"True science is that which focuses on the general and universal" (Aristotle).
"The primary archetypes must be the guide of all science and the unifying principle of all sciences (Wolfgang Pauli).
The Universal Science
The concept
Universal science is a hypothetical science that is the foundation of all other particular sciences. It is not an integration of knowledge (like an encyclopedia), but a unification, that is, a science capable of providing a global, universal or absolute paradigm, such that a given science is a particularization of that universal science. Other names of the hypothetical universal science are also; primary science (the others would be secondary), fundamental science, common science, general science, total science and unified science. It is also called metascience (science of sciences), a higher order, transdisciplinary science.
Before the advent of the term "scientific," the word "science" meant simply "knowledge." In Latin, "scientia" means "knowledge". The term "scientist" was first used in 1833 by William Whewell during a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. And the word "consciousness" means "to know together."
The problem of the unity of science is intimately connected with the problem of understanding the unity of mind and nature.
Strategies
There has been a long historical controversy about the conception of universal science. In this regard, different strategies are used:
Choosing one of the existing sciences as the most fundamental, from which all the others would derive.
To abstract from all existing sciences the nucleus or essence common to all of them.
To create a new science based on new principles, sufficiently general, abstract or universal, from which to derive the particular sciences. It would be a transdisciplinary or transcendental science.
In the latter case, this new science must fulfill the following conditions:
It must be based on some first or primitive principles or concepts, simple, independent of each other, and of the highest possible level of abstraction, so that it constitutes the essential nucleus of all the particular sciences.
It must be supported by a language, also universal, whose semantics (lexical and structural) is precisely those first concepts. Since the concepts are simple, the language must also necessarily be of the utmost simplicity. According to Leibniz, universal science should be based on an ideal universal language.
It should ground the sciences of the external world and the internal (mental) world and even transcend reality to include the possible and imaginary worlds.
The Alternatives or Candidates to Universal Science
Within the first strategy of searching for universal science, several candidate sciences have been suggested throughout history. The most important are the following:
Philosophy
Philosophy is the search for the quintessence of reality, the common place where the synthesis, the integration of theories and results of the sciences is realized. Philosophy seeks self-enlightenment, the ultimate universal knowledge, all the truths of the world. For this, philosophy seeks the essential concepts that allow to achieve an understanding of the totality.
Philosophy is also conceived as a meta-science or a theory of the sciences, a theory of knowledge or a logic.
For the ancient Greeks, science and philosophy were the same thing, for the "love of wisdom" was directly related to the universal and transcendental. According to Descartes, philosophy is the essential science, and that he reflected in "Meditations" on the first philosophy. For Husserl [1985], philosophy is the universal science, the science of totality, the science of all that exists: "The task that the philosopher proposes to himself as philosopher consists in reaching a universal science of the world, a definitive universal knowledge, a totality of truths in itself about the world, about the world in itself". According to Ortega y Gasset, philosophy is associated with the universal, for "philosophy is the knowledge of the universe and of everything in it".
For Heidegger, philosophy transcends the positive sciences (such as physics or biology) which, once their principles and mechanisms are understood, can begin to be applied to obtain results, since it is a "thought about thought", where there are no results.
In turn, within philosophy, 4 fields are pointed out:
Platonism.
According to Plato's famous doctrine, there is the world of Ideas, a perfect, transcendental, ordered and ideal superior realm, of pure forms, located beyond the physical, and whose projection, reflection or particularization would be the different levels of creation, including the human mind.
Philosophy acquires with Plato the character of universal science, since it embraces the internal and the external world. The Ideas are the universal concepts that underlie both worlds. The Ideas constitute the real, the absolute, the permanent, the universal, the unified, the abstract. In the Ideas resides the truth and true knowledge.
Aristotle asserted that knowledge derives from experience and observation. Plato was based on the superior, on the ideal, intuitive and abstract. Aristotle relied on the material world, on the rational and concrete.
Metaphysics.
For many philosophers, metaphysics is the universal science, or universal science is a branch of metaphysics, for several reasons:
Because metaphysics is, from its origins, the fundamental form of philosophizing, which consists in transcending reality by means of an ascending process from the particular, sensible and changing to the universal, suprasensible and permanent.
Because metaphysics seeks the essence, the ultimate nature, the foundation of all that exists. This essence (or essential being) is what unifies the manifold phenomenal reality.
Because all sciences, at a deep or transcendental level, raise questions that exceed their competence and we must necessarily turn to the higher realm of the metaphysical.
For Aristotle, metaphysics is "the theoretical science of first principles and first causes", from which knowledge is developed and founded. It is a "free" science, not subject to restrictions, the science of truth, the science of the gods. In this sense, Platonism is a kind of metaphysics.
According to Aristotle, metaphysics is "first philosophy" because it considers the entity in its most universal sense as the foundation of the other sciences, which are "second philosophy." Aristotle is considered the father of metaphysics. He wrote 14 books on the subject. In Metaphysics VI, he states that if there were no entities other than physical ones, physics would be the first science, but if there were any immobile entity, it would be prior, so it would be first philosophy.
Universal science is for Aristotle the science formed by the common element of all of them, which is Being, the foundation of everything. Therefore, universal science is identified with metaphysics.
For Aristotle, the sciences form 3 blocks in ascending order: 1) the political and artistic sciences; 2) the practical sciences (those relating to behavior); 3) the theoretical sciences (physics, mathematics and metaphysics), which are the sciences relating to knowledge, corresponding to three degrees of abstraction: respectively, the science of nature, formal science and the science of the "immaterial".
According to Kant, metaphysics is "pure" philosophy, the universal science that grounds everything, and "applied" philosophies are the particular sciences.
