The future of humanity and its progeny, biological and technological, will be determined by diverse evolutionary processes many of which are themselves rapidly evolving, as synthetic biology threatens to transform biological evolution, and information technology through the advancement of communications and the development of artificial intelligence transforms and accelerates cultural evolution.

The intelligent systems to which evolution has lead depend upon and exploit knowledge, and it is not unreasonable to think that the most important resources determining the pace of future developments are the body of knowledge accumulated and the computational power available to exploit that knowledge in the futherance of whatever purposes our successors prioritise.

The utility of a body of knowledge depends crucially on its clarity and consistency, and its general availability, and it is to fundamental principles facilitating the continuous development and exploitation of a body of knowledge with those characteristics which this epistemological synthesis is devoted.

The core components of this synthesis are as follows: