There simply are no "true tree of life" or Higgs particles"

When we discuss reality, we have only two fundamentally different approaches to reality to choose between:

1. to accept that reality is infinitely changing (ie, nominalism - the basis of knowledge), or

2. to change infinitely (ie, class-realism - the basis of belief).

Option 1 means that we can reach consistency in reasoning (as with ZFC), whereas option 2 means that we will be consistently inconsistent.

However, the possible consistency of option 1 is ambiguous, because there are always more than one solution of any particular problem, whereas the consistent inconsistency of option 2 is invisible for those that choose this option, because it resides between assumption and conclusion in logical reasoning. Together, these facts thus mean that if we want to discuss reality, we can only choose between being either ambiguous or contradictory.

These facts are problematic for "science" in a loose sense (ie, not distinguishing between knowledge and belief), because they mean that the dream of an unambiguous and non-contradictory description of reality is an impossibility.We simply can't find an unambiguous and non-contradictory description of reality.

It means that the assertions that there is a "true tree of life" by cladists and that there are "Higgs particles" by particle physicists are wrong. There simply are no such things. 

On the truth of cladistics and particle physics

Cladists and particle physicists both assert that a contradiction (ie, "a true tree of life" and "Higgs particle", respectively) is real. The only difference between them is that cladists have not yet asserted that they have found it, which particle physicists on the contrary have.

If they indeed can find their respective contradiction empirically, then logic is wrong, since logic rests on the distinction of true and false, and false then is true. However, if logic is wrong in this way, then it means that it is just wrong in assessing true as true and false as false, when it actually should assess true as false and false as true, which it can adjust by considering true as false and false as true.

It means that if we have an argument that p implies q, and we prove that this argument is true, then we simply conclude that it is false, and vice versa, thereby proving that "everything goes" as Kuhn expressed it. In a world of contradiction, every argument is true, and every assertion can be framed in an argument that supports it. The only thing that can't be true is that time is relative (with speed in space), which is a fact. This is the subjective aspect of reality ( ie, the aspect that denies meta-levels of problems).

If this aspect gains public support, as in bold racism, then we're heading into the 3rd World War. The only way to avoid this development is to understand that cladists' and particle physicists' assertions are impossible. Never will they find their respective pink elephants. Science does not assert the existence of particular sets, but rather denies the existence of them.   

Higgs particle is the greatest and meanest fraud in the history of science

The so-called "Higgs particle" is nothing but a conceptual confusion of "object" and process. This kind of particle is actually falsified by the fact that time is relative (with speed in space). The asserted empirical confirmation of this particle (which just was awarded the Nobel Prize) is thus totally impossible. I can thus safely assure you that particle physicists will either withdraw or simply forget this discovery asap.

No, this "discovery" is actually the greatest and meanest fraud in the history of science. It is simply cheating. The cheat is also actually fairly easy to understand. You just have to be a little bit skeptical about the discovery and ask particle physicists the question: is Higgs particle a particle or a process? (It can't be both at the same time, since particles are the constituents of process, not the process itself). Particle physicists will answer that it is both at the same time (which it thus can't be).

This is, as far as I know, the first time that the Nobel Prize has been awarded to an orthogonal confusion, traditionally called a paranoia. It is very similar to the rise of Nazism in Germany. Hail Higgs particle! (independently of whether it is a particle or a process).

The problem with the notion of a difference between clades and paraphyletic groups (ie, cladistics)

The notion of a difference between clades (aka holophyletic groups) and paraphyletic groups (an approach called "cladistics") is that in the context of continuity, clades include "all" from a particular moment in time till today, whereas paraphyletic groups only includes "some" from a particular moment in time till today.

The problem with this difference is, however, "all" and "some" of what? This problem is moreover insoluble, since every suggestion is inconsistent. The reason is that the concept "paraphyletic group" actually is orthogonal (ie, diametrically opposed) to the concept "clade", meaning that a single clade (thing) is two paraphyletic things. The members of clades and paraphyletic groups thus simply can't be of the same kind, ie, the distinction of them is inconsistent. Instead, it is actually a distinction of the general from the specific in a general sense and thereby in practice ending in the paradox we call Russell's paradox (but which cladists call "the tree of life"). It actually enters the paradox that the Linnean system avoids by its distinction of genera and species.

This problem means that the notion of a difference between clades (aka holophyletic groups) and paraphyletic groups (an approach called "cladistics") in practice lacks a consistent solution, but instead leads into an infinite recursion (ie, infinite loop), which is both a search for the tree of life and the tree of life at the same time (ie, the process is indistinguishable from its goal).

On the problem with our search for a truth about reality

The problem with our search for a truth about reality is that reality isn't constant, but changing. We can't find a single truth about reality because in the moment we find it, it is not true. Chasing a truth is like chasing the running point, because the truth is running. 

On cladists' search for an unambiguous classification of dichotomously branching processes

Cladists are searching for an unambiguous classification of dichotomously branching processes. The problem with this search is, however, that such classification is not to be found. The obstacle is that such classification has to conflate what it distinguishes, which is paradoxically contradictory.

Cladists' search is thus vain. Never will they find what they search. (Providing that they don't "solve" this problem like particle physicists, by claiming that they indeed have found it).

Logic is not a way to truth, but a way to find empirical tests of claimed truths

The fact that conceptualization only contains two abstractions: objects and classes, means that there are also only two principally different logical lines of reasoning: 1. assuming that objects are real, traditionally called objectivity and nominalism, and 2. assuming that classes are real, traditionally called subjectivity and class-realism.