From the 17th century onwards, the term "ontology" began to be used instead of "metaphysics". With the change of name, its conceptualization was also changed. For Aristotle, metaphysics could be cognizable and was open to experimentation. Instead, ontology appears as something transcendental, beyond sensible experience, which can only be intuited.
Nicolai Hartmann turned ontology into a unifying discipline [see Comparisons - MENTAL vs. Nicolai Hartmann's Universalist Ontology].
Husserl's transcendental phenomenology.
The word "phenomenology" literally means "study or theory of appearance". This term was invented by the German scientist Johann Heinrich Lambert (the one who proved that number is irrational), but it acquired a special meaning with Husserl.
Phenomenology has its origins in the ideas of Franz Brentano (Husserl's teacher). In his work "Psychology from the Empirical Point of View" (1874) he argued that psychology should be based on a clear distinction between physical and mental phenomena, and that this distinction should be based on "the intentionality of the mental": every act of the mind is directed towards an object. For example, if I think, I think of something; if I desire, I desire something, and so on. Physical phenomena do not show this kind of intentionality.
Husserl developed Brentano's idea of intentionality by stating that intentionality is the distinguishing characteristic of consciousness and that "consciousness is always consciousness of something." For Husserl, phenomenology is the universal science, it is a scientific philosophy that should serve as a method for the other sciences.
In his work "Ideas" (1913) he focuses on the ideal and essential structures of the state of consciousness, trying to exclude any hypothesis about the existence of external objects. For this purpose, he introduced the method of "phenomenological reduction" (or "eidetic reduction"), based on the reflection that external phenomena produce on the internal level, in our consciousness. Transcendental phenomenology is the study of the essential structures of consciousness, the basic internal, uninterpreted experience. It is not a science about facts or natural realities, but a "science of essences" or "eidetic science", which aims to reach essential knowledge. All the experiences of the real world are transcended or reduced to their essence. It is these unrealities that phenomenology studies. But this does not imply the disappearance of the real world, but rather that things are mere phenomena and pass into the background.
In the transcendental reduction, the only thing that remains is the "I." For Husserl this is a Copernican revolution: from objectivism to transcendental subjectivism. The world of things is relative. The self is absolute, irreducible and apodictic (necessarily valid), the only firm basis for constructing universal science.
For Husserl there is a parallel between "pure psychology" and phenomenology. A pure psychology, which considers only the intentional essence proper to the psyche, corresponds to an eidetics and a transcendental philosophy. And vice versa.
Husserl tried to ground arithmetic in psychology. He wrote "On the Concept of Number" (his doctoral dissertation, 1877) and on "Philosophy of Arithmetic" (1891). In his masterpiece "Logical Investigations" (1900) he rejected any kind of psychologism.
Zubiri was of the opinion that the renewal of philosophy should pass through the phenomenological study of consciousness. Being is the foundation of consciousness. The principle of all principles is consciousness.
Dialectics.
Dialectics is a philosophical doctrine that studies the confrontation or contradiction between opposites and how to overcome them, unite them, synthesize them, harmonize them and transcend them from a higher perspective to reach the truth. This process is of an ascending, generalizing type, towards a higher consciousness, since it is the synthesis of opposites that produces consciousness. In this sense, dialectics is considered the universal science or meta-science.
According to Plato, dialectic is the nucleus from which the theory of knowledge and the theory of being, the theories of the internal and external world are derived. Plato turned dialectic into a universal method of attaining truth.
For Hegel, reality is dialectical. Only that which contains a contradiction evolves.
For Engels, dialectics is the science of universal interconnection.
Hermeneutics
Hermeneutics, in its generic sense, is the art or science of interpreting the whole of reality as if it were a text to be deciphered: natural phenomena, social facts, human experience, etc. For hermeneutics, to know is to interpret; we understand something by interpreting it. Interpretation implies understanding and excludes description and scientific explanation. Interpretation is universal. Man is, above all, an interpreter whose aim is the whole of reality.
But understanding has a circular structure. It is the "hermeneutic circle", the movement that goes from the part to the whole and the whole to the part. The reading of the parts of a text (real or metaphorical) illuminates the understanding of the whole, and the vision of the whole contributes to a better knowledge of the parts.
Hermeneutics, like analytic philosophy, has a concern with language.
Hermeneutics conceives philosophizing as a transcendental reflection. Philosophy is a universal hermeneutics, so that in the end one can identify hermeneutics with philosophy. But this identification is not without its difficulties. For the aim of philosophy is to find absolute truth. And in hermeneutics, truth is relative, because every act of understanding is linked to its cultural and historical context. Interpretation is a changing and infinite process.
H.G. Gadamer is the great renewer of modern hermeneutics:
There is a unity of thought and language, word and thing, language and being.
Language embraces everything. Everything is referenced by language.
Language is not an instrument of thought, but is the language of things.
Language is not a means or a tool to communicate thoughts, but it is the medium in which the understanding and experience of the world takes place.
Knowledge of the world and of ourselves always involves language.
Language is an enveloping realm.
We interpret the world linguistically.
Thinking is also a linguistic act.
Language is the expression of being and of reality, since all reality is constituted linguistically.
Language has a speculative character. Language is like a mirror that reflects the world. But it is not a duplicate; the image is linked to the appearance of the original through the observer.
Positive science (positivism)
For Aguste Comte, everything must be approached from a positive scientific perspective, positivism, based on the empirical observation of all phenomena (natural and social) in order to discover universal laws that explain them. For Comte, the sciences form a hierarchy, a pyramid that goes from the most complex, important and general (at the apex) to the simplest, least important and particular at the base, so that each level depends on the higher level. At the base is mathematics (which he considered a mere logical tool), followed by mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology and, at the top of the pyramid, sociology.
sociology. Comte believed that this science could provide the answers to the problems of man and society, even considering it as a kind of new secular religion.
