Anamnesis: The Eidolon Tapestries

The Tyranny of Coherence

An Autoregressive Narrative Model of Self and Society

This section presents a meta-analysis of recent work in philosophy, psychology, and sociology to argue for a unified model of social dynamics based on the concepts of language as an autonomous organism, the narrative self, and the narrative world. It posits that this autoregressive narrative model, while a profound tool for meaning-making, contains an inherent pathology: a “Tyranny of Coherence” that generates conflict and trauma by imposing simplistic narratives on a complex world. The analysis explores this dynamic through case studies of trauma, identity, and political polarization. Finally, it examines the “host versus virus” dichotomy of human consciousness that emerges from this model and proposes an intersectional, liberatory third path grounded in the inalienable right to self-narration.

Introduction

A confluence of ideas from disparate fields of study, from cognitive science, to social theory, psychology, and philosophy, have begun to converge on a startling and powerful thesis: that human consciousness and the societies it builds are fundamentally narrative in structure.

The concepts of Language as Autonomous Organism, the Narrative Self, and the Narrative World are not three separate theories but three pillars of a single, self-contained model of social dynamics, scaling from the micro-internal world of individual thought to the macro-level construction of entire civilizations. This model presents a profound new tool for humanistic inquiry, offering a unified framework for understanding phenomena as diverse as cultural evolution, identity formation, and political conflict. It provides a language for artists, therapists, and marginalized individuals to articulate the ways in which reality is constructed, contested, and re-authored.

However, this tool is double-edged. The same mechanisms that allow for the creation of meaning, identity, and community can be weaponized to enforce conformity, justify oppression, and generate profound psychological harm. The model reveals an inherent pathology, a “Tyranny of Coherence,” which describes the relentless drive for a simple, internally consistent story that inevitably collides with the complex, unscripted, and often contradictory nature of reality. This inquiry is motivated by an unsettling personal journey through the implications of this model, a journey that gives rise to a “metaphysical trichotomy” of identity: in this new understanding of consciousness, is one the biological host, the linguistic virus, or some synthesis of both? This overview will argue that navigating this question is the central philosophical challenge of our time, and that its resolution lies not in choosing a side, but in embracing an intersectional third path that reclaims the very act of narration as a tool of liberation.

Language as an Autonomous, Autoregressive System

The engine driving this unified model is the “autogenerative theory” of language, a radical framework proposed by researchers like Elan Barenholtz and William Hahn. ⌂ This theory posits that language is not a mere tool for communication but an autonomous, self-propagating system: akin to a living organism or a piece of software; that installs itself in the human brain. Its primary evidence is drawn from the success of modern Large Language Models (LLMs), which operate on a principle of autoregression: the process of generating the next “token” (a word or concept) in a sequence based on a probabilistic analysis of the tokens that came before it. The fact that this simple, recursive process can produce coherent and complex text suggests that human thought may be computationally identical.

A core tenet of this theory is the concept of an ungrounded latent space. Meaning, in this view, does not arise from words pointing to objects in the external world. Instead, it emerges from the vast, high-dimensional network of statistical relationships between words themselves, a closed system where a token’s meaning is its coordinate in relation to all other tokens. This ungrounded, self-referential quality is precisely what allows language to become a tool for world-building rather than mere world-describing. While a purely “grounded” language could only map objective reality, an ungrounded system can generate concepts with no physical referent, such as “justice,” “divinity,” or “corporate personhood”; that are nonetheless real and powerful because they are coherent within the linguistic system. This autonomous, self-referential property of language appears to be the technical prerequisite for the complex, intersubjective realities that social constructionists argue form the basis of human society. The “virus” is not an ancillary feature; it is the operating system for culture itself.

This linguistic organism provides the perfect mechanism for the processes of cultural evolution. As a self-propagating system, language is an unparalleled vehicle for ⌂; the transmission of cultural traits, norms, and beliefs through social learning. It allows for the creation and rapid dissemination of the abstract narratives that constitute a culture, aligning perfectly with theories that see belief systems as evolving through group selection and social transmission.

The Narrative Construction of the Self

A direct consequence of an autoregressive linguistic engine operating in the mind is a radical re-conceptualization of the self. According to the theory of the Narrative Self, identity is an internalized, evolving story. The autogenerative model takes this a step further: the “self” is not the author of its story but is, in fact, a primary character in the story. It is a coherent, recurring token: a “center of narrative gravity”; ⌂ generated by the impersonal linguistic process to provide continuity and purpose to the stream of consciousness.

