Re: lattice of ontology
Azamat,
JS> People have been successfully understanding
> the world and one another for thousands of years...
AA> The statements taste as a mixture of exalted romantic
> humanism seasoned with a piece of propaganda.
On the contrary, successful survivability is the ultimate
proof that any species has developed an adequate response
to the challenge of existence. In the long run, *that* is
the ultimate test that matters. All other words are just
that -- mere words.
That is true:
> That the unity of nature is the most fundamental ontological
> principle had been eventually confirmed by Einstein's field
> theory, not mentioning recent achievements in theoretical physics.
But the fact is that we don't have any such "Theory of Everything",
and the only thing we can claim is that none of our current theories
of physics will survive except as approximations to any such TOE.
Furthermore, we also know that any theory of physics about how
the continuum works (expressed in differential equations or other
mathematics about an uncountable continuum) can *never* be translated
without loss into discrete statements in any Boolean logic, any
natural language, or any language that remotely resembles what we
are familiar with.
> The unity of nature implies the unity of the world, while the
> unity of reality implies a unified framework ontology.
That's false. The unity of a continuum implies that *no* discrete
finite language can even begin to be adequate. An infinite lattice
of discrete theories is the *simplest* approximation that might
begin to be adequate.
You must be able to answer these two fundamental questions:
1. How can any discrete language approximate a continuum?
2. How can you can derive values (i.e., the modal auxiliary
"ought") from physical facts (i.e., the verb "is")?
Until you can answer questions #1 and #2, you haven't even begun
to formulate a realistic claim for the possible existence of a
single unified theory that is anything different from a TOE that
uses differential equations (or some similar infinitistic language)
to characterize a continuum.
Summary: Unless you claim that physicists are doing the only
ontology that could be true, you don't have a believable claim.
John