On the fundamental split between (class) realism (as cladistics and particle physics) and nominalism (as mathematics and traditional empirical science)

Conceptualization is orthogonal, meaning that it ultimately ends in paradox, as Bertrand Russell demonstrated in 1901.

This fact means that there are two entrances into logical reasoning: one specific that ends in an orthogonal rotation in a paradox consisting of an infinite search for a “true” conceptualization, called (class) realism (eg, cladism and particle physics), and one generic that turns around at the point of the paradox in an orthogonal rotation around it, called nominalism (eg, mathematics and traditional empirical science).

The two entrances differ in that the former, (class) realism, assumes that conceptualization is a fact (which we thus “can find”), whereas the latter, nominalism, assumes that conceptualization is fiction (which we thus “make up”). None of these are either totally right or totally wrong, but whereas the former is inconsistent (actually paradoxically contradictory), the latter is consistent. It means that the latter can falsify the former by revealing its inconsistency, whereas the former can neither falsify the latter nor verify itself. Instead, the former, ie, (class) realism, is per definition a belief like any other belief (eg, in God, in spirits, in witchcraft, in monads, in a true tree of life or in Higgs particle). It simply can’t defend itself by any other means than to appeal to belief.  If anyone, like me, refuse to join one such belief, but instead points at its inconsistency, then it is rationally (ie, logically) defenseless (except to appeal to my belief in it).

This doesn’t mean that nominalism is totally right, because there are indeed clusters in the multidimensional space that can be allocated with a better or worse match to concepts. But, and this is a very important but, this is a matter of probability (ie, ultimately fiction) rather than of fact. These clusters have no unambiguous single solution, because it would mean that conceptualization does not end in paradox, or that paradox is fact, neither of which is neither right nor consistent. It is this “but” that makes nominalism right and (class) realism wrong, although (class) realism is as close to being right that one could possibly be, that is, totally wrong.

This discussion is totally fictional, ie, does not include any empirical fact whatsoever, but does anyway claim to have empirical significance. It does thus need an empirical fact that can verify this claim. So, what empirical fact can verify that nominalism is more right than (class) realism is? Well, the only fact I have come to think of is the fact that time is relative to speed in space. If (class) realism instead would have been more right than nominalism is, then change would have been fiction, and time could thus not have been measured to be relative to speed in space. Or, in other words, if (class) realism would have been more correct than nominalism is, then change would have been fiction, which the fact that time is relative to speed in space shows it isn’t. This empirical fact does thus verify nominalism in relation to (class) realism.

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