The Unified Theory of Knowledge as a "Garden"
The Garden of UTUA
The Unified Theory of Knowledge (UTOK) refers to the interlocking set of ideas developed by Dr. Gregg Henriques to offer the outline of a consilient theory of knowledge and wisdom for the 21st Century. UTOK can also be thought of as the "Unified Metapsychology Framework" because it solves the problem of psychology, which Professor Henriques argues to be a central, unsolved problem that stems from the way science, mind, and behavior have been defined.
As described in the "About" section, in 2016, the joint halves of the four key ideas that made up the "Unified Theory" (UT) were merged with the four key ideas that made up the "Unified Approach" (UA) to give rise to the "UTUA Framework." It was in part because of the somewhat unusual title of UTUA Framework that set the stage for a significant shift in how the system might be conceptualized and visualized (see here for the story).
The result was "The Garden of UTUA". Fully in the spirit of a metamodern sensibility, the Garden of UTUA is a "sincerely ironic" artistic representation that offers "a place for the two cultures of the academy, the sciences and the humanities, to come together in a mutually inspiring dialectical dance".
An Overview of the Garden of UTUA
The word UTUA (pronounced ə tü ä’) comes from the combination of “UT” and “UA”, where UT stands for the unified theory of psychology and UA stands for a unified approach to psychotherapy. The Garden is an artistic representation of a system of knowledge that offers a novel way to unify modern science, psychology, and philosophy into a coherent scientific humanistic worldview. The Garden is scientific in the sense that it offers a map of the universe that is consistent with modern scientific knowledge, from quantum mechanics to sociology. It is humanistic in the sense that it embraces value-based living, meaning making, creative expression, and the concept of the sacred. As such, the Garden provides a place for the two cultures of the academy, the sciences and the humanities, to come together in a mutually inspiring dialectical dance.
For the full background story on the emergence of the Garden of UTUA, see here.
The Garden led to a number of innovations. For example, it set the stage for new ways to conceive of educational platforms, as illustrated by the slide deck, The Quest for the Scepter of UTUA. It required a new Glossary of Terms, and it spawned other forms of knowledge technology. For example, it gave rise to the iQuad pathway and iQuad Coin, and then the "Elephant Sun God". Ultimately, the iQuad-Garden complex represents a new form of educational/knowledge technologies that Henriques believes will be relevant for 21st Century educational practices.
The ultimate result was a "sincere ironic" artistic representation of the system called The Garden of UTUA. This was an admittedly strange direction to move in, but Henriques experienced it as an artistic calling. The Garden grew, and ultimately gave rise to the iQuad pathway and iQuad Coin, such that the iQuad-Garden complex represents a new form of educational/knowledge technologies that Henriques believes will be relevant for 21st Century educational practices.
