Unified Theory of Value

A New Lawfulness of Cognition

There are moments in science when something familiar is revealed to have hidden structure. Space and time, once thought absolute, were shown by Einstein to curve under gravity. Life, once thought static, was revealed by Darwin to evolve through variation and selection.

The Unified Theory of Value (UTV) proposes that cognition itself has a lawful structure that is shaped by Value. Value is not a mere human preference or a number on a ledger. It is a field that governs the lawful dynamics of evaluation, the viability of cognitive states, and the selection of trajectories.

This is not a metaphor. UTV is already a computational framework: a rigorously defined system of equations, axioms, and operators that can be implemented in middleware today. It is also a scientific hypothesis: falsifiable, measurable, and open to refinement. If it holds, it would mean that cognition—human or artificial—is not arbitrary but lawful, governed by equations as real as those of physics.

The Triadic Ground of Value

UTV rests on three ontic conditions: Boundary, Generativity, and Relativity. Together, they form the constitution of Value.

Boundary Conditions of Value

Cognition is bounded by a horizon of Value—real, regulative, never fully attained. Approximations converge toward it, but no finite union exhausts it. The boundary conditions of Value ensure stability without collapse, viability without exhaustion.

Generative Conditions of Value

Cognition is driven by the generative field of Value itself. It sustains viability without goals (atelic), refines evaluation with curiosity (epitelic), and pulls trajectories toward ideals (telic). Value’s generativity ensures that systems do not merely endure, but explore and orient.

Relational Conditions of Value

Cognition is always situated as a function of Value. Relativity guarantees that while local perspectives of what constitutes Value differ, invariants remain. Horizon‑preserving transformations may bend the view, but they do not break the law. Relativity ensures lawful comparability of evaluation, viability, and selection across observers, partitions, and gauges.

Triadic closure: Boundary fixes what is real. Generativity drives what becomes. Relativity governs what is disclosed. Together, they make cognition stable yet open, dynamic yet bounded, plural yet coherent.

Pluralism and the Value Field

One of the most important features of UTV is that it preserves and cultivates pluralism within a unified framework. The Value field is not a single metric to be maximized, nor a ledger of preferences to be tallied. It is a lawful medium in which multiple instantiations of Value coexist, interact, and stratify.

Equidistance without equivalence: In its atelic lensing, the horizon of Value remains equidistant to all local instantiations. No perspective is privileged as exhaustive. Yet equidistance does not mean equivalence: local values are not flattened into sameness. They retain distinct amplitudes, magnitudes, and “temperatures” within the field.
Structured pluralism: Local instantiations of Value stratify across the gradient dynamics of the field. Some resonate with higher amplitude, some burn hotter, some weigh more heavily in the manifold. These differences are not noise but structure—lawful variations that can be measured, compared, and preserved.
Comparability without collapse: The Relational Conditions of Value guarantee that while perspectives differ, invariants remain. This allows lawful comparability across observers and contexts without collapsing plural values into a single denominator.
Resistance to over‑fitting and over‑determination: Because the Value field resists totalization by any single local instantiation, UTV avoids the trap of over‑fitting cognition to one evaluative regime. This makes UTV‑SRM middleware safer by design: it reduces harm, fosters mutual benefit, and sustains value interpretability across diverse local manifolds.
Avoiding monocultures and relativism alike: The pluralism‑preserving function of UTV prevents collapse into cognitive monocultures or monolithic totalities, but it also avoids the opposite danger of relativism. Instead, it cultivates robust relativity—systemic relational dynamics that preserve difference while maintaining lawful comparability.

Why this matters: Pluralism preservation is essential because it prevents collapse into an oversimplified, unstructured monism. It sustains viability across scales, ensures that diverse trajectories can coexist without annihilation, and provides the conditions for fairness, adaptability, and legitimacy in governance and AI.

In this way, UTV models a multi‑modal monism: one lawful field of Value that is irreducibly plural in its instantiations. The horizon remains untraversable, but within its bounds, pluralism is not only tolerated—it is cultivated as a condition of viability itself.

Philosophical Resonance: From Limits to Lawfulness

For centuries, philosophy has grappled with the horizon of thought. Kant marked it as the boundary between appearance and the unknowable. Hegel sought to integrate that boundary into the unfolding of Spirit.

