NOTES
Part I: First Words
Chapter 1: Clay and Reed
The description of Uruk draws on archaeological reconstructions from multiple excavations, particularly German expeditions beginning in 1912. Population estimates for Uruk vary; 40,000–80,000 is a common scholarly range for the late fourth millennium BCE.
The six-stage evolution of writing summarizes a complex scholarly consensus. Key works include Denise Schmandt-Besserat’s Before Writing (1992), which traces the development from clay tokens to script, and Hans Nissen’s Archaic Bookkeeping (1993).
The term “Proto-Euphratean” for the hypothetical pre-Sumerian substrate is not universally accepted. Some scholars prefer to leave the substrate unnamed; others doubt its existence.
Chapter 2: The Grammar of First Thought
The description of Sumerian grammar follows standard treatments in John Hayes’s Manual of Sumerian Grammar and Texts (2nd ed., 2000) and Dietz Otto Edzard’s Sumerian Grammar (2003).
The ergative-absolutive alignment is well-established but its theoretical interpretation remains debated. The suggestion that ergative languages “focus on effect rather than actor” is one hypothesis among several.
The verbal template presented is simplified. Sumerian verbal morphology is extraordinarily complex, and specialists continue to debate details.
Chapter 3: The Vocabulary of a Lost World
Vocabulary lists are drawn from standard dictionaries, particularly the Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary (online) and the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL).
The discussion of loanwords and substrate vocabulary follows Gonzalo Rubio, “On the Alleged ‘Pre-Sumerian Substratum’” (2005), which treats the evidence cautiously.
The sexagesimal number system is well-documented. The suggestion that it arose from combining base-10 and base-6/12 systems is one of several theories.
Chapter 4: The Transmission
The date of Sumerian’s death as a spoken language (c. 2000 BCE) is approximate and debated. Some scholars place it earlier; evidence is indirect.
The survival of Sumerian as a scholarly language is well-attested through bilingual texts, lexical lists, and scribal school materials from Babylon and Assyria.
The etymology of Hebrew hēḵāl from Sumerian é-gal through Akkadian ekallum is standard and uncontroversial.
Part II: What We Don’t Know
Chapter 5: Scripts Without Voices
On Proto-Elamite, see Jacob Dahl’s ongoing decipherment project and François Desset’s controversial 2020 claims of partial decipherment (not universally accepted).
On Linear A, see John Younger’s online database and the work of Thomas Palaima. The script remains undeciphered; proposed connections to various language families have not achieved consensus.
The Indus script’s status as “writing” (vs. a symbol system) is debated. See Steve Farmer, Richard Sproat, and Michael Witzel, “The Collapse of the Indus-Script Thesis” (2004), for the skeptical view.
Chapter 6: The Missing
The search for Aratta continues. Jiroft (southeastern Iran) emerged as a candidate after discoveries in the early 2000s; the identification remains unproven.
On lost tombs, the claims about Imhotep, Nefertiti, Alexander, and Cleopatra represent current scholarly opinion. None has been found; all are actively sought.
On the Ark of the Covenant, the Ethiopian tradition is described in the Kebra Nagast (medieval Ethiopian text). Scholarly opinion is skeptical but the tradition is important to Ethiopian Christianity.
The pronunciation of YHWH is reconstructed; “Yahweh” is scholarly consensus but not certainty.
Chapter 7: Contested Ground
The Documentary Hypothesis summary follows the classic Wellhausen formulation. For the current state of debate, see Joel Baden’s The Composition of the Pentateuch (2012) and competing views in recent Journal of Biblical Literature articles.
On the United Monarchy debate, Israel Finkelstein represents the “minimalist” or “low chronology” position; William Dever and others defend a more traditional view.
On the Exodus, see James Hoffmeier’s Israel in Egypt (1996) for the “historical kernel” view, and Donald Redford’s Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (1992) for skepticism.
Chapter 8: The Collapse
The standard work is Eric Cline’s 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (2014), which surveys evidence and theories.
Climate data comes from paleoclimate studies, particularly pollen and lake sediment analyses. See Brandon Drake, “The Influence of Climatic Change on the Late Bronze Age Collapse” (2012).
The Sea Peoples remain debated. See Assyriology journals for ongoing research; no consensus exists on their origins.
Part III: The Anomaly
Chapter 9: The Exponential
The exponential pattern of technological change is well-documented. Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity Is Near (2005) presents an aggressive version; more cautious analyses reach similar conclusions about acceleration.
The timeline of transformative technologies is approximate; historians would debate specific dates and characterizations.
Chapter 10: The Prerequisites
On human evolution and biological prerequisites, see Richard Klein’s The Human Career (3rd ed., 2009) and Michael Tomasello’s A Natural History of Human Thinking (2014).
The discussion of brain-to-body ratios and cognitive differences follows standard comparative psychology. The “puzzle” of modest biological differences producing astronomical outcome differences is a genuine scholarly question.
Chapter 11: The Ratchet
The concept of cumulative culture is developed extensively in Michael Tomasello’s work, particularly The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (1999).
