The Unified Theory of Knowledge in a Nutshell
The Unified Theory of Knowledge (UTOK) provides an energy, information, naturalistic, behavioral approach to understanding reality, science, and wisdom. This very brief blog summarizes the 11 core ingredients that make up UTOK’s onto-epistemological structure.
First, in terms of the basic ontological model of the observable, natural world, UTOK identifies four emergent dimensions of behavioral complexification (or planes of existence), which are labeled: Matter-Object, Life-Organism, Mind-Animal, and Culture-Person.
Second, there are two “glue fields,” Energy and Information, that connect everything together. The four planes ultimately emerge out of the Energy Information Implicate Order that existed at the time of the Big Bang.
Third, UTOK identifies four epistemological frames. First, there is phenomenology, which is the first-person empirical lens observing one’s conscious experience of being. UTOK frames this with the iQuad Coin. Second, there is scientific objectivity, which is the third-person behavioral empirical lens, applied to individual objects and systems. UTOK frames this with the Tree of Knowledge System. Third, there is the cultural intersubjective lens, which refers to how human persons construct systems of justification that legitimize what is and ought to be. UTOK frames this with the Garden. Fourth, there is the dynamic participatory pragmatic mode that demonstrates the degree of knowledge mastery in the agent-arena environment. This can be framed in UTOK via the concept of the 5th Joint Point. These four frames are labeled, respectively, the subjective, objective, intersubjective, and transjective.
The final basic ingredient in UTOK’s ontological taxonomy is technology. The 5th Joint Point is the informational interface and communication network that is emerging between the Culture-Person plane of existence and the Digital Social Technological World we are constructing. The argument for UTOK in the context of the meaning crisis is that we need a coherent participatory onto-epistemological frame on the time between worlds that we find ourselves in.
UTOK is a crucial part of the 5th joint point because it fixes the errors generated by the Enlightenment Gap and provides a consilient, natural scientific framework for understanding human knowledge. The Garden, including the Coin and icon for the concept of God, extends UTOK to provide an applied philosophy that is oriented toward the generation of wisdom across individuals, systems, and societies.
