To be less selfish — Nils Loc

Refinement of selfishness.

I didn't read the book. What's the story/context?

However a difference of course is that science is empirically testable — Mijin

What gives observation more credibility than speculation?

People in 1000 BC couldn't see infrared. Was it fake?

Humans and their inventions will forever be limited. And even if they were infallible beings with unquestionable conclusions, the information paradox poses an important question: are you sure that the universe, in its entirety, has presented itself to you for proper inspection?

What do you think of my definition for the term?

Minds that exist without a body (AI), do they suffer from mental health issues? Or is it an exclusive experience of the minds produced by a body?

So you withdraw your previous response that said an examiner was required for the statement about the cat to be true? — Hanover

Philosophy aside, do I now need to hire detectives or observers to know if my boiled egg is real or not?

Science and religion are both hypotheses, a leap of faith.

There is no objective truth detectable by the subjective (individual or collective) observations.

The only reason God is universally absolute is that He exists outside the universe, beyond observation and measurement.

To interpret nature’s complexity as chaos is the oldest arrogance of our species. We call what exceeds our comprehension “weird,” “nonlocal,” or “probabilistic,” as though nature had changed its dialect merely to mock our intellect. But perhaps the only mockery is our presumption that comprehension is the criterion of truth.

Science, when humble, is noble; but when it imagines itself infallible, it becomes theology under a different name — worshiping equations as scripture, and declaring miracles wherever they no longer work.

Alam, T. B. (2025). The Infinite Symmetry: On the Illusion of Scale and the Fallibility of Human Physics [Zenodo]. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17357259

If I'm getting this right, according to your theory, truth beyond observation (you need to observe to prove) is deniable, and anything showing uniform (unchanging across the spectrum) patterns is true.

My question is, are you certain that observers' (humankind, per se) subjective observations are credible?

even our most precise equations are anthropic dialects of cosmic truth. They describe not what the universe is, but what it looks like when filtered through human proportion.

Alam, T. B. (2025). The Infinite Symmetry: On the Illusion of Scale and the Fallibility of Human Physics [Zenodo]. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17357259

They are the necessarily unreasoned assumptions upon which science is founded. — ucarr

I said it from the mathematical standpoint. Nonetheless, are you sure your science is absolute?

"The cat is on the mat." Is that true? — Hanover

Good one. There are more areas to attack, though. The problem with his proposition is that it's entirely mathematical.

issues of beliefs and construction of meaning. — Jack Cummins

Are they beyond the reach of the body (by-products)?

If the mind is a product of the body, why isn't its cure always found in the body, and often requires another mind? Is it because the mind acts as an independent property, gaining minimal autonomy? The same way we become separate beings from our parents?

What does that tell us about the universe and its properties, like humans? And what does it mean for humans' defiance of the universe?

Truth is an emergent property of these unlimited instances of the faces of transformation without change. — ucarr

I agree with this. But what about something not observed yet, but is, beyond doubt, projected to happen? Will it be considered truth, or not because of the lack of patterned observations?

Logic is the time-zero expansion-convergence, or dynamism, of the faces of transformation without change. — ucarr

Is logic truth or argument based on observation (projection)?

The insuperable nakedness of existence demands the axiomatic facts of science and art. — ucarr

Are you sure, you have access to the axiomatic science?

Physics, noble and meticulous, charts this ocean of being with instruments built from its own assumptions. It seeks absolutes through relative senses, universals through parochial measures.

Our instruments, no matter how advanced, are extensions of our biology — our range of frequencies, our temporal window, our cognitive scale. We calibrate our machines to perceive as we perceive, and then marvel that they reveal the world as we imagined it.

Thus, even our most precise equations are anthropic dialects of cosmic truth. They describe not what the universe is, but what it looks like when filtered through human proportion.

When we claim the cosmos is “too complex” to model, we reveal not its imperfection, but the mismatch between infinite reality and finite intellect. The breakdown is not in the atom, but in the observer’s abstraction.

Every failure of theory is a reminder that the universe has not erred — only that we have presumed to be its final interpreter.

Alam, T. B. (2025). The Infinite Symmetry: On the Illusion of Scale and the Fallibility of Human Physics [Zenodo]. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17357259

How can you even report that you are conscious to me in the "physical" world, outside of your consciousness if you do not "have access" to your own consciousness? — Harry Hindu

I may not see my eyes, but I can feel their presence.

What I meant is that the same way you can't scrutinize your eyes the way you can your palms, you can't dissect your consciousness in the mental laboratory.

Comprehension is more important than authenticity.

If AI helps me compose more correctly, why not?

not multiverse alone, but atoms as potential universes with profound and robust laws of nature. leaving room for argument on its sentience or intelligence.