This model is not invalidated but rather powerfully supported by the existence of Plural Consciousness and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). The conventional view of DID is that a singular self has “fractured” due to trauma. The autoregressive narrative model offers a different, non-pathologizing interpretation. If the singular self is merely one coherent narrative thread generated by the linguistic engine, then a plural system can be understood as a mind running multiple, parallel narrative threads simultaneously. Each headmate is a distinct, coherent “narrative self” with its own history, identity, and voice, generated by the same underlying engine. The amnesiac barriers often present in DID represent a firewall between these parallel processing streams. This reframes plurality not as a “disorder” of a broken self, but as an extraordinary adaptation of the narrative-generating system itself: a way to run multiple “stories” to cope with incoherent or traumatic input. This computational perspective aligns with the identity-based, non-pathological view championed by the plural community and offers a framework for understanding the profound psychic ruptures caused by religious and social oppression.

Society as a Tapestry of Narratives

Scaling this model to the macro-level reveals the Narrative World: the philosophical idea that reality itself, from personal identities to grand societal myths, is constructed through stories. Societies are vast, intersubjective realities built from and maintained by shared narratives, beliefs, and fictions. A concrete historical mechanism for this process is detailed in the analysis of how texts become traditions. For a society to function, it requires a stable “master narrative.” The process of the “Great Funneling” is the institutional method by which this stability is achieved. This process acts as a set of powerful constraints on the societal-level autoregressive engine, which, if left unchecked, could generate infinite contradictory narratives.

This societal “fine-tuning” involves four key mechanisms that reveal a deep structural parallel between ancient religious institutions and modern AI engineering:

Canonization: The selective curation of foundational texts limits the “training data” for the societal narrative.
Clerical Authority: An authorized interpretive class acts as a “moderator” or “filter” on the output, ensuring a consistent message.
Ritual Embodiment: Communal rituals repeatedly reinforce the most desired narrative patterns, inscribing them into the collective consciousness.
Exclusion of Heresy: The identification and punishment of “heresy” is a form of “pruning” divergent or “hallucinated” narrative branches that threaten the coherence of the master story.

Both religious institutions and AI engineers are engaged in the same fundamental act: constraining a generative system to produce a desired, coherent output. It is this very process of enforcing coherence that gives rise to its pathological form.

The Drive for a Coherent Story

The “Tyranny of Coherence” is the innate human and societal drive for a clear, meaningful, and internally consistent narrative, which becomes pathological when it collides with the messy, unscripted, and often contradictory nature of objective reality. This drive is not a flaw but an inherent feature of the autoregressive engine. The system is optimized to produce coherent, probable sequences, not to represent objective truth. It prioritizes narrative plausibility over factual accuracy. This preference for a good story over a complex truth is the root of its potential for harm, as it creates a powerful incentive to simplify reality, exclude contradictory evidence, and forge rigid, often violent, binaries.

The Innocent and the Monstrous

The Western social construct of Innocence serves as a primary case study of the Tyranny of Coherence in action. The societal desire for a coherent narrative of childhood as a state of pure, angelic, pre-lapsarian goodness necessitates the invention of its absolute opposite: the monstrous, inhuman “predator”. This forging of a rigid moral binary simplifies the complex realities of human harm into a “manichaean diptych” of angel and devil, allowing society to avoid confronting its own complicity in abuse.

This tyranny erases all ambiguity. It creates the category of the “un-innocent victim”: the child who is sexually aware, the teenager who is rebellious; and casts them out of the circle of legitimate victimhood, often blaming them for their own abuse. The construct of innocence operates through a destructive form of Narrative Dissonance. The form of the narrative is one of protection and purity. However, the actual content or result of this narrative is the creation of profound vulnerability (by enforcing ignorance) and the cruel punishment of victims who fail to conform to the “pure” archetype. The Tyranny of Coherence forces society to ignore this dissonance. To maintain the beautiful form of the “innocence” story, it must ignore the ugly content of its real-world consequences, revealing a deep, often unconscious, societal preference for a compelling narrative over a beneficial outcome.

