Cladistics is a wish instead of a science

The fundamental problem for classification (and thus for conceptualization) is that the total number of finite classes and infinite classes is odd (because they are orthogonal), and that classification thus can’t break even (as Russell’s paradox also shows). The worst part of this problem is that it can only be bypassed by making the total number odd by an orthogonal system of classification (like the Linnean system), because it is impossible to make their total number even, and thus that it means that it is impossible to produce an unambiguous classification.

This fact can be phrased in many different ways, but is ultimately a matter of that if we paint reality in terms of a beginning and an end, then there must be both a beginning, a middle and an end, and a middle is paradoxically contradictory in classification. Although we wish so much that the middle should be unambiguous that some of us (ie, cladists) claim, even define, that it is unambiguous, it is still paradoxically contradictory. The goose simply can’t lift, but is firm on the ground. We simply can’t acknowledge what we deny, at least not at the same time.

Moreover, if we indeed could acknowledge what we deny, then this IT would just be whatever we acknowledge, but always paradoxically contradictory, just as it is paradoxically contradictory to acknowledge what one denies. Does one acknowledge or deny it?

The fundamental problem for classification (and thus for conceptualization) that the total number of finite classes and infinite classes is odd (because they are orthogonal), and that classification thus can’t break even (as Russell’s paradox also shows), is thus something we can’t solve, but instead have to relate to. Among other things, it means that a consistent single True Tree of Life is a definitional impossibility. This is actually the reason for Linné’s invention of his orthogonal system of classification, which has later been followed by the modern GIS and CAD applications, and Objective-Oriented Programming (OOP). Cladistics is nothing but a dead-end in the history of classification (and thus conceptualization). It is wish instead of a science.

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