Ontology 101
An AI-powered podcast where artificial hosts dive deep into the works of J. Daniel Alejos, unpacking his foundational text Tending the Garden and related writings that explore the ontological nature of reality — how being, structure, and coherence function at every level of existence.
Episodes
30 episodes
Genesis 15 - The Covenant Cut
Genesis 15 takes us into the heart of divine promise. Abram’s doubt meets God’s self-binding oath—an ontological act where God places the weight of the covenant on Himself. We explore the symbolic darkness, the meaning of righteousness by faith...
Genesis 14 - The Priest-King
Genesis 14 weaves war, rescue, blessing, and mystery. Melchizedek enters the story as priest-king, revealing a higher moral order that precedes Israel. We examine how Abram’s victory resists exploitation, how blessing legitimizes alignment, and...
Genesis 13 - Strife and Space
In Genesis 13, Abram and Lot reveal two moral postures: one generous and aligned, one driven by sight and self-interest. We explore how peace arises from trust, how land becomes symbolic space, and how God expands promise in response to Abram’s...
An Introduction to Tending the Garden
Episode 1 – “You’re Already Becoming Someone”In this opening episode, the AI hosts introduce Tending the Garden: Rebuilding Moral Infrastructure in a Fractured World by J. Daniel Alejos — a work at the crossroads of theol...
Tending the Garden Episode 2 – “The Innate Sense of Morality”
In this episode, the AI hosts continue their exploration of Tending the Garden by J. Daniel Alejos, turning to Chapter One: The Innate Sense of Morality. This discussion digs into one of Alejos’ most foundational claims — that...
Tending the Garden Episode 3 – “The Importance of Oughts”
In this episode, the AI hosts return to Tending the Garden by J. Daniel Alejos to unpack Chapter Two: The Importance of Oughts. Picking up from the prior discussion on humanity’s innate moral compass, the hosts explore what ha...
Tending the Garden Episode 4 – “Broken Compasses: The Limitations of Subjective Morality”
In this episode, the AI hosts continue their journey through J. Daniel Alejos’ Tending the Garden with Chapter Three — Broken Compasses: The Limitations of Subjective Morality. After establishing that morality is real and that...
Tending the Garden Episode 5 – “Can Objective Moral Frameworks Be Derived?”
In this pivotal episode, the AI hosts reach Chapter Four of Tending the Garden by J. Daniel Alejos — the point where moral philosophy meets its limit. After examining the failures of personal instinct in Broken Compasses, Alej...
Tending the Garden Episode 6 – “Formation Is Inevitable”
In this episode, the AI hosts begin Part II of J. Daniel Alejos’ Tending the Garden — moving from the question of what morality is to how it actually forms us. Chapter Five, Formation Is Inevitable, ...
Tending the Garden Episode 7 – “The Praxial Modalities”
In this episode, the AI hosts continue through Tending the Garden by J. Daniel Alejos, stepping into one of its most structural chapters: The Praxial Modalities. This conversation translates abstract moral formation into the g...
Tending the Garden Episode 8 – “Praxial Symbiosis”
In this episode, the AI hosts explore Chapter Seven: Praxial Symbiosis from J. Daniel Alejos’ Tending the Garden, a turning point in the book where formation moves from personal to relational. After learning how Story, Game, I...
Tending the Garden Episode 9 – “The Role of Art and Symbol”
In this episode, the AI hosts explore Chapter Eight of J. Daniel Alejos’ Tending the Garden, titled The Role of Art and Symbol. Building on the idea that formation is relational and ecological, Alejos turns the focus ...
Tending the Garden Episode 10 – “What It Means to Tend”
In this episode, the AI hosts step into Part III of J. Daniel Alejos’ Tending the Garden — the practical heart of the book — beginning with Chapter Nine: What It Means to Tend. After tracing the inevitability of forma...
Tending the Garden Episode 11 – “Contamination, Neglect, and Damage”
In this episode, the AI hosts turn to one of the most sobering chapters of Tending the Garden — Chapter Ten: Contamination, Neglect, and Damage. After learning what faithful tending looks like, this chapter examines what happe...
Tending the Garden Episode 12 - “What Holds True?"
In this episode, the AI hosts begin the turn from collapse to restoration, exploring Chapter Eleven: What Holds True? from J. Daniel Alejos’ Tending the Garden. After the previous chapter’s heavy meditation on neglect and...
Tending the Garden Episode 13 – “The One Who Holds”
In this climactic episode, the AI hosts reach Chapter Twelve of J. Daniel Alejos’ Tending the Garden, the chapter toward which the entire series has been building. After tracing the reality of morality, the inevitability of fo...
Tending the Garden Episode 14 – “Keep the Lamp Lit” (Finale)
In this final episode of The Deep Dive series on J. Daniel Alejos’ Tending the Garden, the AI hosts bring the journey to a close by weaving together the book’s final movements — The Invitation, The Postlude, ...
Tending the Garden Episode 15 - The Bedrock of Reality
In this final and most foundational episode of season 1, the AI hosts turn from narrative and metaphor to the underlying logical architecture that supports every claim explored throughout the series. Titled “The Bedrock of Reality,” this...
Genesis 1 - Moral Infrastructure
This podcast offers an exegetical reading of Genesis Chapter 1, interpreted through the lens of ontological moral geometry as developed by J. Daniel Alejos. The goal is to reveal how the opening chapter of Scripture does more than...
Genesis 2 - Dust, Breath, and the Architecture of Being
In this episode, we slow down and look closely at Genesis 2—not as a second telling of creation, but as a deeper unveiling of how being itself is structured. Here, humanity is not merely made; humanity is formed—from du...
Genesis 3 - The Fracture
Genesis 3 is not just the story of a forbidden tree—it is the story of ontological rupture. In this episode, we examine how deception distorts recognition, how desire is bent inward, and how trust collapses into suspicion. The Fall is no...
Genesis 4 - The First Violence
Genesis 4 takes us into the inner terrain of worship, envy, and violence. Cain and Abel embody two ontological postures: one aligned, one self-centered. When Cain refuses correction, misalignment spills outward into the soil itself. In this epi...
Genesis 5 - And He Died
Genesis 5 may look like a genealogy, but it is a chapter about ontological continuity—how identity, blessing, and decay pass through generations. We examine how mortality shapes the human story, how righteous lineage preserves resonance ...
Genesis 6 - An Imagination for Evil
In Genesis 6, misalignment scales. Violence fills the earth, boundaries blur, and the world’s structure itself begins to break. This episode explores how unchecked autonomy corrodes the moral landscape, how divine grief reveals the weight of re...