Comte's pyramid
Comte, along with John Stuart Mill, is the founder of positivism, a philosophical school that affirms that the only authentic knowledge is that obtained through the scientific method, based on the analysis of facts verified by experience.
One of the objects of scientific study is the human being himself, both individually and collectively, a conclusion drawn from the experience of the French Revolution.
In 1911, the Society for Positivist Philosophy published a manifesto signed among others by Einstein, Freud, Hilbert, Felix Klein and Josef Popper, in which it stated: 1) the imperative need to elaborate a worldview based on "facts" compiled from different sciences; 2) to establish links between all sciences; 3) to develop unifying ideas of reality.
The doctrine that science (or scientific activity) comes first is called "naturalism". And that philosophy has no privilege over science.
Comte's positivism was an antecedent of the neopositivist school of the famous Vienna Circle.
Neopositivism (logical positivism)
Also called logical empiricism, radical empiricism, and neo-empiricism. Founded by Moritz Schlick in Vienna in 1922, its aims and principles were as follows:
An exclusively scientific view, formalization and explanation of the world. In fact, its original name was "Vienna Circle for the Scientific Explanation of the World". In the year 1929, the Vienna Circle published a programmatic manifesto entitled "The Scientific Worldview."
Complete rejection of any metaphysical, theological or speculative tendency, as being based on ambiguous and experimentally unverifiable concepts. Any non-empirical question is meaningless. The only legitimate interpretation of the world is the scientific one. "Philosophy is to be replaced by the logic of science" (Carnap).
For a statement to make sense it must be verifiable by physical experience. Truth is that which can be verified experimentally. Knowledge is meaning, and meaning is verification. The limits of the knowable are those of verification. It is the so-called "verificationism".
Truth is the correspondence between propositions and facts, as defended by Aristotle and classical positivism. There must be isomorphism between theory and practice, between meaning and verification.
Elaboration of a common language of all sciences. A perfect, ideal, rigorous, logical and unequivocal formal language to describe reality. In fact, the adjective "logical" was added to "positivism" to indicate that mechanisms of rigor and precision should be included in knowledge, thus excluding meaningless propositions. In this language, the meaning of a proposition should be the method or criterion of verification. There must be correspondence between language and knowledge. Wittgenstein's Tractatus, inspirer of the Vienna Circle, advocated a logically perfect language in which "the meaning of each term is its method of verification".
We must move towards the unity of science, a goal justified by faith in the potential of logical analysis and empirical investigation. This unity of science must be realized by reducing everything observable to a language of a physicalist type (employing terms that refer to physical reality or are translatable into such terms), seeking the nucleus common to all the positive sciences. Language is the key to scientific knowledge. In 1936, Otto Neurath founded the "Unity of Science Institute".
In 1939, Rudolf Carnap, Otto Neurath and Charles Morris began publishing the "International Encyclopedia of Unified Science". The encyclopedia was based on the physicalist theory of Neurath, its main promoter, who advocated that all sciences should be based on physics. The function of the encyclopedia was: 1) to bring together the collective scientific knowledge; 2) to highlight interdisciplinary connections; 3) to serve as a dissemination to the entire scientific community. Neurath's death and World War II interrupted the publication of the work. Twenty-six volumes were planned, of which only two were published [Neurath, 1937].
Philosophy must play an auxiliary role, only in charge of distinguishing between what is and what is not scientific. Philosophy should not be a theory, but an activity: the logical classification of concepts, propositions and proposed theories of empirical science.
Rejection of any a priori or dogmatic element or concept, in the constitution of knowledge. Knowledge must be constructed from the bottom up, from the particular to the general, from facts to laws, from the concrete to the abstract, from the practical to the theoretical, by means of abstractions and generalizations.
Mathematics, like logic, is totally meaningless because it does not refer to the real world. Mathematics is simply syntactic. Wittgenstein, inspirer of the Vienna Circle with his famous Tractatus, said that "Mathematics is syntax". In mathematics, what is true is equivalent to what is provable, that is, relative to the rules established in a formal system.
Outside the limits of language there is nothing at all. For Wittgenstein, language determines the limits of the world, but outside language resided the most important thing: the mystical, the inexpressible. In this sense, Wittgenstein was not an orthodox logical positivist, even if the Vienna Circle thought so.
There are only two legitimate strategies for testing the truth of a proposition:
The purely formal justification, valid in the formal sciences (logic and mathematics). To prove a logical or mathematical proposition it is not necessary to resort to experience, it is sufficient that it conforms to the laws of logic or mathematics.
The empirical justification for properties that refer to the real world.
Rudolf Carnap, one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Circle, in "Der logische Aufbau der Welt" (The Logical Structure of the World, 1922-1925) initially set out to construct a logical system of objects and concepts, such that all concepts were derived from a fundamental core of primitive ideas. This was Carnap's first major work, but he later opted for physicalism: one can only speak of the unity of the language of science if all scientific (empirical) terms refer to observable physical objects, properties or relations, or can be reduced to them by explicit or conditional functions. The unity of science must be realized through physics. A necessary, but not sufficient, condition for achieving this unity is to have a unified language.
Physics
According to authors who defend the principle of ascending causality, physics is the universal and fundamental science from which all other sciences emerge, including biology, psychology and sociology, i.e., the phenomena of life, society and mind. This is the materialist or physicalist position. For the ancient Greeks (Leucippus and Democritus), the ultimate reality is constituted by atoms (indivisible elements), where the different groupings of atoms are the cause of the diversity of the world.
