Oct 15, 2022
The Core of UTOK
A Coherent Descriptive Metaphysical System for Science, Subjectivity, and Wise Collective Living
This blog describes the core of the Unified Theory of Knowledge (UTOK). The framework is situated in response to a set of philosophical problems that emerged in the wake of modern science and its failure to effectively frame the proper relations between matter and mind. As a new system of understanding, UTOK provides us a descriptive metaphysical system that places knowledge from science, subjective conscious experience, and wise living in coherent relation to each other, generates a metatheory of human mental behavior, effectively maps human character adaptation and development, clarifies the nature of psychological well-being and offers a remedy for neurotic suffering, and is grounded in an axiology oriented toward transcendent values and the cultivation of wisdom energy.
As many sophisticated thinkers have noted, the current global situation is not good. Given how incredibly valuable planet Earth is and all the life it contains, the fact that we are facing many potentially catastrophic risks means we need to think seriously about our future and how we might avoid either global civilization collapse or a totalitarian state that controls us via the digital world and evolve toward wiser living. This systematic move to wiser living is called the “third attractor” by many thinkers, like Daniel Schmachtenberger and Alexander Bard. To successfully develop it we need new systems of knowledge that are more coherent and comprehensive to develop our understanding of the past, present, and future.
Given this situation, we can ask: If you were to design an educational system for children across the world, how would you go about doing that? What are the general things that we should teach them? How should we help them learn about themselves and their unique history and connect that with other people, with technology and nature? What are the guiding values that they should learn? In asking these questions we can wonder whether there exists a system of education that is up to the task of framing these issues in the 21st Century.
The core of the Unified Theory of Knowledge (UTOK) is structured to coherently integrate our modern “Western” knowledge systems and orient us toward wise living. It is the first descriptive metaphysical system that effectively integrates and interrelates natural science, subjective conscious experience, and wise living into one system of understanding. This blog articulates the core parts of UTOK, which can be thought of as the knowledge-to-wisdom architecture for a new educational system for the 21st Century. (For a more detailed analysis of the core elements of UTOK, see this video on “The UTOK 20”).
- The Four Philosophical Problems
UTOK begins with the assertion that human knowledge systems are systems of justification (i.e., networks of propositions that legitimize what is and ought to be) located in a particular socio-historical context. Even new systems of justification are inevitably framed by the justification systems that came before them, and UTOK is no exception to this general rule. It is a system of justification that emerged out of a specific set of problems in “modernist” knowledge systems (i.e., problems that arose in the wake of the modern scientific Enlightenment).
UTOK identifies four core philosophical problems that pertain to science, knowing, and the nature of the mental relative to the material world. The first problem is called the Enlightenment Gap, which refers to the fact that, following the emergence of modern empirical natural science, there was no coherent system of understanding that afforded us the proper conceptual relations between matter and mind, nor was there a clear way to relate scientific knowledge and subjective and social knowledge. Both of these problems are obvious if you know where to look for them. The first aspect of this problem is called the “mind-body problem” and the second aspect represents the conflict between the modernist and postmodernist sensibilities.
The second major problem that defines UTOK is the problem of psychology. This is the problem that the science of psychology had in clarifying the nature the mind and ontology of the mental. As I demonstrate in my forthcoming book, A New Synthesis for the Problem of Psychology: Addressing the Enlightenment Gap, the problem of psychology was an inevitable downstream consequence of the Enlightenment Gap.
The third problem is the problem of psychotherapy, which refers to the failure of the field of psychotherapy to be coherently integrated, which is an inevitable consequence of the second problem (i.e., we cannot have a coherently unified approach to psychotherapy if we cannot coherently defined what we mean by psychology). Finally, there is the problem of the psyche, which is the difficulty specifying the nature of the unique, particular, idiographic, qualitative, experiential knowledge of the subject in relationship to the epistemology of modern natural science, which is about generating “laws” that govern patterns of behavior.
2. A Descriptive Metaphysical System for First- and Third-Person Empirical Observations
UTOK has a deep architecture that resolves these four core philosophical problems and thus gives rise to a much more coherent system of understanding than has been previously available. Unlike modern empirical natural science which uses scientific epistemology to “factor out” subjective qualitative knowing, UTOK frames the subjective, particular knower in right relation to our public, scientifically justified knowledge systems about how things behave in the world. It achieves this by framing the unique particular human knower via the iQuad Coin. More specifically, the Coin functions to represent each person’s unique “Human Identity Function.” In essence, your human identity function is how you qualitatively experience the world and identify that with yourself in the moment. This “inner subjective knowing” is a different kind of knowing than the kind of knowing provided by science, which is a kind of objective knowledge about what governs behavioral patterns in the world.
The Human Identity Function is just the starting point of the Coin; the logic of the Coin then creates adjacent associative identities with philosophy (i.e., via the ontic epistemic relation), mathematics (i.e., via the imaginary, real, complex number relation) and, ultimately, physics (i.e., via the observer behavior relation). (For more on how this works, see this blog series on the Architecture of the iQuad Coin here, here, here, and here, as well as this blog on the Henriques Equivalency and this blog on the Radical Mathematical Humanistic Equation).