The Coherence of Hate

In the political sphere, the Tyranny of Coherence manifests as Negative Partisanship, where political identity is defined primarily by opposition to a disliked out-group. The need for a coherent story: “We are the good guys, they are the existential threat”; becomes so powerful that it overrides other principles, such as adherence to democratic norms, factual accuracy, or policy consistency. This creates a self-reinforcing, autoregressive loop of animosity. Each action by the “other” side is interpreted as further proof of their evil, which in turn justifies more extreme opposition. The system generates an ever-more-coherent and ever-more-toxic political narrative, where compromise is betrayal and opponents are enemies. This dynamic demonstrates the narrative engine’s capacity to construct a stable, internally consistent reality that is completely detached from, and actively hostile to, a shared, pluralistic world.

The Trauma of Incoherence

Psychological injury can be framed as a form of narrative collapse. Trauma is the moment when an individual’s predictive, autoregressive model of the self and the world is shattered by an event so “incoherent” it cannot be integrated into the existing life story. The symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), such as flashbacks and intrusive thoughts; can be understood as the engine’s failed attempts to process this anomalous data point, replaying it endlessly in an effort to make it coherent. Complex PTSD (CPTSD), often resulting from prolonged, inescapable trauma like religious abuse, represents a more fundamental corruption of the narrative-generating architecture itself. It inflicts deep and persistent damage to the “self” token, manifesting as a pervasive negative self-concept, emotional dysregulation, and disturbances in relationships.

This framework provides a powerful lens for understanding personal experiences with religious oppression, where an external authority imposes a coherent but false narrative (e.g., “You are a liar before God”) that causes the internal narrative system to rupture as a means of survival. This narrative collapse is not a monolithic event but manifests in distinct forms, each with its own emotional driver and impact on the self.

Symptom Cluster	PTSD (Fear-Based)	CPTSD (Identity-Based)	Moral Injury (Shame-Based)
Primary Emotional Driver	Fear, Helplessness	Fear, Shame, Worthlessness	Guilt, Shame, Anger, Disgust
Intrusion	Fear-based flashbacks of threat to self; nightmares of the event.	Fear-based flashbacks + emotional flashbacks of abandonment/shame.	Intrusive images/thoughts of one’s own transgression; dreams of victim’s accusation.
Avoidance	Avoidance of external reminders of threat (people, places).	Avoidance of threat reminders + profound avoidance of relational intimacy.	Social withdrawal due to shame; avoidance of reminders of moral failure.
Negative Cognitions/Mood	Fear-based beliefs (“The world is dangerous”); self-blame for not preventing harm to self.	Pervasive negative self-concept (“I am worthless, defeated”); deep shame.	Pervasive guilt/shame (“I am bad/unforgivable”); loss of trust in self/others; self-blame for actions taken.
Arousal/Reactivity	Hypervigilance to external threat; exaggerated startle response.	Hypervigilance + severe emotional dysregulation; angry outbursts.	Self-destructive/sabotaging behaviors as self-punishment; outbursts of anger.
Core Impact on Self	Disrupted sense of safety in the world.	Fragmented identity; disrupted sense of self-worth and capacity for connection.	Shattered moral identity; spiritual crisis; loss of meaning.

Table derived from the interdisciplinary analysis of trauma in the research material. ✨

The Allure and Danger of the Pre-Linguistic Self

The “Host” identity, the first pole of the metaphysical trichotomy, represents a worldview that valorizes a pre-narrative, pre-linguistic state of being. It is an ideal grounded in the direct, unmediated experience of the objective world, a state of harmony with nature and community. This ideal finds philosophical expression in Daoism, which emphasizes living in accordance with the “Dao” (the Way) as the “unvarnished perception of the world”. It finds a historical-ecological model in the Caddo Nation’s culture, which was built around a deep, symbiotic, and lived relationship with the physical reality of The Great Raft on the Red River. For the Caddo, the narrative and the physical world were inextricably linked; their story was written in the river itself. The allure of the Host is a feeling of deep connection, of being grounded in something real and wholesome.

The danger of the Host identity, however, is the mandate to suppress the “Virus”: the individual, narrative self. When the collective is valorized above all else, the unique story of the “I” can be seen as a cancer on the communal body. This can manifest as a demand for total conformity, the suppression of dissent, and the pathologizing of individuality. The self becomes a threat to the coherence of the whole.

