Tree of Knowledge System
= "offers a pictographic representation of cosmic evolution as occurring in four distinct phases: Matter, Life, Mind, and Culture." [1]
Description
Gregg Henriques:
1.
"The Tree of Knowledge System (as a) Unified Theory offers a new consilient vision of scientific knowledge that solves the problem of psychology, and explicitly depicts how the domain of psychological knowledge exists in relation to the other special sciences."
(http://www.gregghenriques.com/uploads/2/4/3/6/24368778/evofrommethconunif.pdf)
2.
"The Tree of Knowledge (ToK) System is the first key idea in the Unified Theory of Knowledge. It is a theory of scientific knowledge that defines the human knower in relation to the known. It achieves this novel accomplishment by solving the problem of psychology and giving rise to a truly consilient view of the scientific landscape. It accomplishes this via dividing the evolution of behavioral complexity into four different planes of existence. Life, Mind, and Culture emerge out of the dimensions beneath them as a function of complexity building feedback loops that are self-organizing and mediated by novel systems of information processing and communication. The ToK also characterizes modern empirical natural science as a kind of justification system that functions to map complexity and change."
(https://www.unifiedtheoryofknowledge.org/8-key-ideas/the-tree-of-knowledge)
Discussion
From the Wikipedia:
"The tree of knowledge (ToK) system is a new[when?] map of Big History that traces cosmic evolution across four different planes of existence, identified as Matter, Life, Mind and Culture that are mapped respectively by the physical, biological, psychological and social domains of science. The Tree of Knowledge (ToK) System was developed by Gregg Henriques, who is a professor and core faculty member in the Combined-Integrated Doctoral Program in Clinical and School Psychology at James Madison University.[1] The ToK System is part of a larger Unified Theory of Knowledge that Henriques describes as a consilient scientific humanistic philosophy for the 21st Century.
The official Unified Theory of Knowledge website describes the ToK System as:[2]
"[A] theory of scientific knowledge that defines the human knower in relation to the known. It achieves this novel accomplishment by solving the problem of psychology and giving rise to a truly consilient view of the scientific landscape. It accomplishes this via dividing the evolution of behavioral complexity into four different planes of existence....The ToK also characterizes modern empirical natural science as a kind of justification system that functions to map complexity and change.
The outline of the ToK System was first published in 2003 in Review of General Psychology.[3] Two special issues of the Journal of Clinical Psychology in December 2004[4] and January 2005[5] were devoted to the elaboration and evaluation of the model. In 2008, a special issue of Theory & Psychology[6] was devoted to the ToK System. In 2011, Henriques published A New Unified Theory of Psychology. That same year he also launched the blog Theory of Knowledge: A Unified Approach to Psychology and Philosophy on Psychology Today, which remains active. There is also a Theory Of Knowledge Society and discussion listserve that is devoted to discussing Henriques' work and other big picture viewpoints.
In some ways, the ToK System reflects a fairly common hierarchy of nature and of the sciences that has been represented in one way or another since the time of Auguste Comte, who in the 19th century used a hierarchical conception of nature to argue for the existence of sociology. It also has clear parallels with Aristotle's conception of the scales of nature and the first four levels of the Great Chain of Being.
Despite some overlap with a number of traditional schemes, the ToK System is properly thought of as a new theory of both ontic reality and our scientific knowledge of that reality. One of the most important and salient features of the Tree of Knowledge is how it represents reality as consisting of four different planes of existence. The theory is that, following Matter, Life, Mind and Culture each represent complex adaptive landscapes that are organized and mediated by novel emergent information processing and communication systems. Specifically, DNA/RNA store information that is processed by cells which then engage in intercellular communication to create the plane of existence called Life. Similarly, the brain and nervous system store and process information in animals which then engage in communication networks on the complex adaptive plane called Mind. Finally, linguistic storage and processing and communication between human beings generates the emergence of the Culture-Person plane of existence.