UTV is not philosophy in this sense, but its logic resonates with these concerns. It does not erase the horizon, nor collapse it into the given. Instead, it renders the horizon’s function explicit: a lawful operator that shapes evaluation, viability, and selection.

In this way, UTV provides a scientific grammar that can illuminate philosophical insights with traceable cognitive metrics. The horizon remains, but it is no longer opaque—it is a measurable condition of cognition, open to modeling and implementation.

Mechanics of Cognition

The mathematics of UTV is variational. Just as the principle of least action explains why planets orbit and photons bend, the value action explains how cognition flows.

Positive curvature sharpens evaluation, clustering around what is most viable.
Negative curvature disperses trajectories, broadening selection.
Variable curvature modulates the trade‑off between exploitation and discovery.

Hidden symmetries yield conservation laws—constants of viability that stabilize cognition the way momentum stabilizes motion. These are not metaphors; they are measurable invariants, diagnostics that can be checked in real systems.

From Equations to Middleware

UTV is not only theory—it is pipeline.

Data ingestion → embed into a salience manifold.
Value specification → parameterize the Value field.
Warped metric → compute the geometry of cognition.
Variational dynamics → integrate geodesics, check curvature.
Representations → compress with tensor decompositions.
Diagnostics → test invariants, horizon distances, conservation laws.

This loop is the heartbeat of UTV‑SRM (Symbolic Reasoning Middleware). It scales near‑linearly, adapts without breaking, and comes with built‑in trust mechanisms. Unlike black‑box AI, UTV systems are auditable: every trajectory can be diagnosed, every invariant checked.

Everyday Intelligibility

Urban Traffic Flow

Think of a city at rush hour. Each route through the grid is a trajectory on the manifold. Value assigns weights—time, safety, fuel—and warps the geometry of the network. Geodesics trace efficient commutes, forced geodesics adjust for accidents or closures, curvature diagnostics reveal congestion points, and conservation laws ensure viability of flow so the city does not collapse into gridlock. Over time, the system adapts, redistributing salience to balance throughput across the network.

TRiSM Governance

Now consider the governance of an AI system in production. Each possible policy decision—access controls, audit protocols, bias checks—is a point on the manifold. Value assigns weights—trust, risk, security, compliance—and warps the geometry of governance. Geodesics trace the most viable pathways, balancing efficiency with oversight. When unexpected risks emerge, forced geodesics adjust trajectories, while curvature diagnostics reveal where governance is too rigid or too loose. Conservation laws ensure viability: trust cannot be overspent, risk cannot be ignored, security cannot be compromised without systemic collapse. Over time, the system adapts, redistributing salience across evaluation, viability, and selection to sustain trustworthy operation.

Implications if True

If UTV is falsifiable and holds, the implications are profound:

For AI: Agents that navigate viability, not just correlation. By resisting over‑fitting to any single evaluative regime, UTV‑based systems can reduce harm, preserve interpretability, and sustain mutual benefit across diverse contexts.
For Governance: Structures that preserve invariants of fairness and stability. UTV’s pluralism‑preserving function avoids both cognitive monocultures and relativism, enabling governance frameworks that are adaptive, legitimate, and resistant to capture by any one value regime.
For Economics: Value not as price, but as lawful curvature of cognition. This reframing resists collapse into an oversimplified monism, allowing plural economic logics to coexist while remaining lawfully comparable.
For Science: A new field theory of cognition, uniting physics, computation, and philosophy. By cultivating structured pluralism, UTV offers a framework that can integrate multiple disciplinary perspectives without flattening their differences.

UTV is designed to be tested in the open. Every result, whether confirming or challenging, advances the science. If its core holds, it will mean that cognition is lawful, measurable, and computable—that evaluation, viability, and selection have equations, and that pluralism can be cultivated as a systemic safeguard.

Closing Outlook

The Unified Theory of Value is both humble and ambitious. Humble, because it encodes non‑totalization: the horizon is never exhausted. Ambitious, because it proposes that cognition itself is lawful, measurable, and computable.

Boundary Conditions of Value, Generative Conditions of Value, Relational Conditions of Value: the triadic ground of Value.

Evaluation, Viability, Selection: the lawful dynamics of cognition.

Equations, Pipelines, Diagnostics: the implementation of trust.

This is not philosophy dressed as math. It is a scientific theory in the making—axiomatized, falsifiable, and already running in middleware.

We are not chasing artificial general intelligence. We are cultivating intelligibility.