Cladistics is the search for the running point
Cladistics’ sole recognition of continuity (ie, lineages) requires fusion of entity and class, which, unfortunately, can’t be accomplished, since entity and class are orthogonal (ie, diametrically opposed).
If we still confuse them (entity and class) in our minds, like Willi Hennig did and “cladists” do, they will together define a kind of ”things” that is contradictory, which we today call “clades”. Such “clades” are thus contradictory between entity and class. It means firstly that they can’t be real, ie, can’t be found in reality, per definition, but are pure abstractions, since contradictions can’t be real. Secondly, it means that if we comprehend one such “clade” as an entity, then it has contradictory properties (ie, is contradictory between classes), whereas if we comprehend it as a class, then it is contradictory as an entity (ie, is both one and several). It is thus indefinite (ie, paradoxically contradictory) between one entity/several classes and one class/several entities. Actually, the only thing it can’t be is what Willi Hennig aimed and cladists aim at, that is, one entity/one class, because entity and class are orthogonal (ie, diametrically opposed). It can only be either or, not both and. Confusion of entity and class in our minds thus obviously doesn’t do the trick, that is, fuse them (because they are orthogonal and thus can’t be fused).
Searching for such “clades” (ie, cladistics) is thus vain per definition, since there isn’t any non-contradictory clade, that is, are only contradictory clades, to be found. Cladists comprehend this fact as counter-intuitive, but it is because they confuse entity and class in their comprehension of Darwins illustration of evolution, thereby entering the inconsistent (ie, contradictory) belief that there is a single True tree of life to be found. Fact is, instead, that there are several just as correct inconsistent classifications (ie, cladifications) as well as several just as correct consistent classification (ie, orthogonal classifications like the Linnean system) of any particular bifurcating process, because process is continuous (ie, a matter of lineages) per definition, meaning that classifications of them are approximations (ie, a matter of gray scale rather than of black or white), per definition. (If they hadn’t been, then pattern (ie, entities) should instead have been continuous and process should instead have been impossible).
Cladistics is thus the search for the running point (which we traditionally partition into the two aspects pattern and process).
Another contribution to understanding of conceptualization http://menvall.wordpress.com/
2012-08-16 08:39:09
Source: http://menvall.wordpress.com/2012/08/16/cladistics-is-the-search-for-the-running-point/
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