What Universal Theory Is
Universal Theory (UT) is a work of first-principles philosophy.
It asks what must already be true for reality, meaning, disagreement, and experience to be possible at all — before beliefs, interpretations, or symbols are introduced.
UT does not begin with opinions about the world.
It begins with what cannot be denied without contradiction.
The project proceeds by identifying minimal constraints and following their necessary implications, step by step, without appealing to authority, ideology, or speculation.
The Problem UT Addresses
Across philosophy, science, religion, and politics, intelligent people disagree — persistently and often irreconcilably — even when acting in good faith and sharing evidence.
UT starts from the observation that this is not primarily a moral or psychological failure.
It is structural.
Before asking what is true, UT asks:
- What must reality be like for truth and falsity to be possible?
- What must be in place for meaning to arise at all?
- Why do symbols and explanations fail to converge?
UT treats disagreement as a feature of how reality is encountered, not simply as error or bias.
How The Work Proceeds
UT works backward from the undeniable fact that something exists and identifies what must follow if experience and intelligibility are to appear without contradiction.
The work develops a constrained cascade, including:
- Why existence cannot be contingent all the way down
- Why Being must be minimally self-present (awareness)
- Why awareness requires differentiation
- Why differentiation yields information as constraint
- Why symbols and meaning are downstream phenomena
- Why selves and minds are localized models within larger structures
Each step is argued as necessary, not asserted as preference.
What UT Is Not
UT is not:
- a spiritual teaching or self-help framework
- a religious system or anti-religious argument
- a scientific theory competing with physics
- a political ideology or moral program
- a speculative “theory of everything” in the popular sense
UT does not ask for belief.
It asks whether certain claims can be denied without collapse.
The Book
Universal Theory is a completed nonfiction manuscript.
The work integrates:
- formal reasoning
- source-grounded philosophy
- first-principles analysis
A sample chapter is available for review.
Author
Ryan Castellano is an independent philosopher working in first-principles ontology.
The work was developed privately over multiple years, with an emphasis on coherence, restraint, and structural rigor rather than public iteration.
Contact
For representation or inquiry:
ryan@universaltheory.co
© 2026 Universal Theory LLC