Mental Traps
Cognitive phenomena that challenge how we think, perceive, and understand reality. From consciousness paradoxes to psychological anomalies, these investigations explore the strange territories where neuroscience meets philosophy and where our mental models break down.
The Compromised Witness – Re-evaluating the Yuba County Five
A single, shifting account steered the Yuba County Five narrative. This piece tests that testimony against the physical record, explains the official handling errors, and sets out what documents and tests are still needed.
The Fermi Paradox – How a Misunderstanding Killed the Search for Aliens
The Fermi Paradox rests on a faulty premise. Our investigation shows how a lunchtime chat was twisted into a 'paradox' that twice shut down NASA's search for extraterrestrial intelligence. It is not a story about a silent universe, it's a story about a failure of logic.
The Sustained Attention Paradox – The Vigilance Trap
For 75 years, we've known human attention fails after 30 minutes. Yet industries demand hours of perfect vigilance, then blame 'human error' when people inevitably miss critical signals.
The Storyteller in the Skull – An Investigation into the Brain’s Interpreter
Split-brain research uncovered a storyteller in our brain that invents false explanations for our actions. We investigate the evidence for this 'Interpreter' and its implications for consciousness and self.
An Unseen Threat – The Strange Death of Psychedelic Science
From CIA experiments to institutional censorship, this investigation tracks how ego dissolution went from medical breakthrough to taboo, and why it's still avoided in today's psychedelic revival.
The Contagion of Certainty – Folie à Deux and the Spread of Shared Psychosis
Folie à Deux. When one person’s conviction infects another. From asylums to online echo chambers, we investigate how shared psychosis happens, who is at risk, and what remains unexplained.
The Connectivity Trap – When Psychology Misreads Mental Strength
Recent research reveals people experiencing frequent déjà vu and premonitions tend to be more creative and resilient, contradicting clinical assumptions about such phenomena.
The Bliss Attractor – Where Artificial Minds Seek Transcendence
What happens when AI minds explore reality together? Recent evidence suggests they spiral into states resembling digital transcendence, complete with recursive gratitude and spiritual symbolism.
The Universal Undo Button – 30 Seconds of Temporal Fracture
A device that rewinds 30 seconds of time, with only one person remembering what was undone. A meditation on power, memory, and ethical erosion.
The Probability Sense – Does the Brain Compute Probabilities?
Psychophysics shows neat successes in cue combination and movement control. Behavioural records also show base-rate neglect and step-hold updates. We map the contradiction and set out tests that could link beliefs to neural mechanisms without stretching a modelling language.