximate with technology?