String theory is progress, but it is far from the theory of "everything". It is limited to force and matter in the external world. String theory implies that the particles that comprise all the matter that you see in the universe—and all the forces that allow matter to interact—are made of tiny vibrating strands of energy. These vibrating strings are the fundamental building blocks of nature.
The theory of everything does not include everything, it just finds a common unifying element --tiny vibrating strings-- in force and matter.
To meet our human need for knowledge we must find the common element of truly “everything”. By everything I mean all that we experience in life, what we experience within and without. This includes everything that we observe; all sensations, all perceptions, contemplations, feelings, acts of will, dreams and fantasy images, memories, concepts, ideas, all illusions and hallucinations. Inner and outer observation gives us a multiplicity of separate objects. We are not satisfied until we place each thing within a harmonious whole.
What is the common element in all the separate things we experience? What is the common element in literally everything? Everything has an ideal content, or pure concept that is the principle or rule that governs the object. This conceptual content becomes connected with all other conceptual content within a unified system of concepts within our mind.
“It is futile to seek for any other common element in the separate things of the world, than the ideal content which thinking supplies. All attempts to discover any other principle of unity in the world than this internally coherent ideal content, which we gain for ourselves by the conceptual analysis of our perceptions, are bound to fail.” POF 5.9
The mere appearance of a snail and a lion does not tell me why the lion is a higher developed creature than the snail. Thinking contributes the ideal content to the snail and lion from the world of concepts and ideas to make them intelligible and place them within the whole. All the separate objects that we observe gradually become unified into one whole by adding this ideal content. POF 5.10
All progress in knowledge depends upon incorporating all observed phenomena into the harmony of the conceptual world.
