What is Unicist Conceptual Anthropology?

Unicist Conceptual Anthropology is the complex scientific approach to human behavior and the structural analysis of individuals’ deeds in order to forecast their evolution.

Conceptual anthropology describes the unicist ontology of the collective unconscious of a culture. It defines the essential rules cultures follow in order to survive as a species.

It surveys not only the evolution of Man as a species and as an individual but also the evolution of his institutions. It studies Man, his actions, and his transcendence as “a unified field”.

Its main tool is the application of the Unicist Theory of Evolution, the Unicist Logic, and the laws of evolution of individuals, institutions, and culture.

It studies the most intrinsic and extrinsic concepts that operate as “drivers” of cultures and individuals to use them as a basis for the causal-conceptual description of reality in order to forecast it.

Unicist Anthropology conceptually structures taboos, myths, and utopias that influence man’s actions. Its main objective is to forecast the behavior of individuals, institutions, and cultures so as to basically influence upon its evolution

The result of a Unicist Anthropological study is the actual scenario, the expected future scenario of a situation, and the concepts that describe it. Understanding cultures begins by understanding their transcendent goals that are implicit in their archetypes.

Transcendent Goals:
The Spirit of a Culture or an Institution

Transcendence is the fundamental concept that drives the permanence of cultures and institutions and makes them evolve. Without an “instinct” of transcendence there is no possibility to make things grow.

Transcendence is a basic instinct that sustains the survival of any species.

As it is said in Ethology, when the individual survival instinct prevails over the species survival instinct, a species is in extinction.

Lonely wolves are a demonstration of individual goals prevailing over group needs.

In human behavior, being influenced by rational conscious drivers, the spirit of transcendence is limited to those that are included in the pronoun “we”.

Human Transcendence

Human transcendence includes four types of transcendence:

1. The transcendence through the species
2. The transcendence through deeds
3. The transcendence through people
4. The individual transcendence

The Cross-Cultural Invariables

The research on the ontology of human behavior drove to the discovery of the cultural invariables. These invariables were identified as a double dialectical behavior between polarities. These polarities are freedom vs. security and expansion vs. contraction.

Unicist anthropology approaches human behavior based on the essential taboos, myths, and utopias of a culture. The taboos, as the essential drivers of culture, the myths that provide the security framework, and the utopias that provide the drivers for actions and, therefore, for evolution.

The discovery of the unicist cross-cultural invariables was necessary to understand humanity in its oneness in order to develop reliable global scenarios.

The invariables discovered were Expansion and Contraction which work as alternatives at an operational level and Security and Freedom which work as trade-offs. The gain of freedom implies losing security and vice-versa.

The myths of societies, being they functional or fallacious, provide the security framework of a culture while the utopias foster actions and establish the structure of cultural freedom.

The expansion of societies is driven by the allowances (permissions) of the collective unconscious and contraction is sustained by the collective unconscious mandates. Both aspects are taboos in a society.

These invariables, integrated following the logic of the unicist ontogenetic intelligence of nature, define the essential structure that defines the archetype of a culture.

Every culture has its own myths, utopias, and taboos that define its archetype that underlies their ideological and economic models. The archetype of a culture cannot be judged. It needs to be respected.

The integration of the invariables defines the essential concepts of a culture

Behavior oscillates, with higher or lower frequency, between expansion and contraction, and at the same time between security and freedom.

This double oscillation makes the concepts behave, essentially, as strange attractors. When a given behavior moves towards freedom, it will return seeking security.

The amplitude or importance of the qualitative and quantitative modification does not necessarily determine the amplitude or importance of the next move. The same phenomenon happens when moving towards expansion or contraction.

Therefore within the credibility zone behavior appears as chaotic, but following the patterns of the behavior of strange attractors.

Credibility zone
It is a participant’s perception of the functional concept of reality.

Possibilities define the existence of a functionality/credibility zone while probabilities define the behavior within the functionality/credibility zone.

In intrinsic concepts, possibilities define the existence of a functionality zone but probabilities define the behavior within such zone.

Intrinsic concept
It is the regulator of a complex system, whether it has real or artificial life. It defines the functionality of the complex system and does not depend on the perception of the observer.

In extrinsic concepts, possibilities define the existence of a credibility zone but probabilities define the behavior within such zone.

Extrinsic concepts
They are the concepts given by humans to elements, actions, ideas, facts or objects. They are described by their structural functionality and at the same time define it.

Unicist Ontogenetic Structure of Conceptual Anthropology

As it was said, social adaptiveness is the purpose of conceptual anthropology. It seeks social adaptation, influencing the environment while being influenced by it. When the influence exerted prevails over the influence of an environment it can be said that the culture is evolving. When the influence of the environment annuls the influence that intends to be exerted, it can be said that the culture is stagnated or degrading.

Influence can only be exerted by adding value to the environment, which implies that adaptiveness is being fostered when influence prevails. It can be said that over-adaptiveness is produced when the influence of the environment prevails over the influence that intends to be exerted.

Adaptiveness is fostered by the maximal strategy of a culture, developed through social growth, which is implicit in the freedom the participants can exert which is shown by the amplitude of the coexistence taboos of the environment. These taboos establish the limits of the expansion of the boundaries that can be proposed or managed.

This freedom is materialized in the value-adding utopias a culture has and is driven by its growth myths. It has to be considered that in unicist terms, a myth is, among other meanings, a pathway for a solution.

Culture begins to grow when the “permissions” granted to its members are used and the generation of added value takes place. The growth myths of the culture establish the pathways of the implementation of the value generation which ensures and establishes the limits of its functionality.

The minimum strategy of social evolution is given by the survival taboos that establish the basic mandates the members of a culture have to follow in order to ensure the survival of the present and future generations.

This minimum strategy is materialized in value-earning utopias that provide an approach to appropriate value to survive and the necessary survival myths that provide a pathway to do so.

The adaptive process becomes meaningful when both the maximal and the minimum strategies are functional.

Unicist Modeling of the Collective Unconscious
(Cross-Cultural Invariables)

The development of the unicist ontology of evolution applied to the field of anthropology has enabled us to create a logical framework of cross-cultural invariables. Cross-cultural invariables are the fundamentals of human behavior. They are homologous to all cultures including those that are not analogous.

The purpose of a culture is structured in its archetype. Thus, this archetype describes the essential functionality of a specific society.

A typology is a unique structure assumed by the collective unconscious of a society, sector, segment or individual, which defines the structure of the purpose it seeks to achieve.

In order to fully understand this description, we should be familiar with the unicist ontology of evolution, which is the basis of unicist anthropology.

Typologies are formed by the set of myths, utopias, taboos, co-existence taboos, and survival taboos existing in a specific social group.

Taboos, myths, and utopias serve to promote Man’s survival and co-existence. Although they are universal, they adopt different shapes in different societies.