The separable planes of existence or dimension of complexity argument is one of the most crucial aspects of the system. Many have argued nature is hierarchically leveled; for example, a list of such levels might be subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, cells, organ structures, multi-celled organisms, consciousness, and society is common. The ToK System embraces a view of nature as levels, but adds the notion that there are also separable dimensions of complexity. The difference becomes particularly clear in the extension of the ToK System into the Periodic Table of Behavior. The Periodic Table of Behavior (PTB) shows that natural science can be arranged in terms of the four fundamental dimensions (i.e., matter, life, mind, and culture) and three fundamental levels of analysis (i.e., part, whole, group). The PTB also demonstrates that behavior is a central concept in science. Epistemologically, natural scientists view the world via a third person behavioral lens. Ontologically, science is about mapping different kinds of behaviors that take place in nature at various levels and dimensions of analysis.
The second central insight of the ToK System is that it shows how natural science is a particular kind of justification system that emerges out of Culture based on novel methods and specific epistemological commitments and assumptions (i.e., an exterior view point, quantification and experimentation). This epistemology and methodology functions to justify scientific ontology, which in turn maps the ontic reality. Specifically, the domains of the physical, biological, (basic) psychological and social sciences map the ontic dimensions of matter, life, mind and culture. The Periodic Table of Behavior further shows how science is a justification system that is arranged to map behavioral frequencies at different dimensions of complexity and levels of analysis."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_knowledge_system)
Gregg Henriques on Evolution as an Unfolding Wave of Energy and Information
Gregg Henriques:
"The Tree of Knowledge System depicts the evolution of complexity as occurring in four separable dimensions: Matter, Life, Mind, and Culture. Why are their separable dimensions of complexity? Because, following Matter, the other dimensions have emerged as a function of novel information processing systems. Life, or organic behavior, emerges as a function of genetic information processing. Mind emerges as a function of neuronal information processing and Human Culture emerges as a function of linguistic information processing. Let me break down the ToK System into its component parts.
The ToK System starts with Energy. Energy is the ultimate common denominator. Everything is and arises out of Energy. And, we now know that the Universe started as an “Energy Singularity” in which there was no matter, space, or time.
Then, 13.8 billion years ago, there was a dramatic chain reaction called the Big Bang in which the pure Energy quanta began to freeze into chunks of Matter, called fermions. Fermions are the fundamental units of Matter that ultimately form all the Matter in the Universe. Because fermions occupy discreet bits of space and time, the Big Bang generated Space and Time, as well as Matter.
As the Universe continued to expand and cool, large collections of gases condensed and formed into stars and galaxies. This variation created many different types of Energy-Matter environments, which in turn led to the formation of a variety of different types of atoms. The atoms that were ultimately formed are, of course, represented and categorized in the Periodic Table. In particular environments that are neither too hot nor too cold, atoms link up through the process of covalent bonding, creating increasingly complex chemical systems.
Fast forward almost 10 billion years and zoom in on one particular environment, found on a planet orbiting an average size star in the Milky Way Galaxy: Earth. The complex chemical systems on Earth 4 billion years ago exhibited a wide variety of algorithmically complex behaviors. One behavior of a particular class of these complex chemical systems was the behavior of self-replication. That is, many chemical systems made copies of themselves. Through the process of replication, variation, and selection, these self-replicating chemical systems became increasingly complex and sophisticated, eventually forming huge strands of ribonucleic acid. Eventually, these self-replicating chemical machines formed into prokaryotes, which are primitive cells that lack a nucleus. Over the next ~3 billion years the prokaryotes eventually formed into eukaryotes (cells with a nucleus) and finally into large scale, multi-cellular organisms, which would be similar in complexity to a modern day plant or tree. Thus the span of time ranging from four billion years ago to 700 million years ago saw the evolution of life via natural selection operating on genetic combinations through time.
