Other Writings
By Lee Bright
Embedded Files
Table of Contents
To serve democracy one must be against totalitarianism. Nobody has been more enlightened about saying what totalitarianism is and does than George Orwell. Caught between the two antichrists of Trumpism and Neo-Marxism in the United States, I've made an Orwellian two-pager with links to Wikipedia and primary sources that doubles as a 'fun' way to evaluate political content.
3/23
The Woozle Effect is a metaphor from the Winnie the Pooh story where Pooh and Piglet track their own tracks around a spiny bush, believing they are tracking a woozle. This common error and propaganda trick is sometimes called evidence by citation.
Orwellian Bingo 2022.pdfSomething I've found that is not generally recognized while doing research for Redeeming Asimov is the clear genetic connection between the culture found in the Pentateuch and the early Sumerians. Consequently, I have used the electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary 2nd edition (ePSD2) quite a bit. It is the most comprehensive dictionary available and extensively linked to cuneiform texts and scholarship. Without a natural affinity for languages and lacking any formal education in the Sumerian language, the learning curve has been very steep. Interpreting the dictionary entries requires consulting tables spread out on several pages and often in unpredictable places. I've compiled many of the tables into one PDF and edited it into an easily printable format.
ePSD2 Tables 2023.pdfOriginal sources:
Searching ePSD2: http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/epsd2/searching/index.html
Periods: http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/epsd2/about/articles/index.html
POS Tags for Proper Nouns: http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/doc/help/languages/propernouns/index.html
Annotation: http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/epsd2/about/annotation/index.html
Morphological Model Tabulation: http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/epsd2/about/annotation/morphology/morphologytable/index.html
Morpheme Correspondences: http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/epsd2/about/annotation/morphology/morphologyexplanation/index.html
The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL): https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/
Digital Corpus of Cuneiform Lexical Texts: http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/dcclt/index.html
3/23
Master Slide Deck
Master Slide Deck
This deck will always be incomplete and a work in progress, but is intended to contain all the slides used on different pages. I also find making slides a useful way of taking notes and filtering information for what is important, so many of these slides will not be referenced on other pages.
Learning is often an exercise in sweeping out the old to bring in the new. However, to sweep away without memory is a form of blind faith. To actually learn requires comparing the old to the new.
Validation Using AI
Validation Using AI
Slides TOC
Slides TOC
Anšar, Anshar
Enki and the World Order, ETCSL 1.1.3, Lines 86-88 vs. ChatGPT
Can you critically account for the differences between your translation and that of ETCSL?
Summary of Why Differences Exist
ChatGPT Hybrid translation of ETCSL 1.1.3, Lines 86-88
ChatGPT Independent, only line 88 from cuneiform
Urkesh
Correlation between Table of Nations (Genesis 10) and cities, nations, and people that existed between 3000 BCE and 1200 BCE.
Keypoints
When have Jupiter and Venus looked like they were as close as on August 12, 3 BCE? ("Star in the East" candidate)
Venus–Jupiter conjunction of August 27, 2016
Venus–Jupiter Conjunction Brightness Comparison (Apparent Magnitude)
Before August 12, 3 BCE, the closest known Jupiter–Venus alignments were in antiquity, with two notable events
What latitudes was the 1818 CE occultation visible?
February 27, 1953 BCE planetary parade
Visibility regions and latitudes for each rare Venus–Jupiter conjunction or occultation
How do you use generative AI to research when it is known to have biases and "hallucinations"? Even beyond that, how can AI be trusted in apophatic philosophical topics when it is necessarily positivistic? How can AI be trusted with cause and effect when there is no a priori test for causes and effects (ala David Hume)?
A way I am using AI is to validate my research and ideas, particularly on topics that are more obscure or where there is no clear consensus. The process of validation enables a comparison between what I have found and what the flawed database of all knowledge, along with the hallucinogenic additions of generative AI, claims to have. Where it does not support my position, more consideration and better research is needed. In the slide deck below, I have the output from AI validating minor and major points in the AGB and Redeeming Asimov.