Paul Oppenheim and Hilary Putnam [1958] claim that one day all sciences will be reduced to one, and that science can be described by a single scientific language. According to their "working hypothesis", the different sciences can be arranged hierarchically in 6 levels (see figure), where each level includes the higher ones. Fundamental particles constitute the fundamental level. The highest level is that of the social sciences.
The Oppenheim-Putnam pyramid
Oppenheim and Putnam's article has been attacked by Fodor [1974].
For Jean Piaget [1975], the sciences can be arranged in a cyclical fashion, where physics would be the base, followed by chemistry, biology, psychology, logic-mathematics, and again physics
Currently, modern physics seeks what is called "a theory of everything". although it does not really include "everything", since it does not include the inner world, the world of the mind. According to physicist Steven Weinberg, in his book "The Dream of a Final Theory" [2004], the goal of physics is a theory from which to derive any knowledge concerning the universe, but he recognizes that the problem of consciousness transcends physical laws.
It is also stated that quantum physics is the universal science, since it is the basis of reality.
Mathematics
Universal science should be, logically, abstract, so that theoretically it could be identified with mathematics or should include it. And the language of universal science would be either mathematical language itself or a "language of languages" (or metalanguage), capable of generating the languages necessary to describe particular domains, including mathematics. According to Gauss, "mathematics is the queen of the sciences".
Mathematical Platonism is based on the assumption that the divine, superior, ideal and perfect order is also reflected in the human mind in the form of mathematical ideas. Thus, mathematics would be the universal key to knowledge. Mathematical Platonism was revived in the 15th century with the publication of "Theologia Platonica", by Marsilio Ficino.
For Platonist mathematicians, mathematics illuminates the world with its truth and allows the unification of all sciences. Any object of study is finally reduced to mathematics.
For Reuben Hersch [1999], mathematics comes first, then philosophy.
Penelope Maddy [2007] proposes a radical naturalism: extending naturalism to the field of mathematics and denying natural science the privileged place granted by positivism. Mathematics is a fallible and correctable part of science. This radical and austere naturalism he calls "Second Philosophy", based on doing, on observations and experimentation, elaborating theories and improving methods.
For Max Tegmark, mathematics is the only thing that exists and that the universe is a mathematical structure.
Logic
The term "logic" was coined by Zenon of Citium. For Aristotle, logic is an instrument for the study of the sciences and not a science in itself. The Stoics were the first to consider it the "science of the Logos," rather than a mere propaedeutic of the sciences, as Aristotle considered it.
For Ramon Llull and for Leiniz, logic is the science of the sciences (scientia scientiarum).
Thomas Hobbes in his 1655 work "Computation, Sive, Logica" states that logic is reasoning or calculating.
For the neo-Kantian formalists or rationalists (anti-psychologists), logic is the discipline that was to found mathematics and the empirical sciences. Logic is a pure, formal, atemporal, a priori, atemporal and aerospatial discipline, so it should also constitute an a priori foundation.
Logic was born as a branch of philosophy, but is nowadays integrated at the formal level in mathematics. But its philosophical character has continued to be maintained.
In principle, mathematics needs logic, mathematics does not work without logic. But logic does not need mathematics, for it is only one field of application. In this sense, logic could be more universal than mathematics.
Hilbert regarded logic as a subset of mathematics.
For Russell, logic is the universal science. He firmly believed that logic (or logical language) is the key to understanding the world and the philosopher's main tool, and also that mathematical language is a subset of logical language. Russell thought that in the long run one could reduce mathematics, science and philosophy to formal symbolic logic. Russell remained convinced to the end of his life of the omnipotence of logic and that logic was sufficient to solve all the problems of mankind.
Willard van Orman Quine argued that first-order logic was the language of science. But this does not hold for several reasons:
Many important concepts in mathematics are not expressible with this type of logic. For example, the concepts of infinity and infinitesimal.
Operations and functions are very difficult to implement.
It does not support recursion and parameterization.
First-order logic is bounded by Gödel's incompleteness theorem.
It is restrictive, not very generic, since it does not allow higher order predicates or other types of quantifiers.
Computer Science
The idea that computer science, the science based on information and computation, can be the foundation of the universe-and thus constitute a universal science-has its origins in pioneers Konrad Zuse and Edward Fredkin and, modernly, Stephen Wolfram.
Konrad Zuse-the first to build a general-purpose computer (between the years 1935 and 1941)-published a paper in 1967 and later [1969] a book (Calculating Space) in which he stated:
All physical processes and laws of nature can be considered discrete computations.
The universe is a computer. More precisely, the universe is the result of a discrete computational process running on a giant cellular automaton of deterministic type.
A cellular automaton is a discrete computational system consisting of a grid of one or more dimensions, made up of cells, where each cell has a state within a finite set of states (e.g., black or white), and a finite set of local rules that establish the evolution of the system in (discrete) time, such that the state of each cell in time < i>t+1 is a function of the state at time t of the neighboring cells.
Edward Fredkin is the most representative author and enthusiastic proponent of the theory of physics based on information and information processing. In the 1980s he proposed:
We should not think of ultimate reality as particles and forces, but as units of information (bits) that are modified according to computational rules.
"The universe is literally a computer being used by someone or something to solve a problem."
According to David Deutsch [1999], there is a universal, abstract computer whose repertoire of computations is limited to the processes that nature can perform.
