Grounding the Integrative Worldview

Abstract Purpose: This paper addresses the limitations of reductionist science by proposing an integrative worldview based on the evolutionary expansion of pragmatic information. Approach: It conceptualizes evolution across four nested levels of existence—inanimate, animate, conscious, and algorithmic—and examines how each level introduces new forms of organization, efficacy, and learning speed. The framework draws on systems theory, hierarchical organization, autopoiesis, causal emergence, and evolutionary epistemology. Results/Claims: The analysis argues that information changes its function across evolutionary levels: from formative constraint in matter, to biological relevance and agency in life, to meaning-making and future-oriented imagination in consciousness, and finally to generative recombination in algorithmic systems. This progression is also interpreted as an acceleration of learning because new information carriers, such as physical structures, DNA, nervous systems, language, writing, and digital systems, make retention, transmission, searching, and recombination increasingly effective. Implications: The resulting model offers a metatheoretical framework for integrating the mechanistic precision of physics with systems thinking, hermeneutics, cultural interpretation, and responsible algorithmic synthesis without collapsing these vocabularies into a single explanatory system.

Abstract Although the research field of adult development primarily takes the individual as a study object, there are several approaches to describing collective development at various levels it is argued here that there are still no systematic approaches to how collective development can be deduced from individual meaning making. The aim of the present work is to outline a framework for collective development that is general across levels of collectives, which has been carried out in three steps. In the first step, the following four basic dimensions of development have been identified: perspective taking, complex thinking, identification and action. The second step, five analytically derived orders for individual meaning making have been deduced based on 1st to 5th person perspective taking in combination with appropriate instances of the other dimensions. The third step has resulted in five orders of collective development and is argued to constitute the foundation of collective meaning making. The analysis of the collective patterns also results in a typical size and configuration of the respective collectives in question: individuals, collectives of families, tribes or groups, collectives based on formal membership, such as organizations or nations, collectives as loose networks such as social movements or social networks with no clear boundaries, and collectives consisting of individuals and groups identifying with and enacting a certain archetypal pattern, respectively. The framework thus describes a basic and general structure that can facilitate a conversation between existing theories and frameworks for collective development.

Abstract While the behavioral complexity of the archdisciplinary scope of inquiry has existed for nearly a century, there did not exist a formalization of these endeavors with clear language. The book Foundations of Archdisciplinarity, 2nd Ed. (Barker et al., 2024) was an attempt to resolve this matter, by introducing neutral, non-denominational terms and definitions to establish the concepts of archdisciplinarity, archtheory, and archmodernity as non-arbitrary, inevitable advancements in scopes of inquiry, scales of theory, and stages of development in scholarly endeavors. This paper is both an introduction and summary of a book that does exactly what its name suggests; it lays foundations of archdisciplinary theory and practice, grounding it in history and literature, and presents both exhaustive examples of unification metatheoretical frameworks, as well as demonstrating through further exhaustive examples what archdisciplinarity studies looks like. This paper begins with a survey of scopes of inquiry, scales of theory, and stages of individual and social development, which sets the context for archdisciplinarity. This is then followed by an outline of archdisciplinarity research and practice, followed by a description of arches, their relations, and systematization. The paper will continue with discussion about the current state of scopes and scales of institutional advancement, a closer look at archtheoretical frameworks, metamodern and archmodern sensibilities, and end with some concluding remarks.

Abstract Assembly theory is a recent development in origins-of-life research that defines objects through their historical construction rather than by reference to external coordinates. By drawing on constructor theory’s infusion of information into physical law, it inserts unrealized possibility into the very definition of physical objects and extends evolutionary selection beneath the threshold of genetics. This paper shows how assembly theory is deeply congruent with the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead despite sharing virtually no intellectual lineage with it. Both frameworks (i) reframe objects as historically-constituted processes, (ii) reject a fixed space of possibilities, (iii) characterize time causally rather than geometrically, and (iv) describe consciousness as the capacity for imagined counterfactuality. The paper explores the basic elements of assembly theory and Whiteheadian process philosophy to articulate their shared views and note important points of divergence in order to lay a foundation for future dialogue. It is argued that assembly theory can help render an embodied sense of relevance explicit in evolution when bolstered by process philosophy and contemporary cognitive science. The confluence results in an empirically grounded view of Nature that has little issue seeing life and the subjectivity it harbors as exemplifying adaptive and creative capacities across physical, chemical, biological, psychological, and technological evolution. Integrating assembly theory within a panexperientialist process philosophy opens pathways toward deeper understandings of evolution – one’s that do not just objectify the universe but recognize the essential role of subjectivity in its development.

Abstract Transcendental Naturalism, as articulated and developed by Arthur Petersen, represents a metamodern philosophical position designed to address the impasses of both modernist and postmodernist philosophies. Integrating insights from Kantian transcendental philosophy, neo-Kantian value theory (notably, Rickert), radical empiricism (James), and the empirical philosophy of Bruno Latour, Petersen’s framework aims to overcome the boundaries between scientific naturalism and value-laden, pluralistic approaches to knowledge and practice. It posits a world in which uncertainty, wonder, judgment, and values are not external to nature but constitutive of it, providing a powerful lens for reinterpreting science, religion, and other cultural domains in the age of climate crisis. The framework affirms that values are not merely subjective projections or sociocultural constructs, but ontologically real features of the world. This expanded ontology includes three interrelated domains: the perceptible (empirical reality), the intelligible (ideal values and meanings), and the pro-physical (the mediating domain where values are realized in practice). Transcendental Naturalism is not a metaphysical doctrine in the traditional sense, nor does it prescribe a fixed worldview. Instead, it functions as a philosophical orientation that invites pluralism, embraces uncertainty, and cultivates wonder. It is particularly relevant in contexts where scientific knowledge intersects with ethical, spiritual, and political concerns, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and the role of science in society.