---
title: "Tree of knowledge system"
chunk: 2/5
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_knowledge_system"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:37:35.269263+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Mind/Animal — (Basic) psychological sciences ===
Mind/cognition in the ToK system refers to the set of mental behaviors. Mental behaviors are behaviors of animals mediated by the nervous system that produce a functional effect on the animal-environment relationship. As such, Mind/cognition is essentially synonymous with what behavioral psychologists have meant when they use the term behavior. Thus, a fly avoiding a fly swatter, a rat pushing a bar or a human getting a drink of water are all mental behaviors. Mind is not synonymous with sentience or the capacity for mental experience, although such processes are presumed to emerge in the mental/cognitive dimension. Cognition, in the broad sense of the term is meaning bodily-neuro-social information processing, as in EEEE Cognition: Embodied, Embedded, Enactive, Extended. While cognitive science stands for naturalist study of mind, psychology is an approach grounded in the tradition of humanities, especially philosophy. Thus, by defining mind as mental behavior, Henriques argues that the ToK System provides a way to bridge the epistemological differences between cognitive and behavioral science. Henriques argues that comparative psychology, ethology, and (animal) cognitive behavioral neuroscience should all be thought of as parts of the discipline that maps the animal-mental domain. 

=== Culture/Person — Human social sciences ===
Culture in the ToK system refers to the set of sociolinguistic behaviors, which range from large scale nation states to individual human justifications for particular actions. Just as genetic information processing is associated with the Life dimension and neuronal information processing associated with the Mind dimension, symbolic information processing emerges with the Cultural dimension. Henriques argues that human cognitive science, human psychology and the social sciences (i.e., anthropology, sociology, political science, and economics) work to map this domain. 

== Theoretical joint points ==

=== The modern synthesis ===

The modern synthesis refers to the merger of genetics with natural selection which occurred in the 1930s and 1940s and offers a reasonably complete framework for understanding the emergence of biological complexity. Although there remain significant gaps in biological knowledge surrounding questions such as the origin of life and the emergence of sexual reproduction, the modern synthesis represents the most complete and well-substantiated joint point.

=== Behavioral investment theory ===
Behavioral investment theory (BIT) is a metatheoretical formulation for the mind, brain and animal behavioral sciences. Henriques proposes that it enables the merger of the selection science of behaviorism with the information science of cognitive neuroscience that has conceptual parallels with the modern synthesis. BIT posits that the nervous system evolved as an increasingly flexible computational control system that coordinates the behavioral expenditure of energy of the animal as a whole. Expenditure of behavioral energy is theorized to be computed on an investment value system built evolutionarily through natural selection operating on genetic combinations and ontogenetically through behavioral selection operating on neural combinations. As such, the current behavioral investments of the animal are conceptualized as the joint product of the two vectors of phylogeny and ontogeny. A unique element of BIT is that it finds a core of agreement and builds bridges between five brain-behavior paradigms: (1) cognitive science; (2) behavioral science; (3) evolutionary theory and genetics; (4) neuroscience; and (5) cybernetics/systems theory.
David C. Geary noted the similarities between his "motive-to-control" hypothesis and Henriques' Behavioral Investment Theory, which were developed independently of each other. Furthermore, Geary suggested that his model "seem[ed] to fill in many of the proximate mechanisms and evolutionary pressures that define the life-mind joint point, and provided a framework for further development of the mind-culture joint point."

=== Justification systems theory ===
The justification systems theory (JUST; formerly known as the justification hypothesis) posits that the evolution of language reached a tipping point with emergence of propositional claims. Specifically, propositional claims can be questioned, which generates the "question-answer" dynamic. This creates the problem of justification, which Henriques argues drives both the design of the human self-consciousness system as a mental organ of justification and gives rise to the evolution of the Culture-Person plane of existence. JUST is a novel proposal that allows for both the understanding of the evolution of culture and for identifying what makes humans distinct animals. A basic initial claim of JUST is that the process of justification is a crucial component of human mental behavior at both the individual and societal level. Unlike all other animals, humans everywhere ask for and give explanations for their actions. Arguments, debates, moral dictates, rationalizations, and excuses all involve the process of explaining why one's claims, thoughts or actions are warranted. In virtually every form of social exchange, from warfare to politics to family struggles to science, humans are constantly justifying their behavioral investments to themselves and others.
JUST consists of three key postulates: 

The first is that the evolution of propositional language must have created the problem of justification, which involves three interlocking problems of deciphering what is (1) analytically true and what is (2) good for the group and (3) good for the individual.
The second postulate is that the structure and functional design of human consciousness can be understood as a solution to the problem of justification. Specifically, the three domains of human consciousness that Henriques identifies in the Updated Tripartite Model of the (1) experiential; (2) private narrator; and (3) public narrator are directly consistent with adaptive pressures that arise from the logic of the problem of justification. This analysis deepens when one considers the dynamic relationships and filtering that takes place between these three domains.
The third postulate is that culture can be understood as large scale justification systems that coordinate the behavior of human populations. Cultural systems are seen to evolve much in the same way as organisms do in biological evolution: there is a process of variation, selection and retention of belief systems.