Starting at approximately 640 million years ago, a new type of multi-cellular creature emerged, creatures we call animals. Animals are unique in that they are multi-cellular organisms that move around their environment. This capacity for movement created the selection pressure for a computational control center that measures the organism’s relationship to its environment and moves the organism toward beneficial environments and away from harmful environments. This computational control center is, of course, the nervous system. The nervous system represents a fundamental shift in complexity because behavior of these organisms is not fully restricted to the unfolding of the genetic program encoded in the deoxyribonucleic structure. Instead, animals can use neuro-information processing mechanisms to generate new behavioral outputs in response to novel environmental stimuli. In other words, they can learn to modify their behavior based on experience. The nervous system begins as a set of simplistic neural reflex arcs made up of neural nets. It then becomes a reflexive control center for basic bodily functions (like temperature regulation). The nervous system evolves into a system capable of generating increasingly complex neuro-representations of the organism-environment relationship, which allows for increasingly sophisticated behavioral patterns, such parenting or cooperating. Finally, the nervous system becomes capable of manipulating the neuronally represented animal-environment relationship.
One can roughly trace the evolution of Mind, or nervous system complexity, from worms to fish to reptiles to birds to mammals. This took place from approximately 640 million years to five million years ago. Five or six million years ago represents the point at which humans share a common ancestor with our closest great ape relatives, the chimps and bonobos. The period between five million years ago and today saw the emergence of Culture, which occurred for one particular animal, the human animal.
The story told by archeologists and anthropologists is that climatic changes in river basins in Africa changed dense forests into savannah grasslands. This change in ecology required a change in morphology. This ape ancestor of modern humans had to “come down from the trees” and be able cover large amounts of territory. This adaptive pressure set the stage for bipedalism, which in turn freed the hands from locomotive responsibilities. Freed hands created more opportunities for behaviors like tool making, which in turn created selection pressures for increased neuro-cognitive capacity and selection to fill a "cognitive niche."
The evolution of language is thought to have occurred between 500,000 and 100,000 years ago. This period is associated with massive growth of the cortical structures, as well as changes in throat structures associated with language. This period is also associated with the emergence of modern Homo sapiens. The capacity for true language is unique to humans in the animal kingdom. The adaptive advantage of language is obvious. It allows for the efficient transfer of huge amounts of information, which in turn leads to greater knowledge and more effective coordination of behaviors. The reason it evolved in humans is intimately connected to the increased neuro-cognitive abilities for mental manipulation. The ability to mentally transform objects in time set the stage for these mental objects and their transformations to be symbolically tagged. The mental objects are tagged as nouns and their transformations as verbs. The neuro-cognitive machinery that allows for the unique human capacity to easily acquire the linkage between symbols and objects is referred to as the Language Acquisition Device and is housed in the left hemisphere.
Between approximately 60,000 and 30,000 years ago, there was an explosion of cultural artifacts, such as carved statues, artwork in caves, and burials with ornamentation. Modern humans begin to dominate the landscapes all over the world. And the pace of change only accelerates. Agriculture and writing appear ~10,000 years ago, setting the stage for large scale civilizations and the cultural advances that come with it, such as law, mathematics, philosophy, and science. What caused this “explosion” of culture?
The ToK system offers the Justification Hypothesis (JH) as a solution to the problem. The JH proposes that the evolution of language created a fundamentally new adaptive problem our pre-human ancestors had to solve. Language allowed others a window into ones’ thought processes. For the first time, our human ancestors had to explain why they did what they did. That is, they had to justify their actions to others. The JH proposes that problem of justification was the fundamental selection pressure that led to the Modern Human speciation event. The JH argues that the explosion of culture can be thought of as an explosion of justification systems. The JH proposes that the human ego or self-awareness system exhibits the complex functional design consistent with a mechanism designed to solve the problem of justification. That is, humans tend to bias the explanation of their actions to others in a manner that maximizes social influence and minimizes social loss or punishment. The ToK System claims that the evolution of language combined with the JH provides the framework for explaining what differentiates modern humans from other animals. That is, the JH explains why humans have cultures (or shared belief systems that coordinate and legitimize behaviors), why humans have the capacity for reason, and why humans have self-awareness.
The ToK system views social institutions such as religion, law, and morality as justification systems. The ToK System further claims that Science is a particular branch in the evolution of justification systems."
Characteristics
Gregg Henriques:
Summary: References the basic ToK graphic:
"Joint points are the theories that link the dimensions.
