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Science often begins by separating the observer from nature. This distance makes reproducible knowledge possible, but it also raises a question central to Part II: how can the human way of knowing remain aligned with the broader order of nature?

In the BBC thriller The Capture, video “correction” is used to manufacture evidence to convict a potential suspect for a crime he did not commit, or has not yet committed. The drama raises an unsettled question: the relation between procedural correctness and substantive justice. Here, I want to present my thought process for unifying these two seemingly opposed goals, and why I think there is a need for such unification.

Writing is not only a record of finished thought. It is a method for clarifying thought, sharing knowledge, and making research intelligible to readers whose cognitive pathways may differ from the writer’s.

I joined a recent meeting about how we can use AI rigorously and efficiently. This was my first time hearing the terms super prompting and skill files. We all agreed on the same point: LLMs improve our capacity to work. Tasks that used to take hours can now be done in less time. However, the time we gain is often spent asking LLMs to do even more tasks. Efficiency creates new demand for efficiency. the more we rely on it, and the less often we practice thinking without immediate assistance. What looks like productivity gain may also become cognitive outsourcing.

Gansheng Tan (g.tan@wustl.edu)

Gansheng Tan1 1Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA (g.tan@wustl.edu)

Background

Years ago, I claimed that the world was running irrationally. I was 95% wrong. I want to update my thoughts on this point as I have been dwelling in the field of medicine and neuroscience for 4 years. We, humans, perceive nature through senses and cognition. I define cognition as the ability to reason, abstract, and communicate (information transfer). Scientifically, at least based on the literature to date, cognition is grounded on our sensations. For example, we like to make visual analogies to explain a concept, such as sphere-atom, river-time, and numerous 2D illustrations in scientific publications.

Updates (July 2025)

I reviewed what I have written in this post and found that many of the reasoning is missing. For example, I did not establish the necessity or the need to find such a universal law, neither do I convincingly reached the conclusion that finding the universal law requires transcending humanity. As of now, I think what I refer to as universal law is the law that exists (ontology) and can not be understood by humans (epistemology) in this post. Although this definition rescue the arguement that we need transcending humanity, this definition makes it less compelling. Most importantly, such a law is inherently unknowable and its pursuit is self-contradictory.

Prelude

We perceive the world through vision, sensation, sound, smell, taste. Mechanistically, the receptor of the cells senses the environment and transduce the signals/molecules/electrical activities to the brain. A fundamental problem of defining existence in the world is: how do we define the existence that can not beb sensed. I find a less intimidating way to formulate the question: if the signal from cell receptor takes a certain period to reach our brain, can we tell if the stimuli occurs at the present time.

Introduction

On aimerait tous savoir parler plusieurs langues, par contre le problème est que quand j’ai envie de faire un bilan, toutes les langues que j’ai apprises paraissent manquer quelque choses pour qu’elles soient parfaites. Et bien, grace au principe du rasoir d’Ockham, j’écrirai comme je parle à moi-même, peu n’import quelle langue. D’un côté, cela demandera moins d’effort; de l’autre, cela me permettra exprimer mes réflexions brutes sans qu’ils soient partiellement cachées à cause de la honte ou alors la peur qu’on me juge.