The pixel lens of platonic solids was deemed so self-evident that even 2000 years later, Kepler himself tried to lock our whole universe inside these matrioshka crystals. It wasn’t until 1669 that this dusty old lens was put into question, when Hennig Brand, a penniless merchant searching for the Philosopher’s Stone — the mythic artifact that could supposedly create gold from base metals — accidentally synthesised the glowing white powder Phosphorus from distilled urine. When Robert Boyle repeated the coup and published his findings, this raised a question that couldn’t be answered by the theory of platonic solids: If new substances can be created, then what exactly is an element? Once this element pixel was well defined (an element cannot be broken down into simpler substances via chemical reactions), the race was on to discover them all.

Now? We’ve got 118 elements and counting, from the Big Bang fire-child, Hydrogen, to the lab-synthesised Oganesson. Perhaps Unobtainium lies just around the corner?

Joseph Wright of Derby, The Alchymist, In Search of the Philosopher’s Stone, Discovers Phosphorus, and prays for the successful Conclusion of his operation, as was the custom of the Ancient Chymical Astrologers (no kidding… that’s the whole title), 1771

The Fractal of Essentialism

The more we use the same lenses to discover and categorise the essences of things, the more our scientific vision narrows, the more our minds crystallise, the less we’re able to use our peripheral vision to explore different lenses and different perspectives. We ignore the inconsistencies in our lenses, while focusing on making them better and better at seeing the things they’re already on the lookout for. We dare not question the bounds of our knowledge. We dare not dream of thought-worlds lying beyond the horizon.

Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid… Think only what concerns thee and thy being. Dream not of other worlds, what creatures there live, in what state, condition or degree — John Milton, Raphael beseeching Adam.

In other words, we don’t think to explore what lies outside our paradigm. Thomas Kuhn calls this form of deep research, conducting Normal science,

the steady extension of the scope and precision of scientific knowledge…Normal science does not aim at novelties of fact or theory…That professionalization leads, on the one hand, to an immense restriction of the scientist’s vision and to a considerable resistance to paradigm change. The science has become rigid. On the other hand, within those areas to which the paradigm directs the attention of the group, normal science leads to a detail of information and to a precision… that could be achieved in no other way.³

By restricting ourselves to Normal science, we build worlds within worlds. Through a kind of scientific microlensing, what was once just one tiny pixel becomes a whole new pixel lens, containing and categorising its own world of pixels.

Lenses within lenses…The Fractal of Essentialism.

Our paths through science are often deeper than broad — Conceptual illustration of Jorge Luis Borges’ The Garden of Forking Paths

Just as in Borges’ Garden of Forking Paths where the reader follows a choose-your-own-adventure path through an infinitely branching storyline, within our limited life spans we are restricted to following a handful of paths through vast realms of knowledge, pushing deeper into the sprawling catacombs beneath our palaces.

Chasing the essences of things, and driven ever deeper into the Fractal of Essentialism, we pay less heed to the countless other possible conceptual pathways equally worthy of research, branching out just beyond our narrow field of view.