There is a very famous essay titled ‘Reality has a surprising amount of detail’. The thesis of the article is that reality is filled, just filled, with an incomprehensible amount of materially important information, far more than most people would naively expect. Some of this detail is inherent in the physical structure of the universe, and the rest of it has been generated by centuries of passionate humans imbibing the subject with idiosyncratic convention. In either case, the detail is very, very important. A wooden table is “just” a flat slab of wood on legs until you try building one at industrial scales, and then you realize that a flat slab of wood on legs is but one consideration amongst grain, joint stability, humidity effects, varnishes, fastener types, ergonomics, and design aesthetics. And this is the case for literally everything in the universe.

Including cancer.

But up until just [...]

---

First published:
October 26th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/w7eojyXfXiZaBSGej/cancer-has-a-surprising-amount-of-detail

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Dark, menacing figure with glowing red eyes against golden clouds. Gothic horror painting.

Microscope slides showing tissue samples with H&E staining and HER2 immunohistochemistry testing.

(The image shows two rows of microscopic tissue samples - the top row shows H&E stained samples in pink/purple, while the bottom row shows HER2 immunohistochemistry testing with brown staining visible in sample A but not in B or C. This appears to be diagnostic testing for breast cancer tissue samples.)

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“Cancer has a surprising amount of detail” by Abhishaike Mahajan

LessWrong (30+ Karma)