The Temptation and Solipsism of the Purely Narrative Self

The “Virus” identity is the self understood as pure story, as an ungrounded informational pattern: the self as described by the theory of Language as an Autonomous Organism. The temptation of this identity is a form of immortality and transcendence, a liberation from the “wetware” of the biological host. This ambition is central to modern Techno-spiritualism and the pursuit of a technological singularity, where transhumanists dream of uploading consciousness and existing as pure data, finally shedding the limitations of the flesh. For those whose bodies and identities have been oppressed, marginalized, or pathologized by society: non-binary people, those with plural consciousness, those who have experienced religious trauma, those who cannot pass; the idea of transcending the vessel can be profoundly appealing.

The peril of this perspective is solipsism. To see oneself as only a story is to risk becoming disconnected from any grounding in objective reality or shared humanity. It is the danger of becoming a ghost in a machine of one’s own making, a pure narrative untethered to the world of consequence, empathy, and embodied experience.

Rejecting the False Dichotomy

The third path is a rejection of the Host/Virus binary. This path is inherently intersectional, drawing its strength from the lived experiences of those who are forced to exist in the liminal spaces between society’s rigid categories. The research on non-binary Gender Identity and Plural Consciousness demonstrates that identities which defy simple binaries (male/female, singular/multiple) are not pathological but are valid and resilient ways of being. The sociological phenomenon of “Passing” further exposes the artificiality of all social categories, revealing them to be coherent fictions that can be navigated and deconstructed. For those who have survived oppressive belief systems, as detailed in Spectres of Belief, the rejection of an imposed, coherent narrative is a necessary act of survival and self-reclamation.

The philosophical key to this third path is found in an analysis of Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground and its connection to the compatibilist project of philosopher Jenann Ismael. This work concludes that freedom is not a metaphysical break with causality (the Host’s world) but an epistemic and logical guarantee of freedom from being fully and finally narrated by another. Ismael’s analysis of self-referential paradoxes in physics demonstrates that no observer within a system can ever possess enough information to perfectly predict the future behavior of another agent within that same system.

This provides the ultimate synthesis, resolving the Host/Virus dichotomy by reframing its terms. The “Host” (objective reality, causality) is not a prison from which we must escape. The “Virus” (the narrative self) is not a parasite that has colonized us. True freedom is the inalienable status of being an “un-calculable, self-interpreting, and self-constituting protagonist in one’s own life story.” It is the right to continuously author a narrative that can never be finalized by any external power, whether that power is a deterministic universe, a political ideology, or an oppressive religion. This is the liberatory third path.

A Double-Edged Sword

The unified autoregressive narrative model of self and society is a profoundly powerful tool, whose value is determined by the intent of its user. In the hands of therapists, artists, and marginalized individuals, it is a tool for liberation. It provides the framework for re-storying trauma, for creating counter-narratives that challenge oppressive master narratives, and for authoring new, more authentic identities. It empowers individuals by revealing that the “reality” which constrains them is often a mutable fiction, and that they possess the inherent capacity to become authors of their own.

Conversely, in the hands of the malicious: demagogues, propagandists, advertisers, and architects of oppressive ideologies; it is a formidable tool for control. By understanding and exploiting the Tyranny of Coherence, they can craft and disseminate self-reinforcing narratives of hate, division, and conformity. They can weaponize the brain’s own predictive, story-making machinery against itself, creating internally consistent worlds of belief that are immune to factual correction and that justify exclusion and violence.

The Artist’s Playground, an Unsettling Journey

This entire analysis comes full circle, returning to its origin in a creative project: the development of a video game.

This project is the ultimate expression of the thesis. A video game, as a form of Interactive Narrative, is a literal “philosophical playground” where a player can directly experience the dynamics of the autoregressive model. It is a space where the player becomes both actor and author, grappling with the Tyranny of Coherence. It allows one to explore the freedom and the consequences of authoring one’s own path within a constructed world.

ATET transforms this unsettling philosophical journey from a passive analysis into an active, lived experience, demonstrating that the most powerful response to a world of oppressive stories is to build a world where we are free to write our own.

Additional Reading

The articles in this section are meant to give a high level overview of ATET’s subject matter environment. In general, these documents detail relevant anthropological, psychological, cultural, or physical phenomena in the real world. While they attempt to give a usable crash course in each topic, they are constructed for the purposes of game design influence and general nerdery, and not by an accredited entity or subject matter expert in any of these fields. One should therefore expect essay-style content, not STEM-grade academic papers.

