Symbols Reveals Hidden Dimensions of Reality

Jonathan Pageau’s “cognitive theory of everything” is a symbolic, meaning-centered worldview rooted in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which argues that reality is structured by vertical causality — the causality of identity, purpose, and meaning — and that this framework can reconcile ancient wisdom with modern understanding in a way that purely mechanical, reductionist models cannot.

Vertical vs. horizontal causation: Horizontal causation is the mechanical cause-and-effect of physical things bumping into each other (chemicals mixing, forces acting). Vertical causation is what Aristotle called the formal cause — the cause of identity and purpose. It operates from the whole to the parts: the identity of something (e.g., a car, a person, a nation) is presupposed by the very act of studying its parts, and that identity is inseparable from its purpose. This is not a metaphor; Pageau treats it as a real feature of how the world works.

Attention, care, and the necessity of meaning: Because of how human attention is structured, we cannot avoid hierarchies of meaning. We cannot step outside our own perception and perceive a world stripped of what we care about — and Pageau argues this is not a flaw but the appropriate mechanism for engaging reality. Things “shine” or “glow” out of the background when they enter our field of care, and that foregrounding is the basis of how we identify and name things.

Naming as an ontological act: Naming is not arbitrary labeling. When Adam names the animals in Genesis, or when we identify a new species, we are noticing real patterns that “clump together” and giving them a name that participates in their existence. There must be a union between the identity of a thing and the name we give it; arbitrary names eventually “break.” This applies to everyday acts of identification — noticing poison ivy in grass, distinguishing gut bacteria from parasites — where care drives us to carve reality at its joints.

Christian non-dualism — unity and multiplicity coexisting: Pageau argues Christianity offers a more radical non-dualism than Eastern traditions (as commonly understood in the West). In many Eastern frameworks, the many is seen as a diminishment or illusion relative to the one, sometimes producing caste-like hierarchies of being. In Christianity, particularly in St. Maximus the Confessor, the Logi (the purposes or identities of all things) are hidden in all creation, and God is radically one and radically many simultaneously. The world does not dissolve into God; rather, union with God makes multiplicity more real, not less.

The Trinity as the model for reality: The Trinity — one God, three persons — is the ultimate image of unity and multiplicity coexisting perfectly. Love is defined as the coexistence of unity and multiplicity. This is not merely a theological claim but an ontological one: reality itself is structured as a constant navigation between the one and the many, and love is the mode by which they hold together.

Hierarchy as self-emptying (kenotic) service: All identities are embedded in hierarchies of identity (a fork participates in a meal, which participates in a society; an atom participates in a molecule, etc.). But Christian hierarchy is inverted at the top: Jesus washing his disciples’ feet exemplifies that the highest serves the lowest. True hierarchy is not domination but self-emptying — identity must “give itself up” to what is above it and “give itself down” to what constitutes it, or it shatters. This is what makes authority an act of love rather than tyranny.

Sin as failure of purpose: Sin is not merely moral rule-breaking but a deviation from purpose — a failure to live in accordance with one’s formal cause. A broken hammer is “sinning” in this technical sense. Human sin is uniquely destructive because of our self-awareness and our capacity to transmit patterns of behavior across generations (mimetic, generational trauma). Pride (too much unity, holding onto identity) and dissolution (too much multiplicity, losing identity) are both forms of sin, and one tends to lead to the other.

Forgiveness as metanoia — beyond mind: Forgiveness is distinct from mere letting go. It requires acknowledging that something real and wrong occurred, but then choosing to “drop the account” — to stop attending to the offense as a barrier to unity. The Greek metanoia (beyond mind) suggests forgiveness operates at a level beyond calculation and accounting. It creates the possibility of renewed unity and, paradoxically, makes the one who forgives “more full and more wise” than before.

Theosis — union with God as becoming more yourself: In Eastern Orthodoxy, theosis (deification) is the purpose of creation. It is not the absorption of the many into the one (as in some Hindu visions) but a radical union in which multiplicity is perfected and made to shine. The analogy is a basketball team: the more the players move into unity, the more real and purposeful each player’s role becomes. The incarnation — God becoming fully human in Christ — is the eternal fulcrum of this pattern, the point where heaven and earth are joined.

Death, resurrection, and subtle bodies: The ultimate Christian hope is not “going to heaven” but resurrection — the reunification of body and soul, purpose and embodiment. The soul is not a detachable ghost but the organizing principle that holds a changing material body together over time. After death, this separation is unnatural. Pageau extends the concept of “body” to include subtle bodies — patterns of influence, stories, institutions, and legacies that continue to act in the world. Saints, team captains, and cultural works all exercise subtle bodies. This is comparable to Douglas Hofstadter’s idea that consciousness can persist through patterns of influence.

Idiosyncrasy and the proper place of difference: Idiosyncrasy (particularity, excess, the “funky”) has a cosmic function as a buffer between identities and a sign of life. Like spice in food, it is good in proper proportion but dangerous when it overwhelms the unity it is meant to serve. Modern culture’s obsession with “authenticity” through difference is, in Pageau’s view, a confusion: authenticity comes from unity, not from difference. If you know why you are together, diversity is celebrated naturally; if you don’t, diversity becomes war.

Dogma as protective boundary, not sacred core: Dogmas (e.g., Trinitarian doctrine, the dual nature of Christ) are not positive statements of the fullness of truth but bulwarks against error — fences that protect the sacred, unspeakable core of revelation. They were developed reactively, in response to heresy, to prevent the mystery from being collapsed into either pure monism (everything is one, the world is an illusion) or pure pluralism (paganism, gods fighting each other). The incarnation must be preserved as the anchor that holds heaven and earth together.

The incarnation as the atemporal anchor of all reality: Although the incarnation happened in the first century, it is understood as an atemporal event — the twist ending that makes the whole story make sense. St. Maximus the Confessor speaks of Christ on the cross as the moment when all of reality’s purpose is gathered. It is not one event among others but the eternal fulcrum around which the pattern of creation, fall, and redemption rotates.

Degrees of reality — literal vs. metaphorical: Everything is real to some degree; the question is at what level and toward what purpose. A table is real toward its purpose (you can eat on it); a unicorn is real toward its purpose (manifesting the impossible, the limit of what can be encountered). The tooth fairy is “more real” than Frodo Baggins in the sense that it actually constrains behavior (makes parents put money under pillows). There is no such thing as “literal” in the sense of meaning-free factuality; all language is analogical, building from embodied experience toward higher purposes. Scientific language is highly abstracted toward the specific purpose of predicting reproducible phenomena, not toward the ground of experience itself.

Transpersonal agencies and Santa Claus: Santa Claus is a playful but serious example of a transpersonal agency — a pattern of meaning that acts on people and is made real through their participation. The tooth fairy makes parents do things that have no mechanical explanation (why put money under a pillow because a tooth was lost?). Laws, cultural norms, and institutions function similarly: they are real formal causes that constrain and shape behavior, and denying their reality has consequences.

Humans as mediators and namers: What makes humans unique (in degree, not in kind) is the capacity to name — to stand outside phenomena, identify their unity, and communicate that identity to others. This is a form of dominion, but when done in coherence with the thing being named, it is an act of love. Humans are mediators between heaven and earth — between invisible purposes and visible, measurable reality — and this mediating role is the image of God in us.