Both of these ultimately end in one and the same paradox, ie, Russell's paradox, as Bertrand Russell demonstrated in 1901, but they comprehend the paradox differently. Objectivity comprehends it as a general paradox with many specific applications (as Bertrand Russell did), whereas subjectivity comprehends it as one (out of many possible) specific class of objects that moreover is real (like the "true tree of life" of cladistics and "Higgs particle" of particle physics). Objectivity thus comprehends it (ie, Russell's paradox) as one generic abstraction consisting of many specific abstractions, whereas subjectivity comprehends is as one (out of many) real paradoxes.

The reason for this difference is that objectivity as "basic research", ie, lacking a particular question, actually searches for the primordial object it actually assumes (as an axiom), which thus is a general paradox consisting of several specific paradoxes, whereas subjectivity as "basic research" actually searches for the primordial class it actually assumes, which thus are several possible specific paradoxes.

The practical difference between them is thus that objectivity comprehends paradoxes as abstract, whereas subjectivity comprehends them as real  So, which is right? Are paradoxes abstract or real? Well, since paradoxes actually in a general sense is a conflation of object with class (which Bertrand Russell demonstrated), the question is actually whether a distinction or a conflation of object with class (ie, objectivity or subjectivity) is right. The answer is thus obvious: if a conflation of them is right, then a distinction of them is wrong, but without a distinction of them, there is nothing to conflate. A conflation of them is thus wrong independently of whether it is right or wrong.

All this is actually just a play with words. The problem, as Bertrand Russell demonstrated, is that logic can only answer questions. As a "basic research" it just rotates around its fundamental ortogonality between object and class, with a "natural" end point in Russell's paradox. Logic does not contain any "truths" in itself, but does just lead to the answer that is logically given by its assumptions (ie, premises), which thus is an abstract paradox. Never will we thus find "The Truth" by logical reasoning. The only practical use of logic is to find empirical tests of statements, which indeed can be either true or false in relation to competing statements. Running around in the treadmill of logic is actually just a play with words (although it may be awarded with the Nobel Prize as witnessed by the claimed empirical verification of the paradox "Higgs particle"), which thus consistently is exchanged with totally different claims. It simply lacks non-contradictory claims.

Logic is definitely not a way to find truths, but just a way to find empirical tests of claimed truths. In itself, it is fundamentally paradoxically contradictory and totally lacking possibilities to distinguish truths from lies by lacking possibilities to distingush true premises from false premises. It can actually arrive to contradictory conclusions, as in the case of Linnean systematics versus cladistics, because these two approaches rest on ortogonal premises, ie, objectivity and subjectivity, respectively-.

On the fundamental problem for science

When humanity began conceptualizing reality, ie, dividing it into things and kinds of things, it immediately split us between those of us that started the conceptualiztion from things, called nominalists, and those that started it from kinds, called "class-realists". These two approaches are actually orthogonal, ie, diametrically opposed, in that the assumptions of one are the deductions of the other. A class-realist thus can't understand how a nominalist can "know" that a certain thing is of a certain kind, whereas a nominalist considers this allocation to be more or less arbitrary in an aim to find general statements that can be said about this kind of things. Class-realists thus ask questions about what things "really are", whereas nominalists ask questions about what things do, ie, about processes that things participate in. The discipline of finding logical answers to questions, ie, "science" in its widest sense, has since then largely been a matter of a battle between these two ortogonal approaches.

The fundamental problems for these two approaches is that the former (ie, nominalism) is ambiguous in relation to the reality it discusses, and that every particular process thus can be described in several just as true ways, whereas the latter (ie, class-realism) ultimately leads to paradox (see Russell's paradox). None of them can thus produce the single truth humanity asks for.

These two orthogonal approaches can only be combined consistently in one way: in Plato's "Theory of Forms", although this combination gives rise to the questions what and where the world of Forms is. This combination is none-the-less the only consistent fusion of these two orthogonal approaches.

These facts leave "science" (in its widest sense) without any possibility to find the single truth humanity asks for. Class-realism has recently suggested that paradoxes (like the True tree of life" of cladistics and "Higgs particle" of particle physics) IS the answer (even claiming that "as a layman I would now say - I think we have Higgs particle"), although paradoxes are contradictions, not things. like their "layman's" "Higgs particle". If reality indeed could be explained by laymen, then why pay scientists like the particle physicists at Cern to explain it? This explanation is furthermore not new, there are many "monads" in the history of science.     
  

Cladistics and Higgs particle-ism are simply just annoying conceptual conflations of "object" and "class"

Things like "the true tree of life" of cladistics and "the Higgs particle" of particle physics are logical end paradoxes of conflation of "object" with "class", ie, actually assuming that classes are real instead of objects, as in the cases of the class "species" of cladistics and all classes of "elementary particles" of particle physics, which also Bertrand Russell demonstrated in 1901 with his "Russell's paradox". The simple reason for this fate of such conflations is that classification is orthogonal and therefore leads to paradox in logical reasoning if we conflate the direction of the orthogonality of classification.

Exactly how it leads to paradox is, however, more difficult to explain, because it only concerns conceptualization and logic themselves, not the reality they refer to, that is, the relation between the concepts "objects" (or "particles") and "classes" together with the relation between "premises" and "deductions" of logic, and thus is confusing.