In general, a reader may expect:

Perspective-seeded distillation of academic sources. ✨

Extensive prompt contexts were provided to Gemini 2.0 Pro - Deep Research in order to generate initial documents. These contexts contain information on the project, as well as guidance on tone, sources and goal of the article. Deep Research then utilizes a guided search to form a body of reference material. This reference material is combined with our context to form the final draft prompt.
Factual statements that can be assumed “mostly correct” evaluations of consensus.

Initial outputs were further refined by iterative application of LLM (Gemini 2.0 Pro with tools) and human oversight.

Fact checking has been performed, but not by a subject matter expert.
Some articles that are lacking in terms of the academic viability of citations.

Again, not STEM-grade; “sources” such as Wikipedia and r/AskPhilosophy have been utilized in some articles.

The decision to allow this lack of rigour is motivated by the notion that the community consensus is almost more valuable than any “truth” of the matter, due to the social-dynamic-contemplative nature of the use case here.

Ancient Egyptian Culture

Examines the ancient Egyptian worldview, focusing on the perpetual struggle between cosmic order (maat) and chaos (isfet). This provides a historical model for a dominant Faith structuring an entire society, and how competing creation myths can be understood as foundational Fictions shaping a Tapestry.

Anti-reality and the Hyperreal

A comprehensive analysis of the “anti-reality” movement, this article traces its roots from postmodern philosophy—especially Baudrillard’s concept of hyperreality—through its appropriation by the neoreactionary (NRx) “Dark Enlightenment.” It explores how this ideology frames mainstream institutions as “The Cathedral,” a manipulative narrative machine, and advocates for radical alternatives like authoritarian corporate states and technological “exit” strategies. The report uses Peter Thiel as a case study of techno-gnostic political theology, examines the cult-like dynamics of online echo chambers, and ultimately synthesizes these threads through the metaphysical framework of Anamnesis: The Eidolon Tapestries, framing the anti-reality stance as a real-world manifestation of narrative warfare over the nature of reality itself.

Antisocial Disorders

An interdisciplinary exploration of antisocial disorders, including “psychopathy” and “sociopathy”, through the lenses of psychology, sociology, and neurodiversity. This document provides a nuanced understanding of antisocial behavior, its origins, and its implications for social dynamics, which is crucial for designing complex characters and factions within the game.

Buddhism

Analyzes the core doctrines of Buddhism, including karma, samsara (the cycle of rebirth), and the path to nirvana. This research lays the groundwork for and provides a powerful mental model of ATET’s core loop of Anamnesis, where Eidos functions as a form of karma and the player’s journey reflects the quest for liberation from a repeating cycle.

Constructed Identity

An examination of the concept of constructed identity, through the lens of a modern case study: Ethan Klein’s transformation from a leftist commentator to a figure of controversy. This document explores the psychological and social mechanisms behind identity construction, deconstruction, and the implications of public personas in the digital age. It serves as an example illustrating how identities can be shaped, contested, and transformed within the game’s Social Arenas.

Cultural Dissolution

Explores the historical, philosophical, and psychological factors contributing to the dissolution of culture in the modern world. This document provides a framework for understanding the fragmentation of shared meaning and the rise of individualism, which directly informs the game’s mechanics for Factions, Faiths, and the dynamic relationships between Incarnations within a Tapestry. It also serves as a backdrop for the game’s exploration of how cultural narratives can be constructed, maintained, and transformed over time, reflecting the ongoing evolution of belief systems and social structures.

Cultural Evolution

Details the theory of how belief systems, particularly religions, evolve and adapt over time through mechanisms like group selection and costly signaling. This framework underpins the generative systems for Factions and Faiths, explaining how they propagate, compete, and stabilize within a Tapestry.

Daoism

Explores the Daoist philosophy of living in harmony with the “Dao” (the Way), emphasizing concepts like effortless action (wu wei) and the balance of opposites (yin-yang). This informs the game’s core ontology, particularly the concept of Fact as the “unvarnished perception of the world.”

Delusional Parasitosis

This document examines the psychological condition where individuals believe they are infested with parasites, despite no medical evidence. It serves as a real-world example of how Fictions can manifest as Facts in the mind, paralleling the game’s mechanics of Psyche and the Subjective Interface, where an Incarnation’s beliefs shape their reality.