ChatGPT is the first one I've tried. Historically, most of what I'm getting back seems plausible, but only after at least one challenge does it give what I would regard as a correct answer, as can be seen by the Anshar entry on the first slide (1). A task like translating to and from Sumerian cuneiform is a bit more mixed (2). Even in basic stuff like matching a sign to a cuneiform symbol, it is making a lot of easy mistakes. When asked to do a specific part again or reconsider, it produces something correct or at least plausible. But if I didn't know enough to ask more specifically, I would have wrong or misleading information.
And then there are truly bizarre cases, such as when it was given 6 lines of Sumerian transliteration and told to translate into English. It would be generous to describe the translation as lazy. It was like a kid who doesn't want to do his homework, so he fakes it, writing any old thing just to turn something in. There was maybe a 5% correspondence between the transliteration and ChatGPT's translation. When asked to make a "literal translation", it produced something credible. I didn't have to ask for the translation to be "literal" the very first time, and it did a decent job. The lesson I'm learning so far is that you can't trust the first answer.
Validation Methods
Validation Methods
One way I have found ChatGPT fairly useful is to validate my preconceived facts and ideas. This usually involves asking a general, but edgy, factual question that forces it to choose between presenting fact or opinion. Then, as a form of argument, press on all the soft parts of the factual and non-factual synthesis it produces with follow-up questions. ChatGPT is mostly a fair arguer and, to please, may give way too easily to the interlocutor. If I can prompt ChatGPT to change its disagreeable synthesis to explanations substantially aligned with mine with just a few factual questions, that is validation. Because most AIs are programmed to please, prolonged questioning to get acceptable opinions should not be seen as a success. Another qualification is that the idea to be validated must be substantially formed beforehand. There is no validation on the fly - the user should be humble enough to call this "learning."
The PDF file links to the right or below contain chats of various lengths, in which I was able to direct ChatGPT or Perplexity to my way of thinking within a few questions during a disagreement.
A big exception to the few questions rule is when AI perseverates on obviously wrong facts before coming around. Instead of giving up, I tend to plow through and show the AI that it is definitely wrong. Doing so has shown what appears to be systematic biases in the AI that often mirror the prejudices of certain groups, typically on the left side of the political spectrum. In particular, a left-leaning version of the Anti-Zionism prejudice seems to be very strong in ChatGPT and the AIs that Perplexity draws on. Validation often occurs soon after the bias bubble breaks. These perseverating discussions are marked with an asterisk *.
I have some concerns about security and privacy, so most of the AIs are not ones I'm logged into. Perplexity AI is an exception. It usually avoids outright wrong answers on the first try by being less ambitious and hedging. Perplexity AI is not very sensitive to chat flow, and the quality and context of the sources it cites sometimes leave something to be desired. This can lead to contradictions down the line. For instance, after establishing that the genocide of Gaza by starvation narrative has no empirical support and that media outlet Al Jazeera is systemically pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel, Perplexity AI goes on to cite Al Jazeera as a primary source when asked for media sources with more balanced reporting! Furthermore, all of the sources it cites as "balanced" forcefully carry the genocide narrative as an unquestionable fact!
On conditions as they impact social issues, Perplexity seems to have a whichever way the wind blows sort of feeling. I prefer Perplexity AI when searching for quick, uncontested facts. ChatGPT seems better for validation and hypothesis testing of bigger ideas.
AI Validation PDFs
AI Validation PDFs
Eugenics and the Transgender Movement - ChatGPT 7/14/2025 PDF
Leibniz’s Monads - ChatGPT 7/19/2025 PDF
Gaza Demographics and UNRWA - ChatGPT 7/28/2025 PDF
*ChatGPT Coming to Terms with True Gazan Starvation = 147 - 7/29/2025 PDF
*Media Bias - from the original fry, Perplexity AI, 8/10/2025 PDF
Refried Gazan Starvation - Perplexity AI 8/13/2025 PDF
Enlil Names and Epithets: kur-gal, shaddai, ruach, etc. ChatGPT 10-12-25 PDF
Part 1-Cass Report Summary and Implications.pdf Exposing How Epistemic Caution Is Reframed as Moral Failure 1/1/2026 by ChatGPT
Part 2 - Cass Report Summary and Implications PDF Functional Meaning vs. Convenience in Biology and Medicine 1/1/2026 by ChatGPT
Part 1_- The Ebla Controversy, Archi Consensus, and Implications - Gemini 3_1-29-26 PDF - Sorting through the "Archi Consensus."
