No, there isn’t any single true tree of life

Charles Darwin planted the idea of A “tree of life”, and Willi Hennig took this idea to its extreme “A Single True tree of life”. Hennig’s move from “A tree” to “A Single True tree” induced the counterreaction: can all different ideas of “A tree” really be consistently joined into a “A Single True tree”?

The fundamental quesion is: is there any difference between A tree of life and A Single True tree of life? The question can be analogized with: is there any difference between A chair and A Single True chair? This question begs the answer of what A Single True chair is? Is there any Single True chair at all? If so, what can it be? Is it in heaven or on earth? How can it get rid of the differences between all chairs?

No, Willi Hennig’s move is pure typology (what we traditionally call racism). It is what we have discarded over and over again over history. Whenever it rears its ugly head, we have to push it down again. No and no again, there isn’t a single true tree of life, just as there isn’t any single true chair or any other single true thing. Things, like you and me, simply aren’t true or false at all, we just are. Truths are to be found among processes, not among things. Hennig and his realistic followers are simply just as confused as all realists are. They have simply started from the erroneous axiom that classes (instead of objects) are real and thus can’t reach any stable harbour except Russell’s paradox. They are wrong from the beginning to the end.

No and no again, there isn’t any single true tree of life!!!

Another contribution to understanding of conceptualization http://menvall.wordpress.com/

Read more at Menvall’s Blog: change on different levels