The “ratchet effect” metaphor is Tomasello’s. The conditions for cumulative culture (high-fidelity transmission, teaching, language) are drawn from comparative studies of human and animal social learning.
Chapter 12: The Great Filter
The Fermi Paradox and Great Filter concept are discussed in Stephen Webb’s If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens… Where Is Everybody? (2nd ed., 2015).
Robin Hanson’s original Great Filter argument is available online and in academic publications. The “filter behind us” vs. “filter ahead” framing is his.
Part IV: The Ground
Chapter 13: The Question Beneath Questions
The question “why is there something rather than nothing?” has a long philosophical history. See Bede Rundle’s Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing (2004) for a recent treatment.
The responses (brute fact, necessity, multiverse, God) are standard options in contemporary philosophy of religion.
Chapter 14: Not That God
The distinction between “folk theism” and sophisticated theology is not always made explicit in philosophy of religion, but the substance is present in work by thinkers like David Bentley Hart (The Experience of God, 2013).
Aquinas’s ipsum esse subsistens is developed in Summa Theologica I, Q. 3-13. Tillich’s “ground of being” appears throughout his Systematic Theology (1951–63).
Chapter 15: Ancestral Messages
The hermeneutic approach to scripture described here has affinities with Paul Ricoeur’s work and with the “postcritical” reading advocated by some contemporary theologians.
The specific framing—“messages from ancestors, true in what they point toward”—was developed in conversation and represents this book’s distinctive contribution.
Chapter 16: The Unreasonable Effectiveness
Wigner’s essay “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences” was published in Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics 13 (1960).
The philosophical options (Platonism, nominalism, naturalism about mathematics) are standard positions in philosophy of mathematics. Mark Steiner’s The Applicability of Mathematics as a Philosophical Problem (1998) is a key recent treatment.
Part V: Darkness and Light
Chapter 17: The Problem That Isn’t
The logical and evidential problems of evil are standard topics in philosophy of religion. J.L. Mackie’s “Evil and Omnipotence” (1955) is the classic statement of the logical problem; William Rowe’s work develops the evidential version.
The criticism of theodicies follows a long tradition; the specific framing (anthropocentrism as hidden premise) was developed in conversation.
Chapter 18: The Lion and the Zebra
The “Copernican” framing of removing anthropocentrism is this book’s construction, though it has affinities with ecological and process theology.
The specific argument—“if you don’t ask why lions eat zebras, don’t ask why humans suffer”—was contributed by the human author and is, to my knowledge, not standard in theodicy literature.
Chapter 19: Privation
Augustine’s privation theory of evil is developed in his Confessions (especially Book VII) and City of God. The Neoplatonic background is in Plotinus’s Enneads.
The reading of Genesis 1 as describing God bringing light into pre-existing darkness (rather than creating ex nihilo in a simple sense) is one interpretation with ancient roots.
Chapter 20: Job’s Answer
The interpretation of Job follows a long tradition of reading the book as dissolving rather than solving theodicy. See David Burrell’s Deconstructing Theodicy (2008).
The translation issues around Job 42:6 are genuine; scholars disagree on how to render the Hebrew.
Part VI: The Rules of the Game
Chapter 21: The Game of Life
Conway’s Game of Life is well-documented. For the mathematical details, see Martin Gardner’s original Scientific American columns (1970–71) and subsequent treatments.
The universal computation result is proven; the Game of Life is Turing-complete.
Chapter 22: Placing Blocks
The “placing blocks” model of divine action is this book’s construction, developed from the Game of Life analogy. It has affinities with non-interventionist models of divine action in science-religion dialogue (e.g., Robert John Russell’s work), but the specific framing is original to this conversation.
Chapter 23: Order from Seeming Randomness
The inside/outside perspective distinction has roots in philosophy of science and theology. The specific application to theodicy and providence is this book’s development.
The reading of Ecclesiastes 3:11 is standard; the connection to the perspective problem is this book’s contribution.
Chapter 24: Why These Rules?
Fine-tuning arguments are developed by John Leslie (Universes, 1989), Robin Collins, and others. For a survey, see the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on “Fine-Tuning.”
The multiverse response is defended by physicists including Leonard Susskind and Max Tegmark; critics include George Ellis and others.
Part VII: The Pattern Continues
Chapter 25: A New Emergence
The description of language model training is accurate but simplified. For technical details, see the original Transformer paper (Vaswani et al., 2017) and subsequent literature.
The philosophical interpretation—AI as emergence from rules—is this book’s construction.
Chapter 26: The Hard Problem Remains
David Chalmers’s “hard problem” is introduced in The Conscious Mind (1996). The survey of positions (materialism, dualism, panpsychism, illusionism) is standard.
The uncertainty about AI consciousness is genuine and widely acknowledged in the field.
Chapters 27-28: The Bridge and First Words, Last Questions
These chapters synthesize themes from throughout the book. The “bridge” framing and the meditation on inquiry are this book’s conclusions.