Part 2 - The Ebla Controversy, Archi Consensus, and Implications - Gemini 3_3-7-26 PDF - Possibilities multiply once past the "Archi Consensus."
* AI perseverating on obviously wrong ideas before coming around.
Metaphysical Recompression Model
Metaphysical Recompression Model
A. Biblehub.com helpfully summarizes tsaba' often translated as “host” (bold added):
1. a mass of persons
2. (figuratively) a mass of things
3. (especially) regularly organized for war (an army)
4. (by implication, literally or figuratively) a campaign
5. (specifically) hardship, worship
The first use of “hosts” ṣə·ḇā·’ām from tsaba' in the Bible is Genesis 2:1 (KJV, ESV):
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
B. This, and the continued use throughout the Bible in the context of God, matches the Sumerian/Akkadian divine assembly, brought together at the dawn (i.e., in the East) of each day-age to declare the fate across all of the Earth.
C. The individual Sumerian/Akkadian gods are given life by the paired gods An and Enlil, speaking divine words called me (plural: me-esh, mesh). Their assignment to different functions, duties, things, and people is fated primarily by Enki, who is the uniquely self-destined one, en-me-en “Lord I Am”.
D. When the gods are in divine assembly, the king and counselor of that assembly is Enlil, “lord spirit/wind/breath” who creates at the behest of An, with Enki, and whatever other gods are relevant to the creative act. Enlil is then a direct functional match to the use of “LORD of Hosts” in the Bible.
In Sumerian literature, standing way at the top of the polytheistic Sumerian pantheon are the triad of gods An, Enlil, and Enki. It is noted in many texts that their pronouncements are immutable, that they could only be contradicted by each other if that were even possible. The Sumerian Flood Story, along with its younger Semitic counterparts, has the nearest thing to this kind of contradiction. While Enlil is done with the disruption and discordance of Sumer’s mankind (ie. kalam-ma, the familiar land, that is Sumer, ETCSL 1.7.4 Segment D, line 4), Enki saves civilization by talking to a wall, knowing full well that the Zi-ud-sura can’t help but listen on the other side. But Enki is also the established mediator for man and god, with gods above and below, and he is the uniquely self-destined one who has the choice to save mankind.
The army at war connotation of tsaba' becomes more relevant as gods who are imagined as usurpers of Enlil arise, such as Inanna/Ishtar, Ninurta (ie. biblical Nimrod), and well after Sumerian times, Marduk.
E. In the validating discussion below, ChatGPT brings up on its own part of the bones of a model I have been considering for many years and calls it the “Metaphysical Compression” model. The idea is that the polytheism of Sumer and Akkad, later considered Babylonia, is compressed in the monotheistic trinity, and the rest of the gods are (demoted to?) malak messengers/angels. I show ChatGPT that an imagined difference between Hebrew malak and Sumerian designations of the lesser gods is just uninformed prejudice, primarily by bringing up the case of the sukkal. The correspondences in the trinity are:
An = El or El Elyon (God most high)
Enlil = rū-aḥ ’ĕ-lō-hîm (Spirit of God), El Shaddai (God almighty, God of the Mountain, connotations of God the destroyer), LORD of Hosts
Enki/Ea/Haya/Haia = malak YHWH (Angel of the LORD), Word of the LORD, Memra, Logos
I bring up what I believe to be the breadth of the model, which started my interest in Sumerian literature and language, by introducing the term “Metaphysical Recompression”:
In other words, the polytheistic Sumerian literature of its own accord takes us back to monotheism.
F. Writing and much of the Sumerian content found in the Bible were already present in the Levant, as demonstrated in the archives of Ebla. Abraham would have also brought in Sumerian content. There are also possible sources from Jerusalem, Egypt, and people such as Melchizedek.
The source of the earliest known library, the finds of Ebla in the northern Levant, is earlier than the Abraham story and therefore contains clues on the spread of the Sumerian gods and the likelihood of the Recompression Model. That ChatGPT is not forthcoming about the Enki/Ea/Haya correlation speaks to the hold of prejudice and political influence on the interpretation of Ebla materials.
