The End(s) of Mythology
Malcolm Dean, a research affiliate of UCLA’s Human Complex Systems Program, presents a cognitive thermodynamics framework for understanding mythology, religion, and culture as physical systems rather than mere stories. He argues that ancient myths and religious systems encode sophisticated understanding of complexity, scale invariance, and information theory in intuitive language—knowledge only recently rediscovered through modern science. Dean proposes that cultures, religions, and cognitive units form Boromean ring systems, where all three must exist together to maintain bonds; when one ring mistakes itself for another or claims fixed dominance, the result is pathology and violence. He concludes that humanity’s current planetary crisis is not an exception but the natural path of physical processes.