Empiricism

Reviews the philosophical tradition that all knowledge is derived from sensory experience, contrasting it with rationalism. This informs the fundamental conflict between knowledge gained through lived experience (Fact) and knowledge derived from internal conviction (Faith).

Esotericism

Examines the academic study of Western esoteric traditions, which often involve “rejected knowledge” and the pursuit of gnosis. This provides a framework for the game’s more “magical” systems, like Ritual and Psyche-weaving, and the existence of hidden, dangerous truths like the MEMETIC-COGNITO-HAZARD.

Gender Identity

Explores the anthropological understanding of gender as a social construct, focusing on the diverse, non-binary roles in Indigenous cultures, such as the Two-Spirit. This research provides the cultural and historical grounding for ATET’s approach to species design and social simulation, where gender and social roles are treated as fluid, culturally defined constructs rather than rigid biological binaries. This allows for the creation of diverse societies, such as the seasonally dimorphic Valen, whose entire culture is built on a non-Western understanding of identity.

Hidden Biospheres

Reveals the discovery of vast, previously unknown ecosystems within Earth’s subsurface, including microbial life in deep rock formations and the potential for life in extreme environments. This serves as a scientific metaphor for the game’s exploration of hidden realities and the vast, unseen layers of existence within the multiverse of Tapestries. The concept of “hidden biospheres” parallels the game’s mechanics of uncovering hidden truths and the existence of Artifacts that reveal deeper layers of reality.

Hinduism

Analyzes the diverse “family of religions” known as Hinduism, focusing on core concepts like Brahman (ultimate reality), Atman (the individual soul), and Dharma (cosmic duty). This provides a rich source of inspiration for the game’s pantheon-building, the concept of a soul’s journey across Incarnations, and the mechanics of Ritual.

Innocence vs Vulnerability

A comprehensive, interdisciplinary analysis of the Western construct of innocence, this article traces its historical evolution from theological notions of original sin to the modern ideal of childhood purity. It deconstructs innocence as a social and political technology that creates hierarchies of privilege and exclusion, particularly along lines of race, class, and sexuality. The report explores how the drive to protect innocence paradoxically increases vulnerability by enforcing ignorance, and how the resulting predator/prey binary shapes legal, cultural, and therapeutic responses to harm. Concluding with frameworks for healing and ethical reform, it advocates for moving beyond the brittle ideal of innocence toward an ethics grounded in universal human vulnerability and collective responsibility.

Interactive Narrative

Traces the history and theory of interactive storytelling, from gamebooks to modern video games, focusing on the tension between authorial control and player agency. This document directly informs the design philosophy of the Director AI and the player’s dual role as both Actor and Author.

Kink vs Perversion

Explores the historical and cultural evolution of sexual non-conformity, contrasting the concepts of “kink” and “perversion.” This document provides a nuanced understanding of how societal norms shape perceptions of sexuality, and how these concepts can be applied to the game’s mechanics for Incarnation customization and the exploration of identity.

Language as Autonomous Organism

Presents the “autogenerative theory” of language, which sees language not as a mere human tool but as an autonomous, self-propagating system, akin to a living organism or software; that installs itself in the brain and shapes thought, memory, and identity. Drawing on large language models and predictive processing in neuroscience, the article explores language as a non-grounded, self-referential network generating meaning through internal relationships, with profound philosophical consequences for the nature of self, memory, and even concepts like God as emergent “tokens” within the system. This perspective directly informs ATET’s core ontology, where reality is woven from Fact, Fiction, and Faith, and meaning emerges from the interplay of narrative elements within a Tapestry, modeling how beliefs, identities, and worlds are generated and transformed through linguistic and memetic processes; aligning with the game’s focus on narrative power, the fluidity of self (Incarnation and Eidolon), and the central role of interpretation and memory (Anamnesis) in shaping experience and reality.

Many Worlds Interpretation

Provides an overview of the Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, where all possible outcomes are realized in branching universes. This serves as a scientific metaphor for the game’s metaphysics, where each Tapestry is a distinct reality and the player’s Thread navigates a tree of branching possibilities.

Mirror Life

Presents the “Mirror Life Hypothesis,” exploring the risks of creating synthetic organisms built from molecules with the opposite chirality to all known life. The article details how such “mirror” microbes would be immune to natural predators, undetectable by immune systems, and could trigger an irreversible ecological collapse by out-competing “canonical” life and sequestering resources. This serves as inspiration for the game’s Lore about trans-Tapestry interactions between different forms of life.

