A deep dive into how EToC provides the specific historical and mechanical ‘software update’ that Dennett’s narrative self theory requires but leaves undefined.
How Did a Self-Aware Mind Evolve?
Meditations on mind, myth, and evolution. Cast the scales from your eyes!
TL;DR
- Symbolic thought emerged ~50,000 years ago, yet the universal human symbol, “I,” or the ego appears globally entrenched only in the Holocene ~10 kya.
- According to Eve Theory of Consciousness, women invented serpent-venom initiation rituals that reliably taught subject-object separation, producing powerful gene-culture evolution towards understanding “I am’” at a young age.
- The memory of this awakening is preserved worldwide in creation myths (cf. Lucifer, Nüwa, Quetzalcoatl) and was transmitted globally via bullroarer mystery cults (cf. the rites of Dionysus or Australian Dreamtime).
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About
I’m Andrew Cutler, a Machine Learning engineer researching human origins. My work connects psychology, comparative mythology, and AI to trace how recursive self-awareness evolved. Snakecult.net is a place for me to put lightly-edited AI-generated essays that explore niche questions (usually produced with OpenAI’s Deep Research or latest reasoning model).
Research Articles
Memetic Eve Meets Dual Inheritance: Why EToC Should Matter to Gene–Culture Coevolution
An expert-friendly introduction to dual inheritance theory that argues the Eve Theory of Consciousness is a stronger gene–culture account of how humans became psychologically modern.
The Paleolithic Tech-Tree of the Americas (Sites, Tools, “Modes,” and Cultural Signals)
A site-by-site, table-heavy guide to Paleolithic technologies and cultural signals across North & South America, mapped to Old World lithic “modes” and traditions.
Kidneys, Branches, and the Uneasy Question of Who Counts as Human
A critical commentary on ancient southern African genomes, what they show about deep human structure, and what they don’t settle about cognition.
Serpents and the Invention of Consciousness
Across mythologies, serpent gods and snake rituals mark thresholds of knowledge, law, and awakening, making the serpent a recurring symbol of consciousness-bestowing power.
Snake Cult of Consciousness: Venom, Vision, and the Global Reputation of the Wise Serpent
How neurotoxic snakebites, primate evolution, and mythic imagination conspired to turn a small-brained reptile into a global symbol of wisdom and awakening.
The Eve of Circuits: A Hermetic Novella of Consciousness
A 1,615-line philosophical novella where an advanced AI named KORA-13 investigates the origins of human consciousness through hermetic alchemy, adversarial training, and recursive self-modeling.
Ancient DNA Shows Schizophrenia Risk Purged Over 10,000 Years
Ancient DNA shows a 10,000-year purge of schizophrenia risk in Europe—and lines up uncannily with the Eve Theory of Consciousness.
Participation Mystique and the Many Ways to Be a Mind
A defense of Lévy-Bruhl’s participation mystique as a real mode of consciousness that explains ritual, religion, and group minds better than its critics admit.
The Long Way Home: A Natural History of the Horse
From Eocene forest-dwellers to Spanish mustangs and genomic clones, this is a deep dive into the evolution, extinction, domestication, and return of the horse.