Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
Food of the Gods
The "stoned ape" thesis — psychedelic mushrooms catalysed the emergence of human consciousness, language, and culture
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Food of the Gods |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Non-local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Multiple |
| Observer · Space Instance | Multiple |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Partial |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Both |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Cosmic-ordering |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Experience |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Variable |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Variable |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Food of the Gods
McKenna's time-frame spans from the Palaeolithic hominid past to a speculative future of renewed psychedelic partnership. His "timewave" theory proposes an acceleration of novelty toward a transcendent endpoint.
Space
Food of the Gods
The spatial scope ranges from the African savanna to the Amazon to the global industrial civilization McKenna critiques. Psychedelic space is non-local — the inner journey transcends ordinary spatial boundaries.
Matter
Food of the Gods
The psychoactive molecules — psilocybin, DMT, mescaline — are the material agents of McKenna's thesis. Matter is real and consequential; specific molecular structures reshape consciousness.
Observer
Food of the Gods
The observer in McKenna's framework is the psychedelic experiencer — embodied but capable of trans-spatial, trans-temporal experience under the influence of psychoactive plants. Active and participatory.
Energy
Food of the Gods
The energies of psychedelic experience — neurochemical, experiential, cultural — are the medium of McKenna's argument. The suppression of these energies produces the pathologies of dominator culture.
Information
Food of the Gods
Psychedelic experience is information-rich — McKenna treats the visions, glossolalia, and boundary-dissolution of the psychedelic state as genuine informational content, not mere hallucination.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The central tension is scientific credibility: the "stoned ape" hypothesis remains speculative and has not been adopted by mainstream paleoanthropology or evolutionary biology. McKenna's rhetorical brilliance sometimes outstrips his evidentiary base. A second tension is between McKenna's genuine ecological concern and his romanticism about pre-modern societies — the "archaic revival" idealises a past that may never have existed as described.