Stephen Wolfram argues that current formal mathematics (the one limited by Gödel's theorem) is not at all the most adequate framework for understanding the physical world, since science has had great difficulty in modeling many phenomena with differential equations, such as fluid mechanics. In his work "A New Kind of Science" [2002] he proposes to give up mathematics and turn to Computer Science, and in particular to cellular automata, to model the physical world by means of a programming language.
This is justified for the following reasons:
Very simple computer programs can produce extraordinarily complex results.
The universe itself could be generated by a computer program simple enough to be expressed in a few lines of code. "If the laws are simple enough, and we find the right way, we will see them."
Computer science provides a new vision of phenomena, with more practical, simple techniques and immediate results. "The algorithm is more powerful than the equation." [see Union of Opposites - MENTAL, a Simple Language Foundation of Complexity].
Cybernetics
Some authors consider cybernetics to be the universal science, since cybernetic systems and principles are found in all areas of knowledge: mathematics, computer science, logic, artificial intelligence, general systems theory, neuroscience, biology, psychology, sociology, cognitive science, anthropology and philosophy. They even consider that some of these disciplines are actually branches of cybernetics. Of all these disciplines, general systems theory is the one most closely linked to cybernetics, to such an extent that many authors consider these two disciplines to be inseparable.
The principles of cybernetics are so general that this science has potentially universal application, having contributed greatly to improving our understanding of reality. They can be applied to understand, model and design systems of any kind: animate (living beings) and non-animate (automatic systems) systems, economics, psychology, physical and social systems, etc.
Norbert Wiener, the founder of cybernetics, was a strong advocate of the application of cybernetics to the social sciences. He was convinced that human, animal and machine behavior could be explained by applying the principles of cybernetics.
Cybernetics showed that the barriers between different disciplines could be overcome because there were many analogies and similarities at the abstract level. Seemingly distant sciences such as mathematics, biology and electronics could be viewed together from the superior perspective of cybernetics.
General Systems Theory
General systems theory (GST), founded around the same time as cybernetics, by Ludwig von Bertalanffy [1993], was an attempt to build a unified science by establishing (or discovering) general or universal principles that govern all systems, both natural and artificial. While cybernetic systems study self-regulating and goal-oriented systems, GST studies all kinds of general systems. Both sciences (cybernetics and GST) can be considered as attempts to create a universal science based on the generic concept of system.
Semiotics
According to Charles Sanders Peirce, the founder of semiotics, this discipline is the science of sciences, since it deals with signs in general, including linguistics and mental processes. In the same sense, Umberto Eco states: "The mind is a semiotic matter" and "Linguistics is a semiotics of verbal language".
According to Peirce, everything that exists is a sign, for the sign has the capacity to be represented and to bring before the mind an idea. Our thoughts are signs. In this sense, semiotics is the most universal study of phenomena, for it provides a general theory of meaning and representation. "Logic, in the broad sense, is but another name for semiotics."
The notion of sign is based on inference, on interpretation, on the dynamics of semiosis, of signification. Thought and communication are processes of semiosis, of signification, expression and interpretation. For semiotics there is no separation between knowledge and communication.
Knowledge is a process of signification that has a triadic structure (the so-called "semiotic triangle"): 1) the object; 2) the sign, which represents some aspect of the object; 3) the interpreter, the original sign in the mind of the interpreter. To interpret a sign is to assign meaning to it. Interpretation is always fallible, since it can be improved, corrected, enriched or rectified. Human thought is a process of interpretation, which is not linear, but a weaving of interwoven signs.
Some authors consider semiotics as the science of non-linguistic signs, and semantics as the science of linguistic signs. In this case, the universal science would be semiology, which includes both semiotics and semantics. The semiotic triangle would be: object, language and subject (or thought).
A "philosophical semiotics" is also called for, a semiotics that establishes the general categories that underlie the different systems of signs.
According to Jacques Derrida, everything is a sign. Signs are omnipresent. It is not possible to escape from the circle of signs, for there is no original to which signs refer, for all signs lead to other signs.
Psychology
For logical empiricists, psychologists, positivists or naturalists, the true foundation of all sciences is empirical psychology, i.e., an a posteriori discipline. To this it must be objected that psychology cannot be a universal science because it focuses on the phenomena of human behavior, which are very diverse, and from which it is not possible (or is very difficult) to elaborate general laws, since the same cause (or the same environment) can produce different effects on different people.
But analytical psychology attempts to search for the deep foundation of psychic phenomena, which lies in archetypes. Universal science must be based on archetypes, which connect the deep (the unmanifested) with the superficial (the manifested). Moreover, archetypes are universal, as they manifest on the physical and psychic level, on the internal and external level. According to Jung, all that exists are expressions of the Unus Mundus manifested through the archetypes.
For James Hillman (as for Hegel), psychology is the supreme discipline, for it deals not only with the psyche of humanity, but with the Soul of the World, the soul that is at the core of all meaning and the soul that manifests itself in all human activity. Psychology cannot be considered a science separate and distinct from literature, art, philosophy, politics, religion, natural science, etc., because all these disciplines arise from the imagination, a faculty of the soul.
Linguistics
Linguistics is the study of language. Many sciences converge in language: logic, psychology, philosophy, cognitive science, etc. It is a privileged point of view of scientific and humanistic reflection.
Language reflects the structure of reality and our conception of the world. Language is everything. Linguistics seeks the universals that are reflected in language.
Language is the foundation of everything. Human beings need language to articulate their understanding and expression of the world. Language surpasses even human existence. Outside language there is no being, there is no world, there is nothing. In language resounds the mute voice of being. "Language is the house of being" (Heidegger).
The science of consciousness
For Descartes, consciousness or thought (res cogitans) supplies a sure source of knowledge, superior to empirical knowledge, since the latter is based on the senses, which are sometimes misleading or unreliable.
