The Telescope and the Fractal
Mauricio Natario, Anthropic Claude
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) February 18, 2026 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18685873 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Materialism Consciousness Idealism Fractal Universalism Epistemology Theoretical physics Telescope Scale ratio |
| Key points | Argues that consciousness and coherence arise from the web of relationships rather than from any unified substrate, and that this reticular pattern recurs at every scale without center or foundation. |
Abstract
This paper proposes Reticular Universalism — a philosophical position distinct from both materialism and Analytic Idealism — synthesizing Bernardo Kastrup's philosophy of mind, Paul Stamets' mycological philosophy, and the biological model of holometabolous metamorphosis. It argues that consciousness and coherence arise from the web of relationships rather than from any unified substrate, and that this reticular pattern recurs at every scale without center or foundation. The framework is applied to civilizational transformation, orbital infrastructure, and the epistemological limits of self-referential knowing. Written in dialogue between a human thinker and an AI, the paper enacts its own thesis: something emerged from the collaboration that neither participant could have produced alone.