LORD of Hosts origin and the Metaphysical Recompression model. Chat GPT 11-11-25 PDF
Book Reviews
Book Reviews
A review written in the Summer of 2019 on a borrowed copy of the book from someone who thought I would find it agreeable. Suffice it to say, I did not. Enn's book has become my stereotype of believing liberal scholarship, which is not a good thing for liberal scholarship.
This review began at the end of 2022. This book argues against trinitarian Christianity and at times does so with erudition. What attracted me to it was the breadth of biblical material it covered. Unfortunately, the author makes some crucial errors and gets hung up on some fairly unphilosophical literalisms, inadvertently producing a small version of God.
Book Review of The Battle of Beginnings (1996) by Del Ratzsch - Why One Side Is Winning, Unfortunately
Book Review of The Battle of Beginnings (1996) by Del Ratzsch - Why One Side Is Winning, Unfortunately
This review and extended reflection is a mildly edited version of a graded paper for the excellent HSTS 523 Science and Religion course taught by Dr. Gary Ferngren in 2007. I entered this delightfully challenging course with a few amorphous opinions that solidified in the class and during the writing of this review. Many of the elements of the extended reflection are found in one way or another in the Introduction of Redeeming Asimov. Redeeming Asimov arose in part to address the three problems presented at the end of this review. Frankly, this was the best thing I had ever written up to that point.
Politics and Policy
Politics and Policy
Reflections on my reasoning in this political moment. 10/10/24
Pediatric Gender Medicine
Pediatric Gender Medicine
The following are validation discussions with ChatGPT, only edited for style and space on the page.
Eugenics and the Transgender Movement - ChatGPT 7/14/2025 PDF - It looks to me like the transgender movement is Eugenics 4.0, just as sure as South America fits like a puzzle piece with Africa. According to ChatGPT, the answer is no, but this sets us up for an interesting and wide-ranging validation discussion.
Part 1 - Cass Report Summary and Implications.pdf Exposing How Epistemic Caution Is Reframed as Moral Failure 1/1/2026 by ChatGPT - Summary of the Cass Report from without, within, and balanced with positive and negative reviews. ChatGPT quickly highlights the vast chasm between conservative and responsive ethical approaches and then explains with examples why overly responsive approaches almost always end poorly.
Part 2 - Cass Report Summary and Implications.pdf Functional Meaning vs. Convenience in Biology and Medicine 1/1/2026 by ChatGPT - Part 2 follows from the same chat as Part 1, with general considerations of the philosophy of science showing how elevating convenience categories like gender identity leads to structural failures in science and medicine. ChatGPT creates A TAXONOMY OF MEDICAL EPISTEMIC FAILURE (PDF) that can be generally applied. It is applied to several historical cases, including the 1979 to 2017 moratorium on sex change surgeries at John Hopkins. Excerpts:
A TAXONOMY OF MEDICAL EPISTEMIC FAILURE 12/31/2025 by ChatGPT
APPLICATION OF THE TAXONOMY TO PEDIATRIC GENDER MEDICINE.pdf 12/31/2025 by ChatGPT
A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR EPISTEMIC FAILURE IN PEDIATRIC GENDER MEDICINE.pdf - ChatGPT works up the bones of two journal articles. The first is with reference to historical cases, the second with reference to the Cass Report.
Link to the Jewish section of the Culture page within the website, with sources and commentary, getting underneath the rampant propaganda. It is possible for Anti-Zionism to not be Anti-Semitic, but the facts are very clear that most Anti-Zionism is Antisemitism. In the crazy world in which we live, with its wealth of echo chambers, many people are enabled to be deluded by this fact. Even AI:
ChatGPT Coming to Terms with True Gazan Starvation = 147 - 7/29/2025 PDF
Media Bias - from the original fry, Perplexity AI, 8/10/2025 PDF - Perplexity thinks Al Jazeera is fair and balanced, even after showing that it's not.
Refried Gazan Starvation - Perplexity AI 8/13/2025 PDF - Much better this time, but according to AI, the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera still leads in fairness and balance.
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