Kant revolutionized philosophy by asserting that the universal does not reside in the external world, but resides in our mind, in the internal world. Philosophical categories are the mental frameworks within which perceptions acquire meaning. Philosophical categories are the pure concepts of thought, they are innate and a priori (prior to all experience). Worldview and knowledge is realized through our mental structures, our consciousness. We see the world through the "mental glasses" of categories. The categories have a unifying function and constitute the foundation of the universal.
For Hegel there is an identity between thinking and being, between concept and reality, between nature and spirit, between subject (knower) and object (the known), between external and internal world, between ontology and epistemology. There are three conceptual categories: objective knowledge, subjective knowledge and idea. The idea is the union between both types of knowledge. Kant's categories are epistemological. Hegel's are both ontological and epistemological. Hegel is the great unifier. That unification is completed with: Being is the supreme category (which has no concrete contents), knowledge is totality, the true (that which has meaning) is the whole.
Franz Brentano is considered the founder of the "psychology of consciousness", based on the observation and experience of the phenomena of the mind. His psychological realism (or empiricism) is based on two pillars: 1) consciousness must be described, not analyzed; 2) the phenomena of consciousness are distinguished by their intentionality, i.e., they refer to some object. Brentano tried to make psychology (nascent in his time) an independent discipline and as objective as possible. He had a great influence on the phenomenological philosophy of Huserl and on Gestalt psychology.
Husserl, with his "phenomenology of spirit," represents the culmination of the philosophical tradition that considers consciousness the object of philosophy. His method is based on introspection, on the description and analysis of consciousness in the experimentation of reality.
William James adopts a monistic philosophy, unifying the objective and the subjective in the problem of knowledge. "Pure experience" is the entity that emerges from that union.
The science of consciousness reaches its highest exponent with Maharishi Vedic Science , a science in which two elements converge:
On the one hand, the ancient tradition of the Vedas (the sacred texts of Hinduism), based on the attainment of knowledge through the exploration of consciousness. The word "veda" in Sanskrit means "knowledge".
On the other hand, the spirit of modern science, especially physics, which seeks a unified theory of nature, a "theory of everything" based on the concept of a unified field, a hypothetical field from which all the particular force fields (electromagnetic, gravitational, strong nuclear and weak nuclear) and all the laws of nature relating these fields would emerge.
Maharishi calls "unified field of consciousness," a deep, unmanifested unifying field, the source of all that is manifested (both physically and mentally), the field of all possibilities, the home of all laws of nature, where everything is connected, a timeless, aerospatial, immaterial field.
The ancient creators of Vedic science discovered the ability of the human mind to transcend thoughts and achieve a state of deep, yet conscious mental silence, a state of pure, self-referent, absolute and self-sufficient consciousness. This state is not a theoretical conjecture, but can be directly experienced through meditation. This experience is universal, not bound to any cultural tradition. Glimpses of this experience have been had by philosophers and scientists of all ages, such as Plato, Descartes, Kepler, Einstein, Leibniz, Hegel, Whitehead, etc. Descartes, for example, had as a young man the experience of "penetrating into the very heart of knowledge".
Cognitive science
Cognitive science is a relatively new science (it is considered to have been born in 1956, at the Symposium on Information Theory at MIT), although we should rather speak of an inter-science, that is, a science with an interdisciplinary approach in which six sciences converge in the so-called "cognitive hexagon": linguistics, psychology, neurology, philosophy (philosophy of mind, epistemology and logic), anthropology and artificial intelligence. Its objective is the study of the functioning of the human mind. The union of these six sciences was necessary, since none of them is self-sufficient to study something so complex.
The great impulse that this science received was due to the appearance of the computer and the expectations created by Artificial Intelligence (AI), two in particular:
The possibility of performing epistemological experiments (such as testing cognitive theories and simulating them) with the help of the computer, as an aid in understanding the human mind. It is the so-called "weak AI".
The possibility of building an artificial mind. It is the so-called "strong AI".
Neuroscience
Neuroscience studies the structure and functionality of the nervous system. It is a multidisciplinary field, as it encompasses many aspects or levels of study and research: molecular, cellular (neurons), neural networks, perception, brain (the highest level of the nervous system), behavioral and cognitive.
In fact, neuroscience encompasses many daughter disciplines, all of which are based on the functioning of the nervous system. These are not really new disciplines, though, but traditional disciplines viewed from a neuroscience perspective. Among them are: neuroculture, neurophilosophy, neuroethics, neuroarchitecture, neuroeconomics, neurosociology, neuropsychology, neuroart, neuroaesthetics, neurolinguistics, neurotheology, cognitive neuroscience, etc.
Neuroscience is the ideal discipline for the interconnection between disciplines, according to Francisco José Rubia. According to neurophysiologist Rodolfo Llinás, "neuroscience is the only science that exists; the others are secondary". Allan Schore, a neuropsychoanalyst whose work attempts to synthesize many fields of study, affirms that the frontiers of science are not in the proliferation and extension of scientific subspecialties, but in the communication between the different fields.
Cognitive neuroscience is changing the new way in which the deepest philosophical concepts about who we are are being questioned. The central thesis of neuroscience is: all human thought and behavior resides in the brain; mental activity is brain activity; consciousness is a coordinated and changing pattern of neural activity; the "self" is a particular internal mental state of the brain that is coupled or synchronized with the external world: brain functioning is due to codes that the brain has acquired throughout its evolutionary history; everything that occurs in the human world, objective and subjective, has been elaborated by the brain; the brain functions by conceptualizing, categorizing, classifying, and creating abstractions, patterns, and models of the world that allow predictions to be made; the world we see is a world conceived through brain mechanisms. Postmodern philosophers assert that reality is a constructed and unperceived state.
