Most of papers deal with the technical details of experiments, but some of my favorite papers belong to a different type, these are often less technical, penned by one author and almost essay-like.<p>Examples:<p>By far my favorite, More is Different by P.W. Anderson:
https://www.tkm.kit.edu/downloads/TKM1_2011_more_is_different_PWA.pdf<p>Rodney Brooks' Elephants Don't Play Chess also comes to mind:
https://www2.cs.sfu.ca/~vaughan/teaching/894/papers/elephants.pdf<p>Another example is On proof and progress in mathematics, William P. Thurston:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/math/9404236.pdf<p>And if non-paper essays counts, Sutton's The Bitter Lesson is also quite a good read:
http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html