Well, yes, maybe, but I haven't given the multiverse theory much thought, or at least it doesn't feature prominently in my model. — punos

If one could stand outside scale altogether — neither large nor small, neither fast nor slow — the universe would appear uniform, perfectly coherent, and utterly self-consistent.
Every “level” of it would mirror the same logic, the same architecture of causality, just rendered through differing densities of perception.

This homogeneity is not a matter of matter; it is the symmetry of being itself.
Atoms orbit like stars; galaxies cluster like molecules; neural networks echo cosmic filaments. The universe repeats itself not because it lacks imagination, but because it speaks only one grammar — the grammar of coherence through proportion.

Alam, T. B. (2025). The Infinite Symmetry: On the Illusion of Scale and the Fallibility of Human Physics [Zenodo]. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17357259

I'm a human being.

I'm more interested in arguments at the moment.

Talk to the hand. — Punshhh

That's a bummer.

Intelligence is a higher order than consciousness. Every average Joe possesses sapience and consciousness. But not all of them work at SpaceX (analytical, technical, or mathematical intellect).

I hope you'd have counterarguments on your way back.

Cellular organisms. I think you’ll find that all living things are composed of colonies of cellular organisms. — Punshhh

I've already stated that in the OP.

Intelligence is the cognitive ability to understand and interpret. Do atoms have that? — Copernicus

Intelligence gives birth to agency. Otherwise, we'd have to assume, according to your hypothesis, that non-living matters are paralyzed living creatures and the only thing that separates life from death is movement (although I don't know how you'd standardize that).

I didn't ask for a formal definition, but the fundamental idea that works as the baseline.

Neither do you — punos

Basis of this accusation?

Atoms don't interpret with cognitive ability. They obey. — Copernicus

Intelligence is the cognitive ability to understand and interpret. Do atoms have that?

Explain — punos

Atoms don't have free will. They follow the principle of causality.

Non-living things don’t have choice, but they do have obedience.
Every atom, every particle behaves according to the same patterns: conservation of energy, momentum, charge, entropy.

Even in quantum mechanics, where events look random, the randomness isn’t lawless — it’s probabilistic law.
You can’t predict which atom will decay at what moment, but you can predict the rate of decay across many atoms with astonishing precision. That regularity means causality still holds at the statistical level.

So a single particle can’t “decide” to ignore physics any more than a number can decide not to be even or odd.

The atom is not bound by causality; it is causality crystallized.

Non-living matter obeys causality.
Living, sentient matter interprets causality.

Atoms don't interpret with cognitive ability. They obey. But actually, the obedience itself creates/forms atoms.

That's just twisting facts.

What mitochondria and cells do? — Punshhh

That's not a definition.

that's not uniformity or identical behaviour.

Humans do interact uniformly with other humans. Can you give an example of humans not interacting uniformly? — punos

You don't talk to me or touch me the same way you do with your wife, nor do you approach your wife in the same repetitive loop every day. But all hydrogen atoms behave identically with oxygen atoms.

Atoms behave as atoms when interacting with other atoms, demonstrating the same level of intelligence. The same applies to molecules, though molecules utilize atomic intelligence in some of their interactions or communications. The shape of a molecule enables novel forms of interaction that cannot occur through single-atom interactions alone. Because of this, more complex processes can occur at the molecular level than at the atomic level, even though the atoms within a molecule continue to behave as atoms. — punos

You miss out the important argument. If humans don't interact uniformly with other humans, why do atoms? They're not "small" in the absolute sense, only in relation to us.

I don't believe in the fundamentality of anything, definitely not tangible matter.

All elements exist at the same scale or level of emergent organization. — punos

What is that supposed to mean? Humans (made of atoms) and atoms have same level of intelligence?

what makes you think atoms are fundamental elements? They could be multiverses of something much smaller.

I hope you're familiar with the infinite loop universe theory.

"they"? — punos

The elements at different scales.

Restate or rephrase more clearly please. I think i understand the first sentence, but not the second. — punos

Meaning they will show significant variance in terms of intelligence, hence the effect would be monumental, or should I say, astronomical.

Intelligence at that level is not as versatile as ours at our level. — punos

Intelligence at the atomic level is much more versatile than quark levels, which is more versatile than energy levels, which is more than the spatial level, and so on.

Just because it's intricate to us doesn't mean it is universally (humans would appear as hive minds on galactic scales). So there must be differences and effects of that if your hypothesis is right.

How does the effect know what form to take, and how does the cause know what and how to affect? Intelligence. — punos

Intelligence is subjective and influencable.

My intelligence and yours aren't the same. But if two atoms or electrons showed different levels of cognitive abilities, the fabric of space-time would collapse.

Not to mention it can be tempered, like humans having brain damage or autism.