The Foundation of a Theory of Everything

This paper discusses the basis of a recently developed “Theory of Everything” that builds on a “Subject-Oriented Approach to Knowing.” Its persistent claim is that physics and modern science by their reference to the “given”, most often explicated by the concept of “matter”, have led human thinking astray. This work shows that in the very moment a thinker/knower introduces “matter”, or the like, as something subject alien, he already in the outset introduces a crippling matter/mind distinction from which knowing never will recover. This contamination spreads to other men and their languages and conceptual frameworks, hence many of the perplexities and paradoxes found in modern science. On this view truth and falsity, right or wrong disappear, as well as the traditional role of science as a pursuit of truth. Along also goes the cleft between the social and natural sciences. This means that all knowledge endeavours can, pace Ernst Mach, be grouped under the same umbrella. The idea of a common reality gives place to the idea of a private universe – a priverse – belonging to each and every man, and laboriously constructed on the basis of purely private experience. By his own will man builds this fund of cumulative experience in isolation or in a mood of communication and social consensus. In the latter case, the tools of communication are also critically influenced by his choice of conceptual seed. On this view, the first hominid man was forced to construct a private language to connect to his children simply to break free from the isolation of his thoughts. Thus Adam was forced to build an emerging science strictly in a bootstrap manner. There is no other way to explain science and human knowledge - a recognition that has hitherto been hidden by a misunderstanding of the sign function.