The Death and Rebirth of Dionysus: Every Extant Ancient Version
Every extant ancient version of the Dionysus death and rebirth myth, translated and compared from Onomacritus to Nonnus.
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Articles 409
Writing for AI
Or: How I became the world's most influential bullroarer researcher
The Dying Brain: Physiology, NDEs, and What Animals Can (and Can’t) Tell Us
A source-heavy deep dive into dying-brain physiology, terminal EEG phenomena, near-death experiences, and what animal models can and cannot imply.
Sumerian as a Language Isolate: Evidence, Contact, Substrata, and the Limits of Comparison
A technical survey of why Sumerian remains unclassified, what it resembles typologically, and how contact, substratum, and scribal transmission shape the evidence.
When Trees Lie: Selection, Admixture, and the Myth of a Single Ancestry
How natural selection and admixture distort phylogenetic trees, why human genomes are mosaics, and what to use instead.
The Last 50,000 Years: A Selectionist Thought Experiment for Consciousness
A first-principles thought experiment: if natural selection directly targeted language, theory of mind, and self-reflectivity in the last 50k years, what would our models predict?
When Consciousness Is Under Selection: How Recent Cognition Selection Would Warp Human History Models
A selection-aware re-read of human population trees and divergence times if cognition faced strong selection in the last 50,000 years.
Basque as a Language Isolate: Evidence, Hypotheses, and the Limits of Genetic Classification
A technical, linguist-oriented survey of Basque’s isolate status, proposed relatives, substratum hypotheses, and what evidence would count as proof of genetic affiliation.
Basal Eurasian as a Mirage: A Steelman Case for “Ghost Ancestry” as Selection Artifact
A steelman argument that Basal Eurasian is not a real ghost population, but a selection-induced distortion in f-statistics and admixture-graph fitting.
Women First: Eve, Pandora, Inanna, Nüwa, the Djanggawul, Izanami, Persephone
A companion to Eve Theory of Consciousness: reading seven mythic women as convergent cultural memory of the first self-aware rupture—knowledge, shame, death, and world-making.
The Genealogy of the Squatter: A Steelman Case for the Diffusion of the Hocker and Heraldic Woman Motifs
A diffusionist analysis tracing the squatting 'hocker' motif and Heraldic Woman from Göbekli Tepe through Luristan bronzes, Maori lintels, and Aboriginal Australia.
Hydra’s Venom and the Wolf: Herakles’ Madness and the Snake Cult of Consciousness
How Herakles’ Hydra-poisoned arrows, Euripides’ tragedy, and wolf-madness encode a deep serpent logic that resonates with the Snake Cult and Eve Theory of Consciousness.
Eve Theory of Consciousness: A Mechanism for Wilber’s Eden
A deep dive connecting Ken Wilber’s Up from Eden to the Eve Theory of Consciousness (EToC), proposing a mechanism and timeline for ego-birth via recursion and self-domestication.
How Eve Theory of Consciousness Answers Dennett’s Question of the Narrative Self
A deep dive into how EToC provides the specific historical and mechanical 'software update' that Dennett's narrative self theory requires but leaves undefined.
Dennett’s Missing Origin Story: How EToC Updates Jaynes and Explains the Narrative Self
A deep dive for Dennett/Jaynes readers arguing Eve Theory of Consciousness supplies the concrete gene–culture origin story Dennett’s narrative self model leaves open.
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.
Snake Cult of Consciousness: Venom, Vision, and the Global Reputation of the Wise Serpent
How snakebite's strange effects on the mind, primate snake detection, and myth turned a small-brained reptile into a global symbol of wisdom and awakening.
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.