Zero

A framework is set up such that the observer is always at the centre of the equation. Causality runs between two extremes of infinity, and the observer, looking at both, will find itself probabilistically at the middle. Arithmetically, zero is the natural resting state of every system — the state at rest. Chaos exists by virtue of possibility.

A self-sustained system is always in flux. An anomaly is self-generated and self-correcting, in a way — it cannot simply appear out of nothing; something larger has to already be in motion. We, as observers, are constantly setting context, and we rarely admit that we are, at the subatomic scale of our own lives, exactly what we claim to study from a distance.

This isn't a comfortable thought. It means the limitations of who we are, inside the infinite possibilities of who we could be, are not a flaw in the design. They're the design. Earth is not literally the centre of the universe, but in the loosest sense of the phrase, we are — not because we matter more, but because we cannot possibly experience it any other way. We displace ourselves in our zeal to measure things precisely, and then forget that measuring was the whole point, not the truth itself. No one knows. No one will ever know. A humble scientist — anyone who has, by choice or by accident, gone deep enough into anything for long enough — eventually runs into this same wall, and learns to live pressed up against it.