„To be sure, everything in nature is change, but behind the change there is something eternal.“
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
„To be sure, everything in nature is change, but behind the change there is something eternal.“
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Search for Universal Principles
Have you ever wondered whether there are basic principles that everything rests on: reliable truths that form the foundation of our lives and our world? Universal principles that are fundamental and timeless, and that hold true everywhere?
We all know this idea from the natural sciences. Physics has Newton’s laws and Einstein’s theory of relativity. Biology builds on DNA and the cell as the foundation of all life. Chemistry is structured around the periodic table of elements. Every discipline has its own basic rules and axioms.
The humanities have their own principles too. Philosophy has its roots in the teachings of the pre-Socratics, on which great thinkers like Plato and Aristotle built. They searched for the basic patterns behind reality and the laws governing human thought. Psychology has discovered archetypes, patterns considered universal to human experience, and studies how basic mechanisms shape our perception and behavior. Religion, finally, rests on sacred texts, the Bible, the Quran, the teachings of the Buddha, that are meant to answer life’s biggest questions. Every discipline has its own fundamental truths that it’s trying to decode.
But what about principles that sit above all of that? Are there universal laws underlying every discipline, from the natural sciences to the humanities to religion? A common denominator that everything can be traced back to?
Modern people want to move past belief. They want to know. They want to understand the world through clear, verifiable facts, and the natural sciences deliver impressive results here. We’ve never had access to so much knowledge, and it’s never been so easy to get to. We live in an age of information overload, with countless scientific facts and data available to us at any moment.
But that’s exactly where the problem lies. The natural sciences give us facts, not direction. They explain how the world works, but they don’t answer the question of how we should live our lives. They offer no moral guidelines, no compass to carry us through the complexity of life. We believe less and less, and at the same time, we’re less and less able to say what counts as right or wrong action, or why.
Ruben Stelzner has thrown himself into exactly this question: Are there universal principles? Timeless laws that run through both nature and human behavior?
His work builds on his father’s, whose philosophical and interdisciplinary research laid the groundwork. With scientific rigor and personal dedication, his father developed an understanding of the first principles hidden not only in the wisdom of past cultures but also present in modern science, and made that understanding the starting point for a new, comprehensive way of thinking.
Ruben Stelzner grew up in a household shaped by philosophy. He studied a range of subjects across the natural sciences and the humanities, gained experience as a healthcare entrepreneur, and, not least, as a father. Drawing on all of that, he’s developing a new approach to the question of universal principles. He draws on findings from scientific disciplines, philosophical teachings, and cultural traditions alike, to lay out their shared root and the timeless structures at work within it clearly and in a way people can follow. The goal is to make these fundamental principles understandable again for everyone, and to place them in the context of the questions we face in modern life. They’re meant to do more than help us understand our world and how it works.
They’re meant to offer direction, too, in an age marked by growing complexity and uncertainty.