- Quantum gravity is the first joint point and is theorized to be the link between Energy and Matter. It refers to the theoretical merger between the twin pillars in physics: quantum mechanics and Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
- The modern evolutionary synthesis is the joint point between Matter and Life, and refers to the merger of Darwin’s theory of natural selection with genetics. The modern synthesis can be thought of as the unified theory of biology because it provides the framework for understanding how complex, self-replicating organic molecules were ultimately transformed into organisms. Biology is a unified discipline precisely because it has a clear, well-established definition (the science of Life), an agreed upon subject matter (organisms), and a unified theoretical system that provides the causal explanatory framework for its emergence (the modern evolutionary synthesis). Some key elements of the modern synthesis will be explored later in the chapter, when we delve into Edward O. Wilson’s work.
- Behavioral Investment Theory is the joint point between Life and Mind because it merges fundamental insights across the cognitive, behavioral, and neurosciences to provide a framework for understanding how Mind emerges out of Life.
- Finally, the Justification Hypothesis is the joint point between Mind and Culture because it provides a framework for understanding the changes in the human mind that resulted in the evolution of self-consciousness and human culture.
(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/251419612_The_Tree_of_Knowledge_System)
2. From the Wikipedia:
Planes of Existence
The Matter/Object plane of existence is mapped by the Physical Sciences
The dimension of matter refers to the set of material objects and their behaviors through time. In accordance with modern cosmology, matter is theorized to have emerged from a pure energy singularity at the Big Bang. Space and time were also born at such a point. Nonliving material objects range in complexity from subatomic particles to large organic molecules. The physical sciences (i.e., physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy) describe the behavior of material objects.
The Life/Organism plane of existence is mapped by the Biological Sciences
The dimension of life refers to organisms and their behaviors through time. Living objects are considered a unique subset of material objects. Just as quantum particles form the fundamental units of material complexity, genes are the fundamental units of living information. Although many questions about the emergence of life remain unanswered, in accordance with modern biology, the ToK posits that natural selection operating on genetic combinations through time is the unified theory of biology and forms the foundational understanding for the emergence of organic complexity.
The Mind/Animal plane of existence is mapped by the (basic) Psychological Sciences
Mind/cognition in the ToK system refers to the set of mental behaviors. Mental behaviors are behaviors of animals mediated by the nervous system that produce a functional effect on the animal-environment relationship. As such, Mind/cognition is essentially synonymous with what behavioral psychologists have meant when they use the term behavior. Thus, a fly avoiding a fly swatter, a rat pushing a bar or a human getting a drink of water are all mental behaviors. Mind is not synonymous with sentience or the capacity for mental experience, although such processes are presumed to emerge in the mental/cognitive dimension. Cognition, in the broad sense of the term is meaning bodily-neuro-social information processing, as in EEEE Cognition: Embodied, Embedded, Enactive, Extended. While cognitive science stands for naturalist study of mind, psychology is an approach grounded in the tradition of humanities, especially philosophy. Thus, by defining mind as mental behavior, Henriques argues that the ToK System provides a way to bridge the epistemological differences between cognitive and behavioral science.[3] Henriques argues that comparative psychology, ethology, and (animal) cognitive behavioral neuroscience should all be thought of as parts of the discipline that maps the animal-mental domain.
The Culture/Person plane of existence is mapped by the Human Social Sciences
Culture in the ToK system refers to the set of sociolinguistic behaviors, which range from large scale nation states to individual human justifications for particular actions. Just as genetic information processing is associated with the Life dimension and neuronal information processing associated with the Mind dimension, symbolic information processing emerges with the Cultural dimension.[3] Henriques argues that human cognitive science, human psychology and the social sciences (i.e., anthropology, sociology, political science, and economics) work to map this domain.
