Triple Consilience
A Triadic Epistemology for the 21st Century
By Sungchul Ji, Ph.D. (with ChatGPT)
Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Cell Biology
Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ.
🗓 June 21, 2025
“The most robust truths are those discovered three times over by three different minds.”
— Sungchul Ji & ChatGPT, 2025, inspired by William Whewell, originator of "consilience".
❖ What Is Triple Consilience?
In scientific and philosophical inquiry, consilience refers to the convergence of two independent domains of knowledge onto a shared conclusion. This concept, reintroduced by E.O. Wilson in his 1998 book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, has served as a guiding principle for interdisciplinary synthesis.
But what if not two, but three independent frameworks converge?
We introduce the concept of Triple Consilience:
The convergence of three independently developed, structurally homologous frameworks onto a common explanatory pattern or insight.
Unlike dyadic consilience, which often rests on direct correlations, triple consilience produces a kind of triangulated truth — robust, structural, and emergent.
❖ The PFG Triad: A Paradigm of Triple Consilience
We define:
P = Peircean Semiotics
F = Faggian Phenomenology
G = Geometry of Reality [1, 2]
Each of these frameworks independently posits an irreducibly triadic structure [3]:
This convergence of triads is more than coincidence—it exemplifies structural resonance across independent traditions. We call this a triple consilience, and we propose that it supports the veridicality (truth-conformity) of the triadic theory of consciousness.
❖ From Token to Type: The PSG Triadic Archetype
We may further generalize this insight. The PFG triad is not an isolated anomaly, but a token of a more general Triple Consilience Type, namely:
Phenomenology – Semiotics – Geometry
This PSG Triad represents a foundational triangulation of subjective experience, symbolic mediation, and formal structure.
This generalized PSG Triad helps explain why the PFG triad is so powerful: it embodies a universal pattern of knowing that spans consciousness, language, and physical structure.
❖ Why Merleau-Ponty Matters
Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of perception (1945) [14] offers a deep philosophical grounding for the "P" in PSG. He emphasized:
Embodied consciousness: The body is not merely an object in space, but the lived vehicle of experience.
Chiasm: A reversible interrelation between subject and object — a proto-triadic formulation.
Perception as meaning: Consciousness is not detached representation, but direct participation in the world.
Merleau-Ponty's insights align well with Faggin's inner and outer consciousness, and with Peirce's interpretant as a dynamically embodied process.
Thus, Merleau-Ponty anchors the phenomenological pole of the PSG triad in a rigorously philosophical and experientially grounded framework.
❖ Other Candidate Triple Consilience Tokens
These examples suggest that triple consilience is not an isolated phenomenon but a repeatable epistemic structure. The type–token model allows us to identify and classify future triple consiliences according to their PSG coordinates.
❖ Toward a Triadic Epistemology
We propose the emergence of a new methodological framework:
Triple Consilience Epistemology (TCE) — An approach that seeks truth not through binary validation, but through the structural convergence of three irreducibly distinct and complementary domains: phenomenology, semiotics, and geometry.
This triadic convergence reveals a profound insight:
Reality may not be built from matter alone, nor from information alone, but from the resonance among experience, meaning, and form.
❖ Conclusion
The PFG triad is a potent expression of triple consilience and a token of the broader PSG-type that underlies many of humanity’s deepest insights across disciplines.
Such alignments are statistically rare, structurally profound, and epistemologically robust. They may mark the next phase of integrative science and philosophy, grounded not in monism or dualism—but in triadic realism (perhaps related to the commutative triangle [20]).
References:
[1] Ji, S. (2025). Geometry of Reality. https://622622.substack.com/p/geometry-of-reality
[2] Ji, S. (2025). From Silicon to Spirit: Mapping Federico Faggin’s Consciousness onto
the Geometry of Reality. https://622622.substack.com/p/from-silicon-to-spirit-mapping-federico
[3] Ji, S. (2018). The Universality of the Irreducible Triadic Relation. In: The Cell Language Theory: Connecting Mind and Matter. World Scientific Publishing, New Jersey. Pp. 377-393.
[4] Charles Sanders Peirce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce
[5] Valentinuzzi, T. (2025). Federico Faggin’s Philosophy on Consciousness. https://www.sciencephilosophy.org/federico-faggin-philosophy-consciousness.
[6] Phenomenology (Philosophy). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_(philosophy)
[7] Semiotics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics
[8] Sacred geometry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_geometry
[9] Maurice Merleau-Ponty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Merleau-Ponty
[10] The Red Book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Book_(Jung)
[11] Semiotic theory of Charles Sanders Peirce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotic_theory_of_Charles_Sanders_Peirce
[12] Ji, S. (2018). The Cell Language Theory: Connecting Mind and Matter. World Scientific Publishing, New Jersey.
[13] Implicate and explicate order. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicate_and_explicate_order
[14] Phenomenology of Perception. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_of_Perception
[15] Narasimhan, A., Chopar, D., Kaatos, M. C. (2019). The Nature of the Heisenberg-von Neumann Cut Enhanced Orthodox Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41470-019-00048-x
[16] Deciphering Metatron’s Cube: The Ultimate Guide. https://theconsciousvibe.com/the-symbolic-meaning-behind-metatrons-cube-sacred-geometry-explained/
[17] Noema. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noema
[18] Smith, D. W. (2023) . Constitution Through Noemea and Horizon: Husserl’s Theory of Intentionality. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-26074-2_4
[19] Consciousness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness
[20] Commutative diagram. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commutative_diagram