Knowing how the human brain works should allow us to better understand the products of that functioning, and should therefore facilitate the reunion between the sciences and the humanities. Knowing who we are, our most genuine reality, will allow us to make a qualitative leap at the human level.
But neuroscience is in its infancy, as we are far from knowing how the brain works. "As long as our brain is a mystery, the universe, a reflection of the structure of the brain, will also be a mystery" (Santiago Ramón y Cajal).
Universalist Systems
Outside the more or less conventional disciplines, we find universalist systems, systems of a philosophical type based on some first principles or a priori concepts, but without being concretized in a formal language because these principles were specified in a general, ambiguous or partial way. Among these systems we can mention the following:
The Ars Magna, by Ramon Llull
Llull intended to build a universal science based on universal principles. In his Ars Magna he identifies 9 absolute principles (which he associates with the letters B to K) and a tenth principle (marked A) that represents the divine unity.
The Instauratio Magna, by Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, the ultimate representative of the Enlightenment, believed in the power of science and human progress. He envisioned unified knowledge as the key to improving the human condition. His unification project he called "Instauratio Magna" (Great Instauration or Great Restoration) [1985]. Such unification should be accomplished by the method of induction, i.e., the search for patterns and laws from particular facts (obtained by observation and experimentation) and progressively advance, in a continuous manner, to higher levels of generalization until universal principles are reached. Bacon is considered the founder of the philosophy of science, the "father" of empiricism and the one who laid the foundations of modern thought. His maxim was "All knowledge is my province".
The Instauratio Magna was never completed, but the published parts had a great impact in their time. The first part was intended to present a complete and systematic classification of all the sciences, rejecting all religious speculation. Bacon was a pioneer in making the classification of human knowledge, without considering religion. In the second part (Novum Organum), he exposes his inductive experimental method, replacing the old Aristotelian Organum (deductive logic), a method to restore the lost knowledge of the earthly paradise as a consequence of the original sin, a method in which it was fundamental to dispense with the prejudices and dogmas accepted without verification.
Korzybski's General Semantics
It is a system created by Alfred Korzybski [1995] that is based on scientific (especially physical-mathematical) methods and concepts to evaluate all kinds of problems (including human and social) and to achieve predictable empirical results. Korzybski called his system "General Semantics" (GS) because it deals with the nervous reactions of the human organism considered as a whole to environmental stimuli, because of its general character and because it is based on the meaning or semantics of reality reflected in language.
GS is based on 3 fundamental principles: 1) "A map is not the territory it represents"; 2) "A map does not represent the whole territory"; 3) "A map is self-reflective".
These 3 principles are really metaphorical and really refer to the following: 1) Language (the map) is only a description of reality, it is not reality (the territory); 2) Language (the map) is an incomplete description of reality (the territory); 3) Language can be considered another level of reality, albeit abstract, from which we can make another map (another language, another level of abstraction).
The goal of GS was to create a synthesis of all sciences (a universal discipline, a meta-science or a transdisciplinary science) taking language, thought and neurophysiology as its foundation.
Korzybski suggested the creation of a new, more precise scientific language. But he personally did not even attempt it, although he suggested that this language should include the primitive concepts of "structure", "order" and "relation", where "relation" would be the most elementary concept ("everything that exists is based on relations") and "structure" would be the concept that provided knowledge ("structure is the only content of knowledge"). These primitive terms could not be expressed in words, but only by showing how to use them in concrete sentences.
The akasic field
The akashic field is a hypothetical cosmic field of interconnection that preserves and transmits information. This field has been known for thousands of years by Eastern traditions, but was considered a myth by Western science. This concept is now being seriously considered, especially by Ervin Laszlo [2004, 2010], who has postulated a "theory of everything" based on this concept, the akashic field, which he also calls the "in-formation field".
The akashic field is a unified field of information, a deep, non-local field, where everything is connected. This field can explain the phenomena of quantum entanglement (the instantaneous connection between quantum entities regardless of the distance separating them), the phenomena of non-local communication of living organisms, consciousness, paranormal phenomena, etc.).
The akashic field theory, as a new global paradigm, would unite quantum and relativistic physics (today unconnected), biology and mind, providing a solution capable of understanding reality in its totality.
Consilience, by Edward Wilson
"Consilience" is the term used by Edward O. Wilson [1999] - Darwinian biologist, entomologist, "father" of biodiversity and sociobiology - to refer to the unity or unification of the various branches of knowledge, the universal coherent confluence of all knowledge, a grand unified theory, a "theory of everything." For Wilson, the fundamental goal of science must be its unification; this is the greatest of intellectual challenges. And to achieve this desired unifying vision of the world, Wilson argues, two avenues must be used:
Scientific reductionism: all phenomena must ultimately be reduced to physical laws.
To clarify "the operations that compose the mind", today scarcely understood. To understand the mind is to understand its functions. It is necessary to search for the "universal foundational concepts" to achieve the unifying consciousness.
MENTAL as the Foundation of Universal Science
Universal science must be based on primary archetypes. MENTAL fulfills the conditions to be the foundation of universal science by being based precisely on primary archetypes that constitute a language, whose structural semantics is equal to lexical semantics. In MENTAL, universal science and universal language are the same thing. The boundary disappears in the light of universal abstraction; they are two aspects of the same thing.
MENTAL covers two aspects or alternatives with respect to universal science: it is the core or common essence of all sciences and, at the same time, it is a universalistic system based on 12 principles.