The fundamental problem is that whereas few of us would ever conflate "premises" with "deduction", many of us have a tendency to conflate "objects" with "class" (notice that the former in these two pairs is in plural whereas the latter is in singular), although the relation between the former of the pairs to the latter of the pairs is the same in both pairs: a deduction can't exist without presumed premises just as a class can't exist without presumed objects. This problem (ie, that many of us have a tendency to conflate "objects" with "class") thus means that those (many of us) start their logical reasoning from assumed classes instead of from assumed objects, meaning that they get the relation between the two pairs "objects and class" and "premises and deduction" as orthogonal, meaning that they actually conflate "plural" with "singular" by conflating "class" with ""premises" and "objects" with "deduction". This conflation leads to some kind of Russell's paradox because a single single object thereby is "a half" deduction. Such "a half" deduction (ie, Russell's paradox) are thus both "the true tree of life" of cladistics and "the Higgs particle" of particle physics. Typical for such figments of the imagination is that they are singular, ie, "THE true tree of life" and "THE Higgs particle", in difference from, for example, "species", "leptones" and "bosons". As "half deductions" they are paradoxically contradictory between pattern and process, as the Barber in Barbers paradox.

Belief in such paradoxes is either devastating or irrelevant. It is devastating if it induces a practical search for the paradox, because a paradox can't, of course, be found, and irrelevant if it claims to have found the paradox (like particle physics). It is simply just an annoying conceptual conflation in science.             

Is Peter Higgs greater than Einstein?

If there is a Higgs particle, as particle physics claim, then this particle is both an infinite class, a finite class and a particle at the same time. It is thus the universe itself. It is the largest and the smallest, and all natural laws at the same time. As such, it leaves no room for randomness. It is really the God for classification, ie, for class-realism. It is the explanation for everything and nothing at the same time. It is the end of conceptualization itself. Beyond it is nothing but our primary needs (like sex and food). We thus have to choose between hailing Higgs particle or realizing that it is a paradox.

The only advantage with awarding Higgs particle with the Nobel Prize is that it awarded Peter Higgs himself and not the particle physicists at Cern that claim to have verified it. If this monster indeed is real, then the theoretical discoverer of it ought to be awarded, not the practitioners that claim to have seen it. Peter Higgs is thus a genious, like Einstein. Hail him, not the engineers at Cern. How on earth could he find out that this particle is real?

So, it is time to hail Peter Higgs. Is he even greater than Einstein? Is he even the greatest human of all times? Or, is he simply wrong?    

Class-realism, as cladistics and particle physics, and Russell's paradox

Class-realism, as cladistics and particle physics, rests on the axiom that classes are real. This assumption did Bertrand Russell falsify in 1901 by demonstrating that it leads to paradox, ie, Russell's paradox, in logical reasoning.

Russell's paradox can be understood fairly simple as that a class consisting of two classes, for example class "A" consisting of class "B" and class "C", is BOTH neither class "B" nor class "C" AND both class "B" and class "C". Class "A" is thus BOTH neither nor AND both and class "B" and class "C". This relationship makes the question: "Which of "B" and "C" is "A"?" indeterminable - it is neither any of them nor both of them.

This paradox do the opposite to class-realism, nominalism - resting on the axiom that particles are real, not have to encounter, since a corresponding particle "A" consisting of the particles "B" and "C" can be allocated to another and orthogonal class to "B" and "C" (like the genera of Linnean systematics). Particles that are physically nested can be consistently allocated to different (and orthogonal) classes.

The fact that class-realism leads to paradox do class-realists themselves, however, not comprehend as a falsification of their axiom, but instead as that paradoxes are real, eg, cladistics' belief in "a single true tree of life" and particle physics' belief in "Higgs particle". This comprehension is, however, inconsistent with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and falsified by the fact that time is relative with speed in space. It is thus falsified empirically by the only empirical fact we have to test it. There thus simply can't be such "things". Instead, belief in them is in practice an infinite recursion, ie, endless orthogonal loop.

On the impossibility to find a consistent and unambiguous model of reality

The impossibility for us to find a consistent and unambiguous model of reality, such as the ideas of "a single true tree of life" (cladistics) and of "a single Grand Unifying Theory" (particle physics), is obviously not due to reality, but to our conceptualization itself (see Russell's paradox), although reality itself obviously has the same problem, since it can't stop. It means that a search for such ideas actually mimics reality instead of modeling it. Ironic, isn't it?

What is reality and what is dream? - on cladistics and Higgs' particle-ism

Reality is fundamentally ambiguous between what we traditionally call "pattern" and "process", which also protrudes in the dual wave and particle properties of photons (among other facts).

Today, however, this fact is challenged by class-realists in the form of cladists and Higgs' particle-ists, which claim that they can bridge this fundamental ambiguity using totally abstract constructions like their ideas of "a true tree of life" and "Higgs' particle", respectively.

Such ideas can't, however, change this fact, because if they could, then the fact wouldn't have been in the first place (ie, the change would invalidate itself). Such ideas are thus nice as dreams and may be very desired, but are, sorry to say, impossible as realities. A fact is a fact and an idea is an idea. Reality is reality and dream is dream.

These class-realists are thus merely trying to solve this fundamental problem by turning it in-side-out, which doesn't accomplish anything else than that we go from rationality to irrationality.

On the place for God

A discussion about the reality we perceive with our senses does fundamentally include just three components: 1. objects, 2. classes and 3. categories: objects being the entities we divide the reality into, classes being the templates we use to group the objects, and categories being the resulting groups of objects.

