The mystery of dichotomously branching processes
A dichotomously branching process can be classified in two orthogonal ways:
1. using a flat classification (today called cladistics), and
2. using an orthogonal classification (like Linnean systematics and evolutionary taxonomy).
The latter starts from objects (entities) and is consistently ambiguous, whereas the former starts from classes and is consistently contradictory.
The reason for these two kinds of classification is that the classes of the process are paradoxical, ie, that classification is paradoxical (see Russell’s paradox).
The existence of these two kinds of classification means that a dichotomously branching process can’t be classified unambiguously at all. It can, of course, be illustrated with a dichotomously branching graph, but then the objects (entities) of this graph can’t be described using their properties without contradiction. Such illustration may in itself be comprehended as unambiguous, but this comprehension is a brain ghost emerging from a belief that classes are (can be) real, ie, are (can be) objects (entities). They factually can’t, because if they could, then objects (entities) could not be objects (entities). The illustration does not illustrate an origin of classes, but an origin of objects (entities), which can’t be classified unambiguously at all.
Dichotomously branching processes do thus polarize our two possible classifications into one contradictory and one ambiguous, thereby leaving the middle between them empty (void). This is, however, not a property of such processes, but of classification. The fact that we have to start from something when we discuss reality in terms of objects and classes (ie, either objects or classes) means that something also has to be invisible between them. If this “something” could be visible, then all our beliefs about reality could be both true and false at the same time, ie, belief would equal knowledge, which would be false. It would thus put us in the weird situation of equalling true with false (which, obviously, is false).
The only way to avoid this black hole of classification is to acknowledge the fact that dichotomously branching processes can’t be classified unambiguously at all. This fact is thus not a matter of that dichotomously processes do not “exist”, but of that we can’t classify them unambiguously. Concerning the idea of a “single true tree of life”, the fact leaves the question of whether it is “true” or “false” as a cliff-hanger. There is no way we can say. The problem for us (scientists) is that the assumption that it is “true” is paradoxically contradictory, ie, lacking an unambiguous solution per definition, instead leading us into Russell’s paradox. The rational solution is thus a paradox…
It means that we have to choose between creationism and paradox. The only escape from this choice is to accept an orthogonal system of classification like Linnean systematics, compromizing between belief and knowledge. It does indeed exclude knowledge, but also belief.
Another contribution to understanding of conceptualization http://menvall.wordpress.com/
2013-02-20 16:46:40
Source: http://menvall.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/the-mystery-of-dichotomously-branching-processes/
Source:
