The Tree of Knowledge System of Natural Philosophy

The Tree of Knowledge System of Natural Philosophy view of the Future of Digital The Tree of Knowledge/Garden is a synthetic philosophy approach that advocates for the concept of a “ 5 th joint point” as representing our current phase shift. The 5 th Joint Point is the transition from “Culture, ” which represent human justification systems, into Meta. Culture emerges as a function of digital information processing and communication. The hoped for vision of the To. K/Garden is that wisdom philosophies will be merged with digital developments that lead to higher forms of consciousness (perhaps a metacultural self-to-global consciousness). The To. K/Garden offers a post-modern grand metanarrative as one interpretation of this transition. The triangle depicted here can be thought of as the key developments in modern history (past 5, 000 years) that have set the stage for the digital Meta. Cultural emergence. These include the emergence of “formalized” of justification systems, like philosophy, logic, math and, more recently, modern science. Such developments were closely tied to emergent technologies for civilization in general and communication in particular. Writing, which can be thought of as a form of external memory and justification, is the most obvious earliest modern communication technology. Digital will be a fundamental game changer because it externalizes information processing.