Hi Folks,

 

  I had an exchange with Forrest Landry over on Alexander Bard’s list that I thought I would share (with his permission)…He and Bard were having a back and forth and it started when I chimed in:

 

>>> 

Hi IDW,

 

I enjoyed this first episode of Forrest on Jim Rutt.

 

At some point, it would be good to compare notes between Immanent Metaphysics and UTOK (e.g., see here)…

 

UTOK starts with a metaphysical empirical dialectic that sounded very similar to the first moves that Forrest made in his opening with Jim. I then define the dialectic such that metaphysics refers to the concepts and categories one uses to frame knowledge and reality, and then I emphasized the need for a “descriptive metaphysics” which ties it to the empirical world. This is the world of observation, which starts with first person perception. It then moves to the concept of science, which is framed by the Tree of Knowledge as the position of a “generalizable observer of behavior from the third person vantage point”. As such, UTOK webs reality/observer, known/knower, perceived/perceiver into relations of perceiving in a way that sounded quite congruent with Forrest’s position.  

 

Best,
Gregg

>>> 

Forrest replied

Gregg,

 

> ... a “descriptive metaphysics"

> refers to the concepts and categories

> one uses to frame knowledge and reality as the empirical world, the

> world of observation, which starts with first person perception, and

> then moves to the concept of science, as a third person structure of

> knowledge.

 

In that framing, I have been spending more time recently in consideration of 2nd person process; ie; community, communication, etc, as maybe a basis for large project governance, etc.  That has been my more recent focus, these last few years.

 

There is, of course, no single one right direction to express curiosity and enthusiasm.

Though to openly express agreement is to take a social risk :)

 

> Perhaps we can compare the IM and UTOK?

 

We might be asking somewhat different questions, in what motivates the ideas of these 'systems'.

In that sense, they may simply be coexisting.

I can at least see that we cover a lot of similar ground, and in seemingly similar ways.

To get closer to essence, I would ask you:

what questions are the questions that,

in asking them, led you to the UTOK?

 

What are questions that the system

was designed to answer, that others

would also find to be especially

meaningful questions and answers?

>>>
Forrest,

 

The questions that led me down to the path that would become UTOK started with psychotherapy, and evolved from there into psychology and then, ultimately, philosophy.

 

Here is a brief narrative:

 

When I was in graduate school in the mid-1990s, I wanted a coherent and comprehensive frame from which to ground my practice as an emerging psychological doctor. Put in the form of a question, I essentially asked: What structures and forms of knowledge and wisdom should ground a psychological doctor in assessing psychopathology and treating psychological suffering?

 

That led to the observation both that (a) there were many different approaches to this question that had been developed, and (b) there was no clear way to choose which one was the best, and (c) it seemed that the best of the best across the different schools of thought were the ones I wanted to follow.

 

That led to the question:

What is the best objective frame that should ground my knowledge and coordinate across the key insights from the various schools of thought?

 

That oriented me to what, in retrospect, was a naïve answer. The answer I began with was as follows: Just as medical doctors are grounded in human biology and engineers are grounded in physics, the knowledge systems that ground practice of psychotherapy should be grounded in the science of human psychology.

 

So I started to try to move forward in that direction, meaning that I was looking for a proper way to frame the science of psychology as a whole and use that to frame my knowledge in practice. However, what happened is that I (rediscovered) what is called "the crisis" in psychological science. The crisis in psychological science is the fact that no one knows what the fuck the science of psychology is about. I can elaborate on this if you would like, it has been known in the field for more than 100 years. The short summary of the crisis is that there is deep disagreement about what "behavior and mental processes" refer to in the world. What academic psychological science does agree upon is that it applies the methods of science...but there is no agreement about the ontology of its subject matter. I have rechristened the crisis "the problem of psychology" and I am professionally haunted by it and have been railing about this for some time (see, e.g., https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/202008/crucial-overlooked-scientific-problem-is-lying-in-plain-sight)

 

That resulted in my becoming obsessed with the problem of psychology, which relates to the questions: Why is defining the science of psychology so hard?; Why has everyone failed at it?; Why is the crisis this well-documented in the theoretical and historical literature and yet the institution ignores it, hides it and pretends it is not a diagnostic of a major problem in our knowledge systems?

 

I should say that this set of questions emerged in parallel with a new vision for solving the problem, which I have been writing about in the professional literature for almost 20 years. That is the Tree of Knowledge System (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AdwSuZgsF4cINKN264SNXi-xwFBV1pvR/view), which gives a new map of scientific knowledge about reality such that it can solve the problem of psychology (i.e., it gives a descriptive metaphysics that clarifies the ontology of the mental in accordance with the language game/rules of science and enables a metatheoretical synthesis of the major schools of thought).