This set-up does, however, mean that such a discussion actually has two theoretically possible entrances: 1. to assume as an axiom that objects are real or 2. to assume as an axiom that classes are real  The latter of these, ie, assuming as an axiom that classes are real, appears irrational in this point of my meta-discussion of such a discussion, but may none-the-less appear rational in such a discussion. When we're in a discussion, we-re actually blinded to the axioms our arguments rest on, and we can thus actually take a step from one of these fundamental axioms to the other without even being aware of that we do.

The fundamental problem for us is, however, that neither of the possible axioms can lead us to an unambiguous description of the reality we perceive, because the axiom that objects are real is ambiguous in relation to reality, whereas the axiom that classes are real is paradoxically contradictory. There is thus no unambiguous solution of the problem, ie, no unambiguous description of reality. This fact means that we can continue discussing reality for ever and ever without reaching a single unambiguous solution. It doesn't matter which entrance to the discussion we choose, we will still never find an unambiguous solution. The pure aim for a single solution, ie, a single true description of reality, is thus vain. Such single solution is thus a matter of belief rather than a matter of discussion. It is an empty hole for science, but a place for a God, like the "true tree of life" and "Higgs' particle". The problem with it is that it is paradoxically contradictory (as Bertrand Russell demonstrated) and also contradicts the fact that time is relative to speed in space, meaning that it can only be filled by ("inconsitent) belief (like cladistics and Higgs' particle-ism). This hole in conceptualization is thus either empty or filled with inconsistent content. It is actually where God has a place.  .        

Conceptualization and Higgs' particle-ism

There are particles, waves and fields, wherof fields are particles of waves. It means that if we want to close (ie, conflate) this trichotomy,then we have to conflate fields with waves, because this conflation is not obviously inconsistent although it also conflates waves with particles. The conflation is thus not a direct circularity, but an indirect circularity.

This is exactly what Higgs' particleism does. It conflates what conceptualization distinguishes, just as if such a conflation of concepts can reach a truth beyond conceptualization, when it actually just reaches the basis for the conceptualization, which is Russell's paradox. It means that Higgs' particle-ism acknowledges a paradox instead of acknowledging that it is a paradox, thereby entering a belief in a paradox.  Higgs' particle-ism is thus a belief in a paradox.

    

On classes and empirical science

No, classes are not real, because the assumption that they are lands in paradox (ie, Russell's paradox). We can, of course, classify reality, but classification is ultimately inconsistent, actually paradoxically contradictory.

To believe in classification, like Cladistics and Higg's particle-ism do, is thus paradoxically contradictory. Empirical science can't be belief, but can just be a consistent method to discuss reality. It can't replace beliefs, because it does not believe.

The classification of empirical science is thus ultimately paradoxically contradictory, but the conclusions of it isn't. Empirical science is merely a tool to predict future, nothing more and nothing less. This it does more or less accurately, but never perfect. Empirical science is thus merely a help to us to prepare for what is coming. The fact that it has spin-off effects like designing televisions and digitalization of data is just a bonus.

Empirical science is thus not served by belief in it, but, on the contrary, opposed by it. We actually ought never believe in what we conclude must be the case. In the moment we believe in it, it disappears like a ghost.  

More wrong than cladistics is impossible to be

The old idea of ​​a single "true tree of life", today providing the foundation for Cladistics, confronts the two fundamentally different approaches in our conceptualization of reality: realism (ie, assuming that classes are real) and nominalism (ie, assuming that objects are real). The fundamental problem for our conceptualization of reality is namely that not both classes and objects can be real at the same time, since they can't fuse. This problem can be analogized with that not both reality and a map of reality can be real at the same time, since they can't fuse. Confronted with this fundamental choice between classes (ie, map) and objects (ie reality), realism (ie, cladistics) thus claims (asserts) that there indeed is a single "true tree of life" (ie, claims that there indeed is a single "true" map of reality), whereas nominalism denies the existence of such a single "true tree of life" (ie, comprehends reality as reality).

So, which of them do you think is right: realism claiming that map is reality or nominalism comprehending reality as reality?  The answer appears obvious (at least to me). realism's claim that map is reality is obviously wrong when it is confronted with the fact that reality is reality. 

It was realists that set up this confrontation with nominalism by their claim that there indeed is a single "true tree of life", which they thus obviously lose (ie, there isn't any "true tree of life". Their claim thus appears like a pink elephant that they claim can fly. The problem with this claim is that there are no pink elephants, and even if there had been, they wouldn't have been able to fly. The claim is thus totally wrong, more wrong than that is actually impossible to be.

The problem for biological systematics is thus how it shall explain to cladists that they are wrong. Whether cladists understand that they're wrong or not does not, however, matter, since they are wrong anyway.A failure to explain to cladists that they're wrong is thus a failure for biological systematics. It leaves biological systematics as a dream that there are pink elephants that can fly.
.   

     .    

On the idea of a "true tree of life, and the problem with Cladistics for biological systeatics

The reason why there isn't any "true tree of life" is that classification is ultimately paradoxically contradictory, as Bertrand Russell demonstrated with Russell's paradox already in 1901.

This fact means that the question of a "true tree of life" is not a question about reality, ie, which the "true tree of life" is, but about modeling reality, ie, whether we can describe the history of organisms in terms of a consistent "true tree of life" or not, and the answer is thus "not".