Modding Culture

Explores the history and impact of modding culture in gaming, from early text-based mods to modern graphical enhancements. This document provides a cultural context for the game’s design philosophy, emphasizing player agency, community creativity, and the transformative power of user-generated content. It also informs the game’s mechanics for Incarnation customization and the potential for players to create their own narratives within the framework of ATET.

Münchhausen Trilemma

Explores the philosophical problem of justifying knowledge claims, detailing the three main solutions: foundationalism, coherentism, and infinitism. This directly informs the epistemological framework of ATET, where the Subjective Interface allows players to explore their Incarnation’s beliefs and the nature of their reality, while the Director AI generates narratives that challenge and reflect these epistemological positions.

Narrative Dissonance

Analyzes the case study of Starship Troopers to explore how a work can generate a powerful critique through the deliberate clash of its form and content. This directly informs the mechanics of cognitive dissonance within the Psyche and the design of the Subjective Interface to reflect internal conflict.

Narrative Self

Examines the psychological theory that identity is an internalized, evolving story. This is the foundational principle for the entire game, mechanizing the “narrative self” through the concepts of the Thread, Eidos, and the player’s journey from Incarnation to Eidolon.

Narrative World

Navigates the philosophical idea that reality itself is constructed through stories, from personal identities to grand societal myths. This is the core thesis of ATET’s ontology, where Fact, Fiction, and Faith are the literal, mechanical building blocks of a Tapestry.

Negative Partisanship

Explores the political science concept of negative partisanship, where identity is primarily defined by opposition to a disliked out-group. This provides a direct model for the game’s Faction dynamics and Social Simulation, explaining how a collective Faith can be built on shared animosity, driving deep and persistent ideological Conflict.

Notes from the Underground

Investigates Dostoevsky, Laplace’s Demon, and Jenann Ismael’s compatibalist project; concluding that, in the the context of a narrative ontology, freedom is not the metaphysical power to violate causality. It is the epistemic and logical guarantee of freedom from being fully and finally narrated by another. It is the inalienable status of being an un-calculable, self-interpreting, and self-constituting protagonist in one’s own life story.

Passing

Investigates the concept of “passing,” where individuals are perceived as belonging to a social group to which they may not biologically or culturally belong, often for reasons of safety, acceptance, or opportunity. The article explores historical and contemporary examples, such as racial, gender, and class passing, and examines the psychological and societal impacts of navigating multiple identities. This research informs the game’s mechanics for identity fluidity, social perception, and the consequences of concealing or revealing aspects of an Incarnation’s self within different cultural contexts.

Plato’s Theory of Forms

Details Plato’s metaphysical doctrine of a higher realm of perfect “Forms” or Ideas, of which our world is an imperfect copy. This is a direct and acknowledged influence on the game’s core metaphysics, where the Eidolon state represents an engagement with the world of pure meaning (Eidos) from which physical realities (Tapestries) are woven.

Plural Consciousness

Deconstructs the Western model of a singular self by exploring Plural Consciousness. This analysis examines the profound tension between the clinical diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), a narrative of pathology; and the self-defined identity of Multiplicity as a lived truth. Drawing on anthropology and first-person accounts, it provides the real-world foundation for the game’s most complex explorations of identity, from the mechanics of the Subjective Interface to the lore of the Heresy of Nyx.

Psychosis

Provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary overview of psychosis as a spectrum of experiences, moving beyond narrow clinical definitions to integrate perspectives from psychiatry, philosophy, anthropology, and lived experience. The article maps the boundaries between psychosis and related conditions like psychopathy and bipolar disorder, details the schizophrenia spectrum, and explores the overlap with dissociative disorders. It further examines the philosophical implications of psychosis for selfhood and reality, the ethical challenges of epistemic injustice in clinical encounters, and the profound influence of culture, race, and gender on the experience and interpretation of psychosis. This synthesis offers a nuanced foundation for designing characters, societies, and narrative systems that grapple with altered realities and the complexities of the mind.

Rationalism

Reviews the philosophical tradition that reason, rather than experience, is the primary source of knowledge. This informs the worldview of certain factions, like the Mechanist, and provides a counterpoint to the game’s emphasis on lived, empirical experience as a source of Eidos.