In addition to having a placeholder for each unique subject and their qualitative experience of being in the world, UTOK also maps our scientific knowledge. The Tree of Knowledge System is UTOK’s descriptive metaphysical system for scientific knowledge writ large. It provides a new map of Big History that gives a much clearer picture of emergence and does so in a way that solves the problem of scientific psychology. In so doing, it sets us up to understand what is meant by both behavior and mental processes. This becomes clear when we see behavior via the lens of the Periodic Table of Behavior, and we see mental processes via the Map of Mind. As such, UTOK allows us to effectively bridge one of the great challenges in psychology, that between the behaviorists and the mentalists, with the novel concept of mindedness, which is the property of mental behavior.
The upshot of these linkages is that UTOK provides a new descriptive metaphysical system that effectively connects our unique subjective conscious experiences of being in the world (first person empiricism) with our public scientific knowledge of the behavioral patterns in the world (third person empiricism). This connection between the subject and science is symbolized by the MEme Flower, which sits at the center of the Tree of Life, the core icon for UTOK. The MEme Flower represents the relationships between descriptive metaphysics (the “m”) and empiricism (the “e”). The big “M.E.” represents large scale systems of justification that are shared ways of seeing and understanding the world, whereas the small “m.e.” represents each individual person.
Together, the ToK System, PTB, Map of Mind, iQuad Coin, and MEme flower map the descriptive metaphysical systems to frame empiricism that is both first person particular (i.e., in the qualitative subject) and third person general behavioral (i.e., the onto-epistemology of science).
3. A Metatheory of Human Mental Behavior
If UTOK just gave descriptive categories for subjective, objective, and intersubjective knowledge systems, it would only be a useful starting point. However, in addition to being a system that gets the metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology of human knowing and behaving correct, UTOK also gives a coherent metatheory for the why of human behavior and mental processes. It does this via “JII Dynamics.” The JII stands for justification, investment, and influence. Justification is framed by Justification Systems Theory (JUST), investment by Behavioral Investment Theory (BIT), and influence via the Influence Matrix. Together, these three ideas assimilate and integrate key insights in psychology and the social sciences and work to dynamically frame human mental behavioral patterns via the vectors of justification, investment, and influence.
4. Mapping Character Adaptation and Development
UTOK was born via the realization of the problem of psychotherapy. Character Adaptation Systems Theory (CAST) and the Wheel of Development provide a new map of personality that aligns with the key insights of behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, and psychodynamic approaches to maladaptive mental behavior patterns.
5. Psychological Well-being and the Remedy for Neurotic Suffering
In addition to understanding human adaptation and development, UTOK delineates the core of neurotic suffering as arising from triple negative neurotic loops, whereby individuals engage in negative (i.e., problematic) reactions to negative situations that elicit negative feelings. This traps individuals into vulnerable and defensive states that diminishes both their subjective well-being and functioning in the relational world and potentially leaves them in the cave of behavioral shutdown. UTOK metaphorically represents this state of being chain to neurotic beliefs and feeling miserable to the “Dragon’s Lair,” whereby one is chained to a shadow dragon via triple negative neurotic loops in the cave of behavioral shutdown underneath the Personality Disorder Star.
UTOK maps the concept of well-being via the Nested Model and assimilates and integrates principles from psychotherapy to generate the CALM-MO approach to psychological mindedness. It addresses triple negative neurotic loops by helping individuals first become mindfully aware of the process and then teaches them how to shine a CALM-MO flashlight on their problematic reactions to their negative feelings.
6. Axiological Commitments to Wise Living
UTOK was birthed via the question: What knowledge and value systems ought to be brought to individuals who are suffering psychologically? This is the central question of psychotherapy and it requires grounding in axiological commitments. UTOK is committed to adaptive and wise living that function to enhance valued states of being. As such, it is value-oriented. The Tree of Life is the central icon for UTOK and the Elephant Sun God is UTOK’s icon for the ultimate good.
The Wisdom Energy Icon connects the transcendent values of beauty, goodness, and truth with UTOK’s ultimate justification: Be that which enhances dignity and well-being with integrity.
The Educational Infinity Loop represents the educational intersection of theory and research with embodied wise living, and identifies the need to develop knowledge and skills in the language arts, natural sciences, psychology and phenomenology, the social studies, and ethics and morality.
Finally, the UTOK wisdom bees represent the knowledge that grounds wisdom (the Bee of Sophia) and the actual practice of living wisely (Bee of Phronesis).
These six domains frame the core of UTOK. In response to philosophical problems that emerged in the wake of the Enlightenment, UTOK affords us a new descriptive metaphysical system that can unify science and subjective experience, provide us with a metatheory of human mental behavior, map character adaptation and development, clarify the nature of psychological well-being and provide us tools for reducing neurotic suffering, and frame human value commitments in a moral-ethical framework that transcends local justification systems. As such, it stands as the kind of educational system that can play a key role in our move to develop a third attractor.