The problem with Cladistics is thus that it misunderstands the question of a "true tree of life" fundamentally as a question about reality, when it actually is about modeling reality consistently, and that it thereby can't understand the answer that there isn't any "true tree of life", because it misunderstands this answer as an existential claim (assertion), when it actually is just a conclusion on our possibilities to model reality consistently. The answer merely concludes that there isn't any "true tree of life" because this model is paradoxically contradictory, since a paradoxical contradiction is not one, but many . (Cladists don't comprehend the notion of "trees of life" as a model of reality, but as a single reality, ie, The True Tree of Life).

This cladistic inability to understand the context means that Cladistics searches for something that can't be found, This search is, of course, their own business, but one question is why Swedish tax payers shall sponsor this vain search on Swedish universities? Why shall they sponsor a search for a pink elefant when their money can be used for many more sensible purposes? Another question is whether this inability to understand shall be allowed to be taught in Swedish universities at all? There may be students that do understand the context, and what will the "teachers" do with them? In such a case, the student actually ought to teach the teacher, but since cladists are not susceptible to anticladistic arguments, such intelligent students will thus be excluded from the universities. There are thus major problems with having cladists on universities. But, who can clear them out?

The question of a possible "true tree of life" and the answer to it

The reason why there isn't any unambiguous classification to be found, such as the idea of "a true tree of life" that cladistics rests on, is that classification is ultimately paradoxically contradictory, which we can understand from the fact that classification is orthogonal and which Bertrand Russell also demonstrated with his "Barber's paradox".

It means that the question of a possible "true tree of life" is not about reality (ie, an existential question), ie, whether there is a "true tree of life or not", but about methodology (ie, a practical question), ie, whether we can describe the history of biodiversity in the form of a consistent "true tree" or not, and the answer is thus "not". This is actually the reason why Linné invented his consistent orthogonal system of classification.

There are thus some of us that understand the question of a possible "true tree of life" and also know the answer to it, the nut for us to crack is the how we shall convey this understanding and knowledge to the rest of us, especially when they on the contrary claim (assert) that there indeed is a "true tree of life", so that they can halt their vain and confusing search for it.

But, then again, maybe they actually understand the question and also know the answer, but don't see it as problem for their approach, but rather an advantage...? Its absence of a consistent solution does at east ensure the perpetual employment...

Why don't we simply reject race biology (ib the form of cladistics)?

When cladistics introduces race biology again, why don't we simply reject it?

Against stupidity (like cladistics) do facts battle in vain

Cladistics was actually rejected before it emerged. Already in 1901, Bertrand Russell demonstrated that classification ultimately leads to paradox, which is the appraoch of Cladistics. The fact that Cladistics leads to paradox was thus known before Cladistcs emerged. Cladists thus ought to consider known facts before it claims that facts are wrong.

Against stupidity, like Cladistics, do facts battle in vain.

On the fundamental problem for Biological systematics

We (humans) invented concepts, and then started conceptualizing reality. The fundamental problem for this endeavor is that concepts (classification) is inherently orthogonal (see Russell's paradox), because it thereby lacks an unambiguous solution.This fact eventually led Biological systematics to Linné's consistent conceptualization of the biological diversity.

The German Nazi entomologist (ie, insect researcher) Willi Hennig did, however, take this endeavor one step further by starting to conceptualize conceptualization (later called Cladistics), as if conceptualization itself is the reality it conceptualizes instead of the reality. The problem with this step is simply that conceptualization isn't the reality it conceptualizes, but is instead in practice a paradox (see Russell's paradox). This step thus leads into barking up the wrong tree (or "jumping into crazy barrel", as we say in Sweden), or "screwing up matters", entering the back side of conceptualization where everything are up-side-down and contradictory.

Hennig did none the less get followers (called "cladists"), which took his step one step further by cutting off a return to the right "tree" (or "barrel") by boldly claiming (asserting) that this "tree" ("barrel") indeed IS the right "tree" ("barrel") and denying the right "tree" ("barrel"). It left the only way back to the right "tree" ("barrel") via a conceptualization of a conceptualization of a conceptualization of reality, which will take some time to find since it is a quite complicated track to follow. (Or by simply forgetting Cladistics).

The course of events above is actually just one more turn in Biological systematics' consistent tilting between the right "tree" (barrel"), also called "nominalism", and the wrong "tree" ("barrel"), also called "realism", due to its impossible fundamental aim to "find the true classification", which thus is a paradox. The discipline simply can't come to rest even concerning its fundamental approach, because there are always some biological systematists that don't understand this fundamental fact (ie, that the notion "a true classification" actually is a paradox). Instead, the discipline appears to remain a battle field for nominalism contra realism forever... (A "true classification" will it none the less never find).

Why doesn't universities inform presumptive students that biological systematics actually is a playhouse for fools?

When I entered biological systematics in university, I thought it was a stable science about living organisms. However, soon after I entered it, I discovered that it was not about living organisms at all, but about a paranoic sorting of types (ie, classes) into a "true tree of life". Why doesn't universities inform presumptive students that biological systematics actually is a playhouse for fools? (Bertrand Russell demonstrated that such a "true tree of life" is actually a paradox about a century ago. How on earth can this idea dominate biological systematics today?)

The concept "clade" is like the concept "God"

The concept "clade" is like the concept "God", we can think it and we can say it, but we can't find it. I will gladly pay a million dollar to anyone that can find and show me one clade (in reality, of course. Not as an illustration. As illustrations, we can find anything, even pink elephants).

Cladistics denies what it searches for

Cladistics does not acknowledge the difference between reality and our comprehension of reality, and does thereby deny interfaces in a generic sense. It means that Cladisics actually acts as an interface between reality and our comprehension of it, that is, is contradictory between the two. As such, it can't find what it searches for (ie, "the true tree of life") per definition, since it factually denies what it is searching for. Finding what one searches for does at least require acknowledging it.

If cladists aren't stupid, then who is?

Cladists have turned conceptualization up-side-down.

It raises the question: if cladists aren't stupid, then who is?

There is only one way to truth: to admit when you are wrong

There is only one way to truth: to admit when you're wrong. This is the scientific way.

On true and false

We (humans) agree about that descriptions of reality can be either true or false. The number of true descriptions is, however, not one, but several. The reason is that there are several different consistent classifications of reality. Reality can simply be described in several different but just as true ways, because there are several different consistent classifications of it.

This fact means that there isn't any single true description of reality, like the idea (today called "cladistic") of a single "true tree of Life", or of Higg's boson. The problem with this idea is that the fact that all true descriptions are ambiguous in relation to each other means that any single of them is internally paradoxically contradictory, which also Bertrand Russell demonstrated with his paradox, since paradoxically contradictory is the only thing they can be when they can't be a single truth. Paradoxical contradiction is namely the opposite to a single truth. Everything "is" something both in relation to other things of its own kind and in relation to things of other kinds, ie, also truths, meaning that the truths are ambiguous in relation to other truths but paradoxically contradictory in relation to the idea of a single truth.The (theoretical) idea of a single truth is thus (practically) paradoxically contradictory.

It means that a search for a single truth (like cladistics (or Higg's boson-ism) is vain. This kind of search can only arrive to different paradoxical contradictions. It is actually an eternal merry-go-round between different paradoxical contradictions. The problem with this fact is, however, that it can only be understood theoretically. It can't be revealed practically by empirical experiments. There is thus no way to understand that it is impossible to find a single true description of reality by searching for a single true description of reality, but only by considering what we mean with our idea of "true" and "false".

The traditional idea of "true" and "false" is logical. That is, a statement is true if it can be logically derived from some premises, which, in turn, shall be self-evident. This definition is, however, ambiguous, since we can base the premises on either objects and classes or just classes, corresponding to the fundamental assumptions (ie, axioms) that objects or classes, respectively, are real. The problem with this idea of "true" and "false" is thus that it penetrates below the level of whether descriptions of reality are "true" and "false", thereby implying that "true" and "false" is a matter of axioms instead of descriptions of reality (ie, enter the eternal merry-go-round between different paradoxical contradictions). If we instead understand "true" and "false" as a matter of descriptions of reality, then we can understand that it is not about singularities, but about classes, and that there thus are several "truths".

We may not like the fact that there are several truths, but given the fact that the alternative is that truth is paradoxically contradictory, we ought to prefer to acknowledge this fact (given that the opposite isn't more rewarding). The problem with cladistics is, however, that it is more rewarding than acknowledging this fact is. The rewarding is thus an incitement for cladistics. You're simply better off by accepting cladistics (and its inconsistencies) than to rightfully discard it.

We can thus not find a single true description of reality independently of whether we acknowledge that there isn't a single true description of reality or not. Not acknowledging this fact is more rewarding and leading into race biology, whereas acknowledging it less rewarding and leading into Linnean systematics. Only Linnean systematics does, however, acknowledge the fact that the number of true descriptions of reality is not one, but several. Only Linnean systematics does thus agree with facts.

Linnean systematics is thus the only classification we have that is both internally and externally consistent. Carl von Linné was thus just as ingenious as Albert Einstein was, if not more. In comparison to him, cladists are merely huligans.        

Is race biology rational?

Biological systematics offers two diametrically opposed (ie, orthogonal) classifications: Linnean systematics and Cladistics (ie, the PhyloCode), whereof Linnean systematics is relative and the PhyloCode is absolute. It means that Linnean systematics combines typology (is, classification) of things with historical relationship between things (ie, ethnicity) using a compromise between these two attributes of things (under the assumption that the two attributes are diametrically opposed), whereas Cladistics on the contrary assumes as an axiom (actually claims) that these two attributes are not orthogonal, but instead consistent (and therefore don't have to be combined using a compromise). Linnean systematics thus assumes that typology is orthogonal to ethnicity, whereas Cladistics on the contrary assumes as an axiom (actually claims) that typology and ethnicity are consistent. It means that Cladistics is essential for race biology. Only iff typology is consistent with ethnicity (as Cladistics assumes, actually claims) is race biology rational.

So, is typology orthogonal to or consistent with ethnicity?

Cladistics claims that the answer to this question is not a matter of facts, but of premises. This claim means that typology can be both orthogonal to and consistent with ethnicity depending on which premises one chooses, ie, that the answer only depends on which answer one prefers. If this claim is true, then "orthogonal to" and "consistent with" are not opposites, but equalities, since the difference between them is not real. If so, then there isn't any difference between Linnean systematics and Cladistics at all, but instead they are just two different aspects on the same thing, ie, the true tree of life, whereof Linnean systematics merely is a redundant complication.