 

As far as the answers to these questions that my system has generated such that other systems might find of interest, I will punt on that for now, so as not to get too deep in the weeds. Perhaps you can see how the description above lands and then see if that sparks interest from where you are and the kinds of questions you have been grappling within IM.

 

Regards,

Gregg

>>> 

Dear Gregg,

 

Thank you for that lucid description.

 

For my own part, the question

is somewhat parallel: Given the detail

and sophistication of technique that

can be found in the fields of engineering (math and science), could a similar depth of specific discipline and methodological clarity be applied to more seemingly subjective phenomena?  If so, what would that look like?  What would it enable?

 

This led me to really explore the deep

conceptual foundations of physics,

particularly in terms of how some concepts are defined in terms of others, what these sorts of assumptions, in inter-term dependencies, might indicate, and how the information in these sorts of structural relations between concepts could help inform what would be needed to bring similar clarity into topics much less fully known.

This was, basically 'mainlining direct'

into ontology and epistemology.

So I called it "metaphysics",

in keeping with tradition --

(though I have often wondered if I

needed a better marketing pitch).

 

Eventually, with the help of some custom semantic processing engines and found collections of huge numbers of really high quality papers, documents, essays, etc, on all sorts of topics, I was able to start to do some types of empirical experiments to see what patterns might emerge, when going from descriptive to prescriptive definitions, etc.  It happens that I was a software engineer and the timing was good in that the documents I was able to get were made abundantly available by bulletin boards, Dec Net, etc, in the mid 90's.  The signal to noise ratio was excellent!

 

In any case, it became possible,

eventually, to put together a kind

of toolkit for processing a 'concept

calculus', defined in terms of powers

of reification, such that convergent

dynamics could be created to/towards

enduring fixed point invariant patterns, using the entire field of documents as the probe basis.  Eventually, this created the Axioms.

Running all of this took about 10 years.

Grueling lonely work -- would not wish it on anyone.

 

The NR Ethics, the ICT theorem,

the many definitions, process descriptions, etc, all were 'side effects' -- I was not expecting any of that.

It is these latter aspects

that make it possible to apply this work to x-risk and civ design, and so my attention has moved largely to that.

 

The original project was effectively done -- the question answered, by 1999.

If I remember correctly, at that

point, the overall project cost,

from start to finish, was appx 1.2M

(and all from non-public sources too,

fortunately).  I did not start new

work on this foundation until about 2010, and I would not say that new interesting results started appearing until about

4 years ago.  There is a lot still to do to document all of this.

Will take time.

 

Forrest

 

~ ~ ~

Thank you, Forrest. That was a great summary.

 

I would love to discuss this with you at some point. Maybe you would be willing to join me for a UTOKing with Gregg episode (https://www.unifiedtheoryofknowledge.org/content/utoking-with-gregg-podcast) sometime in Sept or Oct or Nov?

 

A couple of bulleted replies to your reply...

 

A deep dive into subjectivity is something that is desperately needed in the West in the post Enlightenment era.

 

Also, as suggested by my narrative, I believe the science of psychology, at least in the US, is completely confused about ontology and epistemology, and as I noted, I ended up building a "descriptive metaphysical system" to frame the concepts and categories, which included the proper relation between science and subject. So, deep parallels there. And, ala your comment about marketing, metaphysics is almost completely absent in psychology and many have the Jim Rutt "reach for my pistol" reaction, so I can empathize there. That is why I add "descriptive" and "system" to help folks get oriented and highlight that clarity about concepts, categories and foundational assumptions is always necessary for right thinking.

 

My "transformation" was in the mid1990s, so another seeming parallel.

 

I really want to understand your system. It is not a super easy language system to grok, as I am sure you are aware. But I am getting there. I am finding the Jim Rutt podcasts helpful. I have read aspects of your work. However, perhaps it is the clinician in me, but for comprehension, I generally do better with narrative than axiomatic analytics. So, I deeply appreciate this narrative.

 

I too relate deeply to the "lonely work" dynamic. For me, developing this system has definitely been something of a mindfuck. When I first developed it, I tried to hide it because I thought it was so obviously revolutionary and easy to see that other people would steal it. Then I realized I could not even give it away. Deep systemic work by one's self is weird, tough and lonely. 

