Submitted for peer review at Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science on October 4, 2026. 19 pages, ~7,760 words. Section: Biohacking, Meaning Making, and Spirituality. License: CC BY 4.0. This is my first paper submitted for peer review.
The thesis in brief
This paper formulates the Petri Dish Theory (PDT): the hypothesis that the experienced universe is a causally bounded developmental environment embedded in a larger order; that access across its boundary is limited by a dimensional or informational filter; that conscious agents develop within the enclosure; and that cosmic history may proceed through eons in which expansion, boundary transition, collapse, and natural forgetting recur.
The theory joins seven claims that must be kept analytically distinct: physical containment, dimensional filtering, expanding agency, nature-based morality, predator elimination, factional responses to boundaries, and cyclic reset.
The paper's central argument is methodological. PDT can be a legitimate object of philosophical review only if it refuses three common category errors: treating scriptural cosmography as if it were modern physics, treating physical energy as a synonym for spirit or consciousness, and treating suggestive analogies as confirmatory evidence. Biblical texts and physical science both affect reality, but through different routes. Science produces revisable causal models constrained by public observation; biblical cosmology organizes purpose, obligation, identity, and institutional action. Their interaction therefore changes the human world even when their ontological claims cannot be merged.
The seven claims
Each claim is evaluated separately — evidence for one is not evidence for the others:
- Physical containment — The experienced universe is causally bounded.
- Dimensional filtering — Boundary access is limited by a dimensional or informational filter.
- Expanding agency — Sufficiently expansive intelligence may reproduce the cosmogenic process.
- Nature-based morality — Good and evil are natures in collision, not a cosmic substance.
- Predator elimination — Removing ecological checks destabilizes the bounded system.
- Factional responses — Agents respond as managers, escapers, or ungoverned.
- Cyclic reset — Eons of expansion, transition, collapse, and natural forgetting recur.
Evidence, not vibes
The paper grades every claim on a five-level evidence hierarchy — analogy, compatibility, anomaly, discrimination, convergence — and carries a confidence register that states plainly what is supported, what is compatible, and what is pure speculation. Its ecological component (the destabilizing effects of predator removal) has empirical support. Its social typology of managers, escapers, and ungoverned agents is testable in principle. Its claims about higher dimensions and cyclic cosmology have partial mathematical analogues in physics but no direct evidential bridge.
Most importantly: the paper ships with explicit falsifiers. It does not ask for belief. It asks to be tested.
Figures
[FIGURE 1: containment model]
[FIGURE 2: seven claims]
[FIGURE 3: evidence hierarchy]
[FIGURE 4: confidence register]
Read the full paper
[LINK: Download the full 19-page thesis (PDF)] — "The Petri Dish Theory: Containment, Energy, and Epistemic Humility" by Robbie G, ronininc.org. Public author's version; the anonymous review copy was submitted to Zygon.
About the author
Robbie Glover is the CEO of Ronin Inc, where he builds governed AI systems — most notably Solomon, a locally-governed AI engine built on the principle that governance must live on your own hardware, not in someone else's data center. The Petri Dish Theory is his first submitted research paper. More at ronininc.org.