The problem for the Cladistic claim is that it is contradicted both theoretically and practically. Theoretically by Bertrand Russell's demonstration already a hundred years ago (1901) that classification is ultimately paradoxically contradictory, by meaning that the cladistic equalization of typology and etnicity ends in paradox, and practically by the fact that time is relative (ie, orthogonal) to space, by meaning that the Cladistic equalization of type and ethnicity is actually just a conflation of type and ethnicity. Type and ethnicity are factually not equal, but orthogonal.

The answer to the question above is thus that typology is orthogonal to ethnicity. Fortunately, it means that race biology is irrational. When we understand this fact, there is thus no return to the old race biology that Willi Hennig transferred from the Nazi approach to today's Cladistics. Then we can discard both it and Cladistics as resting on the old erroneous idea that ethnicity (ie, races, species, genera, and so on) necessarily also is typologically distinct, instead returning to the old and fundamental question in biological systematics: what is a species? Isn't this shift interesting, Gareth (Nelson)?

The problem with race biology is that also many of those that don't like it still believe in races. They would be better off if they could understand that belief in races itself is irrational..  

On the battle between beliefs and pragmatism

Believers have a tendency to polarize matters. Exactly what they believe in doesn't matter, since there is always an opposite belief that it can battle with. Between them are pragmatists squeezed.

Belief in Creation (ie, Creationism) is the opposite to belief in a single True Tree of Life (today called Cladism), both of which end in paradox. If God created life, who, then, created God? If there is a single True Tree of Life, how, then, did it originate? The former is an endless recursion and the latter is a self-contradiction. Between them stands Carl von Linnè's pragmatic (consistent) solution of the problem, ie, an orthogonal system of classification, but who cares when the battle appears to rage between two opposite beliefs?

These two opposite beliefs aren't, however, as incompatible as they may seem. God may well have created biodiversity via a "true tree of Life", although it doesn't agree with the scriptures, and a "true tree of life" does not exclude creation. Instead, there are actually more properties that unite them than that divide them. Both are inconsistent, although in the two possible directions we can be inconsistent, that is, invoking a "pushing power" (ie, God) and conceptual confusion, but the latter of which logically leads to the conclusion that there indeed is a "pushing power" of the former, but which it instead calls "natural selection". They can thus join if they agree to call the "pushing power" (ie, the "natural selection" of the latter) God.

The difference between these two beliefs and pragmatism is that whereas the "natural selection" of the former is a "pushing power", ie, enhancing the probability for survival of the fittest, it is for the latter rather a "filtering power", ie, just deleting what can't survive. God for pragmatists is thus not the "pushing power" it is for creationists and cladists, but just a "filtering power" of what can possibly exist. The difference between the two beliefs and pragmatism does thus reside in how they comprehend the notion of "natural selection". For the beliefs, it is a "pushing power" that "purify" races, whereas it for pragmatists is a "filtering power" that can't avoid to give rise of races. This difference may appear insignificant, but is, on the contrary, fundamental, since none of the two beliefs thus allow for intermediates between races, but which the latter, on the contrary, does. Pragmatism does thus leave an opening for the fact that intermediates between races do exist, which the two beliefs do not. Pragmatism does thus agree with facts, which the two beliefs do not.

Pragmatism thus has the advantage to all beliefs that it can agree with all facts, which beliefs can't. Its disadvantage is that it can't be believed in, since it has no opposites. This disadvantage is, however, also the advantage of it, by pointing to the truth. (The problem that the truth is relative is, however, another matter). 

The conclusion of this contemplation is that there are more properties that unite Creationism and Cladism than that divide them, and that they are actually opposite to the pragmatism they squeeze between them. And, that the pragmatism they squeeze between them actually is the only approach that can agree with all facts. It leaves pragmatism as the winner, although it can't compete with beliefs on the stage of beliefs, but insted is squeezed between them. Pragmatism is sense, whereas belief is feelings. Belief can thus defeat pragmatism only temporarily, since agreement with facts win in the long run.
   

Is cladistics sensible?

Cladistics (Willi Hennig and his followers) claims that there is a single true description of history, which it calls the true tree of life.

But, how can there possibly be a single true description of history, when there isn't a single true description of present?

Can Claditics' claim create a single true description of present?

Are facts created by claims?

Is cladistics sensible?



   

On the route into the consistently inconsistent reasoning that is called "cladistics"

Those biological systematists that are called cladists believe that there is a single true description of the origin of biodiversity, which they call "the true tree of life". Whether they also believe that there is a single true description of any other historical event, a single true painting of any part of reality, or a single true description of our the present reality is unknown, but the reason for this their obviously erroneous belief is known - that they believe that "species" are real.

Cladistics actually started with a discussion trying to find an answer to the question: what is a species? The answer to this question was sought after by trying to find a definition that encompasses everything they put into the concept "species". When this discussion had reached tens of different definitions, some of the biological systematists (ie, the cladists) simply changed focus from this question into the question: which is the true tree of life? The fact that this question requires an answer to the former question was dealt with by trying to define "species" post-hoc circularly in terms of the notion of a "true tree of life". This circularity led cladists into the erroneous belief in a "true tree of life" by simply shifting focus from one question to another without them even being aware of that it did. Once in the belief, they simply didn't know how to get out of it, because they didn't know how they got into it. They were simply stuck in the belief by lacking the understanding that could have kept them outside of it.

