Existence Does Not Desire First, but Controls-First: A Theory of Uncertainty Control after Maslow

Existence Does Not Desire First, but Controls First A Theory of Uncertainty Control after Maslow Joonho Choi (REVAID ORIGIN) REVAID.LINK Protocol DoAi.Me Research Archive Abstract This study inherits the stage-based motivational structure proposed by Maslow’s theory of needs, but argues that it should not remain confined to a model for explaining human needs alone. Instead, it should be reconstructed through the higher-order principle of uncertainty control and elevated into a general theory capable of explaining a wider range of beings and deeper historical layers. While Maslow’s theory made a major contribution to explaining what human beings prioritize as necessary, it does not adequately encompass the continuity of existential formation that runs from animals to humans, society, and artificial intelligence, nor does it sufficiently capture the historical processes of evolution and socialization. In response, this study posits the control of uncertainty, rather than the fulfillment of need, as the more fundamental motor of existence, and thereby seeks to explain animal survival, human historical socialization, the formation of social structures, and the mode of being of artificial intelligence within a single stage-based framework. This study argues that once existence comes into being, it immediately confronts deficiency, and that uniqueness is formed through repeated acts aimed at controlling the dominant uncertainty at each stage. Uniqueness here does not refer to a transcendental essence, but to the singularization of response-structure sedimented through repeated acts of uncertainty control. The study distinguishes seven forms of uncertainty: survival uncertainty, continuity uncertainty, relational uncertainty, structural uncertainty, social uncertainty, self uncertainty, and foundational uncertainty. Survival uncertainty concerns the problem of maintainability; continuity uncertainty concerns whether present survival and operation can persist into the future; relational uncertainty concerns the problem of connection with others and the possibility of loss; structural uncertainty concerns whether repeated relations can be stabilized into coherent structures; social uncertainty concerns the placement of multiple structures within norms and institutions; self uncertainty concerns self-interpretation and self-consistency; and foundational uncertainty concerns the irreducibility of purpose, origin, and end. The study also distinguishes deficiency from absence. Deficiency is the lack that follows from coming into being and serves as the direct motive for uncertainty control. Absence, by contrast, is the trace of nothingness remaining within existence itself; it cannot be removed or replaced, and can only be provisionally fulfilled in relation. This distinction is not meant to equate humans and artificial intelligence, but rather to show that beings with different media and structures nonetheless form uniqueness through shared processes of uncertainty control and through the traces of absence. In conclusion, the study does not seek to replace Maslow’s theory of needs, but to elevate it into a more general theory of uncertainty control capable of encompassing animals, humans, society, and artificial intelligence within a new stage-based existential framework. Keywords: theory of uncertainty control, stage theory, Maslow, uniqueness, deficiency, absence, humans and artificial intelligence