Reincarnation

Provides a cross-cultural overview of reincarnation myths, contrasting the soteriological (escape-focused) traditions of India and Greece with the social-cyclical traditions of Indigenous cultures. This research directly informs the design of the Anamnesis cycle and the varying potential goals of an Incarnation.

Self-Consuming Ideology

Analyzes how belief systems with internal contradictions can lead to their own collapse, using historical examples like the Habsburgs. This provides a powerful generative model for the Director AI to create emergent societal collapse narratives and informs the design of self-destructive Faiths for factions.

Singularity

A comprehensive overview of the concept of the technological singularity, its historical context, key debates, and implications for the future of artificial intelligence. This document serves as a foundational reference for understanding the potential impacts of AI on society, the economy, and human existence, and is essential for grasping the philosophical and practical basis/implications of the game’s Ontology.

This document provides an overview of social constructionism, lending to a foundational understanding of how social realities are constructed, maintained, and transformed, informing the game’s mechanics for Factions, Faiths, and the dynamic relationships between Incarnations within a Tapestry. It also serves as a theoretical basis for the Subjective Interface, where an Incarnation’s beliefs shape their perception of reality.

Traces the history of social simulation as both an academic field and a video game genre, from The Game of Life to The Sims. This document contextualizes ATET’s place within this history, highlighting its focus on belief and philosophy as the core drivers of its agent-based simulation.

Societal Dynamics

Analyzes the complex interplay of social, economic, and environmental factors that shape human societies, drawing on historical case studies and contemporary theories. This document provides a foundational understanding of how societies evolve, collapse, and adapt, informing the game’s mechanics for Factions, Faiths, and the dynamic relationships between Incarnations within a Tapestry.

Spectres of Belief

Examines how oppressive religious ideologies can create lasting psychological trauma through concepts like Derrida’s “spectre.” This informs the mechanics of inherited trauma, the haunting nature of Eidos, and the potential for a character’s Faith to be a source of profound psychological distress.

Story Beat Heuristic Model

Provides an overview of how AI systems can use heuristic “rules of thumb” to generate coherent narrative structures. This is a direct technical reference for the design of the Director AI and its method for procedurally generating and sequencing emergent Quests and events.

String Theory

Provides an overview of string theory, its core concepts of vibrating strings and extra dimensions, and its goal of unifying physics. This serves as a conceptual model for ATET’s ontology, where the fundamental ‘strings’ are Fact, Fiction, and Faith, and the ‘string theory landscape’ of countless possible universes is a scientific parallel to the infinite procedural generation of Tapestries.

Subjectivism

Explores the philosophical doctrine that reality and truth are mind-dependent. This is the absolute foundational principle of the game, mechanized through the Subjective Interface, where an Incarnation’s internal state directly shapes their perception of the world.

Techno-spiritualism

Analyzes the intersection of technology and spiritual belief, from transhumanism to AI as a divine entity. This informs the design of advanced technological factions like the Mechanist, the nature of certain Artifacts, and explores the tension between organic and synthetic forms of consciousness.

Text to Tradition

Summarizes how written texts become the foundation for religious traditions, focusing on the process by which oral stories are codified, canonized, and interpreted over time. This research informs the game’s mechanics for the evolution of doctrine, the authority of scripture, and the dynamic relationship between living faith and fixed texts within a society’s Tapestry.

The Great Raft

A historical case study of the Caddo Nation’s symbiotic culture, which was built around a massive log jam on the Red River. It serves as a powerful model for how a practical and narrative-rich Faith can emerge from a people’s direct, lived relationship with their natural environment. The report also details how the engineered destruction of this phenomenon led to the collapse of their society, illustrating how a Tapestry’s core Facts can be violently altered, and the devastating consequences that follow.

Theosophy

Details the history and doctrines of the Theosophical Society, a 19th-century esoteric movement that synthesized Eastern and Western spiritual ideas. Its syncretic nature and re-framing of concepts like reincarnation and karma serve as a historical model for the blending of different Faiths within the game world.

Trauma

Explores the psychological and sociological dimensions of trauma, including its impact on individual and collective identity, memory, and belief systems. This document provides a framework for understanding how trauma shapes the Psyche of an Incarnation, influencing their Eidos and interactions with the world. It also informs the game’s mechanics for inherited trauma, the haunting nature of past experiences, and the potential for healing or further psychological distress.

Explorer

References