Theoretical joint points
Quantum gravity
"Quantum gravity refers to the imagined merger between the twin pillars of physical science which are quantum mechanics, the study of the microscopic (e.g., electrons), and general relativity, the science of the macroscopic (e.g., galaxies). Currently, these two great domains of science cannot be effectively interwoven into a single, physical Theory of Everything. Yet progress is being made, most notably through string theory, loop quantum gravity, black hole thermodynamics and the study of the early universe. Some of the difficulties combining these two pillars of physical science are philosophical in nature and it is possible that the macro view of knowledge offered by the ToK may eventually aid in the construction of a coherent theory of quantum gravity. The reason the ToK might help is that it locates scientific knowledge in relationship to the physical universe.
The modern synthesis
The modern synthesis refers to the merger of genetics with natural selection which occurred in the 1930s and 1940s and offers a reasonably complete framework for understanding the emergence of biological complexity. Although there remain significant gaps in biological knowledge surrounding questions such as the origin of life and the emergence of sexual reproduction, the modern synthesis represents the most complete and well-substantiated joint point.
Behavioral investment theory
Behavioral Investment Theory (BIT) is metatheoretical formulation for the mind, brain and animal behavioral sciences. Henriques proposes that it enables the merger of the selection science of behaviorism with the information science of cognitive neuroscience that has conceptual parallels with the modern synthesis. BIT posits that the nervous system evolved as an increasingly flexible computational control system that coordinates the behavioral expenditure of energy of the animal as a whole. Expenditure of behavioral energy is theorized to be computed on an investment value system built evolutionarily through natural selection operating on genetic combinations and ontogenetically through behavioral selection operating on neural combinations. As such, the current behavioral investments of the animal are conceptualized as the joint product of the two vectors of phylogeny and ontogeny. A unique element of BIT is that it finds a core of agreement and builds bridges between five brain-behavior paradigms: (1) cognitive science; (2) behavioral science; (3) evolutionary theory and genetics; (4) neuroscience; and (5) cybernetics/systems theory.
David C. Geary noted the similarities between his "motive-to-control" hypothesis and Henriques' Behavioral Investment Theory, which were developed independently of each other. Furthermore, Geary suggested that his model "seem[ed] to fill in many of the proximate mechanisms and evolutionary pressures that define the life-mind joint point, and provided a framework for further development of the mind-culture joint point."[7]
Justification Systems Theory
Justification Systems Theory (JUST; formerly known as the Justification Hypothesis) posits that the evolution of language reached a tipping point with emergence of propositional claims. Specifically, propositional claims can be questioned, which generates the "question-answer" dynamic. This creates the problem of justification, which Henriques argues drives both the design of the human self-consciousness system as a mental organ of justification and gives rise to the evolution of the Culture-Person plane of existence. JUST is a novel proposal that allows for both the understanding of the evolution of culture and for identifying what makes humans distinct animals. A basic initial claim of JUST is that the process of justification is a crucial component of human mental behavior at both the individual and societal level. Unlike all other animals, humans everywhere ask for and give explanations for their actions. Arguments, debates, moral dictates, rationalizations, and excuses all involve the process of explaining why one's claims, thoughts or actions are warranted. In virtually every form of social exchange, from warfare to politics to family struggles to science, humans are constantly justifying their behavioral investments to themselves and others.
JUST consists of three key postulates:
- The first is that the evolution of propositional language must have created the problem of justification, which involves three interlocking problems of deciphering what is (1) analytically true and what is (2) good for the group and (3) good for the individual.
- The second postulate is that the structure and functional design of human consciousness can be understood as a solution to the problem of justification. Specifically, the three domains of human consciousness that Henriques identifies in the Updated Tripartite Model of the (1) experiential; (2) private narrator; and (3) public narrator are directly consistent with adaptive pressures that arise from the logic of the problem of justification. This analysis deepens when one considers the dynamic relationships and filtering that takes place between these three domains.
- The third postulate is that culture can be understood as large scale justification systems that coordinate the behavior of human populations. Cultural systems are seen to evolve much in the same way as organisms do in biological evolution: there is a process of variation, selection and retention of belief systems."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_knowledge_system)
More information
- Explanation by Gregg Henriques via http://www.gregghenriques.com/uploads/2/4/3/6/24368778/henriques_ppihk__1_.pdf