MENTAL is framed within the universalist tradition of the search for a privileged point of view to contemplate reality, of the search for the essence of reality, for maximum consciousness, creativity, freedom and wisdom.
MENTAL is the universal science because it unites the profound (the psychological archetypes or philosophical categories) with the superficial, the manifested, the practical, the positive.
Because of its high level of abstraction, it is the common factor or essence of all the disciplines mentioned, as well as of the universalitas systems:
Philosophy.
MENTAL is a categorical philosophical language. Possessing a categorial framework is of paramount importance for all philosophy. MENTAL has it: it is the universal primitives themselves. [see Properties - MENTAL, a Philosophical Language].
MENTAL is an essentially dialectical language, for it unites and transcends the opposites: analysis-synthesis, reason-intuition, particular-general, induction-deduction, theory-practice, descriptive-operative, local-global, abstract-concrete, etc. The Hegelian synthesis (the overcoming of opposites) is language, the meeting point of all opposites. [see Union of Opposites.]
Among the union of opposites, the union of ontology and epistemology stands out at the philosophical level, justified by the abstract character of both deep reality and its knowledge. [see Union of Opposites - MENTAL, the Union of Ontology and Epistemology].
Neopositivism.
With MENTAL the expectation of the ideal or perfect language pursued by neopositivists to represent knowledge is fulfilled. But it is not a physicalist language, but an abstract one, since it is impossible to make physicalism and universality compatible. Universality implies abstraction.
Physics.
MENTAL is a language for physics, more suitable than traditional mathematics, because it allows to specify descriptive and operational expressions. And also because it is based on abstract universal archetypes, which are the same for the physical and the psychic. Reality, at the internal and external level, is abstract. [see Applications - Physics - MENTAL, a Language for Physics].
Mathematics.
Mathematics is a discipline derived from (or an application of) MENTAL. Mathematics is not pure syntax, but is based on conceptual primitives, and where syntax and semantics go together, they are dual.
Logic.
In MENTAL, logic is represented by one of the primitives (Condition), which allows the logic of decision and the logic of deduction.
Predicates are implemented as particularization expressions, which are more general than predicates.
The universal quantifier is implemented by a parameterized generic expression.
The existential quantifier is implemented as a derived expression.
Computing.
It is a derived discipline (or an application) of MENTAL.
Cybernetics.
A derivative discipline (or an application) of MENTAL. [see Applications - Systemic - Cybernetics].
General systems theory.
A derivative discipline (or an application) of MENTAL. [see Applications - Systemic - General Systems Theory].
Semiotics.
MENTAL transcends semiotics, it is of a higher level of abstraction.
Psychology.
MENTAL is a model of reality and of the mind, of the internal and external world. [see Applications - Psychology - MENTAL, a Model of the Mind].
MENTAL is an archetypal language. Archetypes are the primitives themselves. [see Applications - Psychology - MENTAL, an Archetypal Language].
Science of consciousness.
MENTAL is a language of consciousness, for it unites the opposites, especially the internal and the external (the deep and the superficial) through abstract archetypes. In this sense, dialectics could be considered the universal science and the universal method. MENTAL has been invented/discovered using the dialectical method, seeking first the universals and then their opposites in order to unite and transcend them in language.
Consciousness cannot be explained because the profound cannot be explained in superficial terms because, if it could be done, it would be a contradiction. Consciousness can only be intuited.
Cognitive Science.
Cognitive science studies the workings of the human mind. MENTAL is positioned as the essential abstraction of the structure and functioning of the human mind, affecting the disciplines of the "cognitive hexagon". Artificial intelligence deserves a special mention, since the universality of MENTAL makes it also an artificial intelligence language, simplifying the development of this type of systems, since it is based on simple and archetypal concepts of the mind.
Neurology.
By virtue of the principle of downward causation, the archetypes of MENTAL must have their manifestation at the level of the nervous system. The nervous system must be configured by structural and functional components based on these archetypes.
Ars Magna.
There are numerous analogies between Llull's Ars Magna and MENTAL. [see Comparisons - MENTAL vs. Ars Magna.]
Instauratio Magna, by Francis Bacon.
MENTAL can be considered the supreme induction, the maximum level of abstraction and generalization sought by Bacon. [see Properties - MENTAL and the Unity of Knowledge].
Mathesis Universalis, by Descartes.
MENTAL is the realization of Descartes' dream of a Mathesis Universalis, for it is based on universal principles from which all others are derived. [see Comparisons - MENTAL vs. Mathesis Universalis].
Characteristica Universalis, by Leibniz.
MENTAL has all the characteristics of universal language, the foundation of the universal science that Leibniz dreamed of [see Comparisons - MENTAL vs. Characteristica Universalis.].
General Semantics.
MENTAL is postulated as the universal language of science, in the general and universal sense given to it by Korzybski. With MENTAL, contrary to what Korzybski claimed, "the map is the territory" because, at an abstract and deep level, reality and representation are the same thing. [see Comparisons - MENTAL vs. General Semantics].
Akashic Field.
MENTAL can be considered the universal interconnection field, since it is a non-local language where everything is interconnected through the language environment, which is the common space where all expressions can be related to each other, locally and non-locally. [see Appendix - The Akashic Field].
Consilience.
MENTAL may be considered the result of a universal abstract induction. In MENTAL there is universal consilience (coherent confluence) of inductions. From different domains (mathematics, cybernetics, artificial intelligence, etc.) the same general principles are inferred inductively, which were hidden and which constitute a universal language. As in the case of neopositivism, universality and physicalism are incompatible; they are polar opposites. [see Properties - MENTAL and the Unity of Knowledge].
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