I. The Summit and the Brick An Epistemic Stance for the Analysis of Civilizational Risk Introductory Article to the Series "The Spiral and the Summit. Five Turns of an Epistemic Stance"

The classical scientific paradigm, built on assumptions of substrate neutrality, epistemic sufficiency of macroscopic description, observer-object separability, and disciplinary boundaries mirroring natural ones, has guided scientific progress for centuries. Yet, the first quarter of the 21st century confronts humanity with a class of problems for which this paradigm proves systematically ineffective. Anomalies in cosmology, neuroscience, developmental biology, and oncology—such as the unresolved Hubble tension, contested hypotheses on consciousness, and the inadequacy of somatic mutation theory in explaining cancer—reveal a shared epistemic blind spot: the classical framework fails to address coordination failures, where systemic dysfunctions arise not from isolated components but from disrupted interactions among them. This article introduces a methodological stance designed to transcend the limitations of classical inquiry. Grounded in Altshuller’s Ideal Final Result (IFR) and Hegel’s dialectical spiral, it proposes a twofold approach: first, to occupy a position from which the problem is already resolved, and second, to trace the conditions that would make such a resolution possible. This stance is not metaphysical but methodological, enabling researchers to reframe anomalies as manifestations of a deeper, unifying principle—namely, the interdependence of information, computation, and physical substrate as aspects of a single process. Applied to the somatic mutation theory of cancer, this approach reveals cancer as a coordination failure rather than a cell-intrinsic disease, sublating the original paradigm into a more comprehensive framework. The article situates this methodology within a five-part series, each turn of the dialectical spiral applying the stance to domains ranging from cancer biology to civilizational risk and collective intelligence. By integrating diagnostic tools like the epistemic deficit profile and confronting institutional barriers as structural obstacles, the series aims to lay the groundwork for an epistemic architecture capable of dismantling the “wall of fourteen bricks” that constrains contemporary scientific progress. Ultimately, this work seeks to redefine the conditions under which scientific inquiry can address the most pressing challenges of our time.