 

Re the development and production of UTOK in stages, since I was stoned one night in 1997 when the Tree of Knowledge popped out of me, I have been on a relatively productive journey of accumulating knowledge and wisdom into a coherent, comprehensive consilient vision of understanding. However, there definitely have been phases. The first was nailing down how the Tree of Knowledge framed the science of psychology. Interestingly, and another parallel, that actually started with a deep dive into quantum field theory and general relativity, from 1999-2002. The reason was I was placing the complex human knower in relation an "Energy Information Field" and continuum. But, since I did not speak advanced math, all of that was for me, in that I needed to be clear about physical onto-epistemological understanding of the ontic. (Although I do think I made some key discoveries regarding the metaphysics of measurement, observation, and knowing that afford a clearer frame for the conceptual alignment of quantum field theory and general relativity). My focus shifted explicitly to generate a metatheoretical framing of psychology in the latter part of 2001, which resulted in the first paper on the system in 2003, which I showed how the ToK System could provide a clear vision logic for the science of psychology. That grew into "the unified theory of psychology." I also got a job at JMU as a professor and directed a training program on psychological doctors. So, I had to attend to the practice dimension and create a social ecology and community of practitioners that worked. I completed the "unified theory of psychology" project in 2011, with the book, A New Unified Theory of Psychology. Then, from 2011-2016, I returned to my original question worked out the "unified approach to psychotherapy," focusing centrally on adults with internalizing conditions (i.e., neurotic problems of low self-esteem, relationship difficulties, anxiety and depression, which is the bulk of what psychotherapy deals with). As such, I had completed the theory, research, practice and training culture for this new approach to the science and practice of psychology. However, I was noticing that, although my stuff was somewhat known in the field, it was rarely sighted, and was not really being picked up. That is, it had no "generator function" for growth and replication, which was definitely disappointing.

 

In 2016, I was at an interdisciplinary conference on transformational learning on how we might "cultivate a globally sustainable self". Although many of the presenters were smart, good people who had done important things, there was a paucity of truth depth of understanding regarding what science was, what the self was, what transformation was about, what was the current socio-technological context, etc. I then had a new flash of insight at the concluding panel discussion, where I thought to myself, we should "plant UTUA seeds and grow UTUA trees." UT was the unified theory of psychology, UA the unified approach to psychotherapy, and I had just started to yoke them together to call it the "UTUA Framework." It was this lightbulb of planting seeds and growing trees at this conference that then caused the idea of the Garden to bloom (https://www.unifiedtheoryofknowledge.org/content/unified-theory-as-a-garden). The Garden ended up launching me further out into the stratosphere of acceptable thought in the academy.

 

Also, in 2017, I stepped down from directing the program so I could do more scholarship. Well, that resulted in a cultural shift in the program, such that it dramatically lurched into wokism (of course, that was not just my program, but the culture at large, given Trump, Peterson, #MeToo, Brexit, etc). From 2018-2019, I got into several intense "fights" with my program. That conflict and my ensuing alienation ended up launching me into the intellectual dark-deep web, and the metamodern, Game B world, etc. Of course, as folks on this list know, it is here, rather than in the academy, that we find the true leading edge of thought (although sometimes the rhetoric on this list is a bit extreme about the death of the academy and the stupidity or ignorance of professors 😊). Over the past several years, the system has grown into the Unified Theory Of Knowledge (UTOK). I have seen just how deep the knowledge-into-wisdom problems are, just how radical the system I built is, and just how much work needs to be done "from the outside" of the academy to set the stage for the proper mode of transformation in this time between worlds. I have framed modernity's systems of knowledge and wisdom in terms of an Enlightenment Gap, such that there is no clear synthetic philosophy that affords us the proper relations between (a) matter and mind and (b) science and society. The UTOK is situated to fill/resolve/dissolve the Gap and afford a consilient frame of understanding and connect with other systems toward an Enlightenment 2.0 (Bard is leading the Dark Renaissance in parallel). As such, it does seem to have strong parallels with IM. I am very happy about this turn in my work and jolting myself outside the traditional confines of academic inertia, as it has been great seeing all the cool work being done and connecting with all the cool people doing it.

 

Best,

G 

 

 

 

___________________________________________

Gregg Henriques, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Graduate Psychology
216 Johnston Hall
MSC 7401
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, VA 22807
(540) 568-7857 (phone)
(540) 568-4747 (fax)

Be that which enhances dignity and well-being with integrity.

Check out the Unified Theory Of Knowledge homepage at:

https://www.unifiedtheoryofknowledge.org/