Cultural Death
Cultural Death How Societies Define the End How do belief systems shape our response to death? Focus: Rituals, myths, and cosmologies of death (across cultures) Indigenous perspectives on death as transition Western denial vs. Eastern acceptance Funeral rites, ancestor reverence, and soul continuity The death of culture: societal entropy and collapse Optional Cheatsheet: “Death Across […]
Psychological Death
Psychological Death Identity Collapse & Ego Dissolution What does it mean to die before you die? Focus: Psychological fragmentation (e.g., trauma, grief, ego death) Fear of annihilation vs. the relief of surrender Rebirth through breakdown (shamanic death, dark night of the soul) Psychedelic and spiritual experiences as simulations of death Dissolution of personal narrative and […]
Biological Death
Biological Death The Dissolution of the System What actually happens when we die? Focus: Definitions: clinical death, brain death, cellular decay The biological cascade: apoptosis, autophagy, metabolic collapse Entropy and energy dissipation at the end of life Nervous system shutdown, DMT hypothesis, and final cognition The body’s “last efforts” to maintain coherence Optional Cheatsheet: “What […]
Freedom, Determinism, & Free Will
Freedom, Determinism, and the Dance of Will Are we really free, or just riding the current? Focus: Neurological studies of decision-making (Libet, Eagleman, etc.) Free energy principle and prediction loops Compatibilism vs. hard determinism vs. libertarian free will Spiritual interpretations of will Artificial intelligence and the illusion of autonomy Optional Cheatsheet: “Free Will: What’s Real, […]
The Web of Meaning
The Web of Meaning How do we create meaning in a potentially meaningless universe? Focus: Existentialism (Nietzsche, Frankl) Panpsychism and cosmopsychism Indigenous relational ontologies Narrative creation and meaning-making The interplay between entropy, chaos, and purpose Optional Cheatsheet: “Meaning Is a Verb: How Humans Make Sense”
Expanded States of Being
Expanded States of Being What can altered states teach us about reality? Focus: Dreaming, meditation, psychedelics, breathwork Lucid states and access consciousness Flow states (Csikszentmihalyi, Greene) Precognition, mystical experiences, and threshold states Biological underpinnings: default mode network, entropy and integration Optional Cheatsheet: “Exploring the Mind: A Guide to Altered States”
The Self
The Self in Flux What makes “you” you? Focus: Identity as emergent and adaptive Neuroplasticity, culture, and perspective shifts Self vs. observer vs. witness consciousness Indigenous and Eastern notions of identity (e.g. mauri, anatta) The narrative self vs. the embodied self Optional Cheatsheet: “Who Am I, Really?” – The Layers of Selfhood
The Architecture of Awareness
The Architecture of Awareness What is consciousness and how does it arise? Focus: Theories of consciousness (IIT, GWT, HOTs, etc.) The “hard problem” of consciousness Neural correlates vs. emergence vs. panpsychism Enactivism & embodied cognition Consciousness as entropy management (Friston, predictive processing) Optional Cheatsheet: “Consciousness Theories Explained”
The Signal Path
The Signal Path 10 Principles for a Coherent Life In the last three entries (Fear or Growth -> The Undercurrent -> Return to Signal), we explored how modern life fractures our sense of internal rhythm, and how practices like the Undercurrent, the Room with No Walls, and the Return help us remember what’s true beneath […]
Return to Signal
Return to Signal The Physiology of Escaping Static & Finding Coherence Again You don’t need to find your purpose. You need to find your signal. That’s a distinction I didn’t always know how to make. In the past, I tried to think my way to clarity by structuring a perfect plan, fixing my mindset, and […]