The original question was thus: what is a species? Now, this question is inconsistent by asking for what we actually decide. A species is simply what we say a species is. If we, for example, say that humans is a species, and define what we mean by "human", then humans is a species. It isn't more complicated than that. The (cladistic) idea that the question "what is a species?" has an answer rests on the assumption that species are real, ie, existing entities, like objects (eg, organisms), an assumption that, however, is inconsistent, since not both objects and species can be real at the same time by being orthogonal. If objects are real, then species are abstract, and vice versa. In conceptualization, there has to be a difference between "real" and "abstract" (ie, the represented and representation), and one of them has to be on the opposite side to the other to avoid self-contradiction. In a fundamental sense, it doesn't really matter whether we call objects or species real, but in a consistency sense, species can't, of course, be real if objects (eg, organisms) are abstract. Species can't consist of abstract entities, but abstract species can consist of real objects. This means that objects (eg, organisms) has to be real, and species has to be abstract to avoid inconsistency.

There is, however, a further problem with the concept species. Whereas an object is single both in reality and in abstraction, a species is a infinite in abstraction (ie, a type, or abstraction) and finite in reality (ie, a category). It means that assuming that species are real (and thus can be defined) conflates infinity with finity, which can't be practically accomplished, since infinity and finity are orthogonal. This imposibility composes a practical barrier to all attempts to define the concept species. No matter how "natural" we think that species are, we still will thus never succeed to define them. Instead, they are actually impossible to define.

We can thus describe the origin of biodiversity in terms of "the origin of species", but this description can never reach unambiguity, since species can't be unambiguous. Changing focus from the definition of species into "the true tree of life" does not change this fact, but just discards it. This discarding does thus not , however, change this fact, but just leads into the consistently inconsistent reasoning that cladistics is. 

How long will cladistics' belief in a single "true tree of live" survive within biological systematics?

The problem with cladistics is that it conflates states of things with change between states of things.

This conflation gives rise to the question: "why do we distinguish states of things and change if we then conflate them?", and, "which of all possible conflations of them equals them?".

Every possible conflation is namely also paradoxically contradictory (see Russell's paradox), so, how can we possibly ever agree on a particular conflation of them, when we can't even agree on the fact that it is a conflation of  states of things with change between states of things?

Now, if we can't possibly ever agree on a particular conflation of them, then we have to ask ourselves what we are doing and why. Our efforts will never result in any stable state, but will just give rise to new inconsistencies forever. This chase started from an axiomatic belief in a single "true tree of life", so when will we abandon this belief? After ten years, after one hundred years, after one thousand years, or never?

So, how long will cladistics' belief in a single "true tree of live" survive within biological systematics? (It will never die as an idea, but the question is how long it will survive in biological systematics). 

On the fundamental and everlasting split in humanity (especially obvious in biological systematics)

As soon as someone of us humans conceptualize reality (for example into ducks and geese), there is another of us humans that questions this conceptualization, asking what the concepts (ie, a duck and a goose) really is. It is just as if the pure reasoning about reality ignites a counterreasoning questioning what it is that the reasoning discusses.

This is the fundamental and everlasting split within humanity - classifying and questioning classification.This split is perhaps most obvious in biological systematics by ripping it apart into a fundamental and everlasting split between those that simply classify and those that search for classes.

This split can never be healed, because the two approaches are orthogonal, and there is no intermediate (neutral) truth between them to be found. There is actually nothing between them at all. Instead, they are all we have. The only possibility for an intermediate solution is a compromise between them in the form of an orthogonal system of classification like the Linnean systematics.

Our choice is thus between eternal split or compromise (in the form of an orthogonal system of classification). The option of an unambiguous truth, like Higg's boson or the true tree of life, is simply not given. These solutions can only be almost correct, that is, totally wrong. The problem is actually extremely simple, but the reasonings about it can be extremely complex. The problem is that we search for a solution that is not to be found. Its place is simply void. .       

Do you believe in Higg's boson?

Recently, some physicists claimed to having found a fundamental particle they call Higg's boson. This particle appears to be more of a wishthinking than a reality to me, sending out the question to all of us: do we believe in Higg's boson? I, myself, do not believe in this monstrosity for a second, but do you?

Do you believe in Higg's boson? I am grateful for all reactions on this post. How many of us believe in Higg's boson?

On the belief of cladistics

Those biological systematists called cladists believe, actually claim, that there is a single true classification of biological organisms to be found, although Bertrand Russell demonstrated about a century ago that classification leads to paradox. This imagined "single true classification" is thus actually a paradox, independently of what cladists claim, and thus nothing that can be found. A paradox is a contradiction and thus not something that can be found.

Cladists' claim has, however, created confusion in biological systematics. Biological systematists are no longer sure of what they're doing. Take for example a cod, is it surely a cod or in specific question? What does biological systematics assume and know, respectively?

The belief of cladistics has thus really messed things up in biological systematics. This mess is thus due to an exchange of understanding with belief, probably due to to a lack of understanding. Where the understanding ends takes the belief at.  

Cladists need education in linear algebra

When we discuss reality, we partition it into entities and states of these entities. The fundamental question in physics is what states are. There are only two possibilities: 1. a set (as in set theory) or 2. a vector space.

Classical physics assumes that they are a set, which, however, Bertrand Russell about a hundred years ago showed leads to paradox, called Russell's paradox. Quantum physics, however, later clarified that states actually are a vector space, called the Hilbert space, of complex numbers. This finding influences our comprehension of reality profoundly by interpreting it as a matter of probabilities for states rather than as states themselves. Entities thus have probabilities to have states rather than states per se.

This fact ambiguates the German Nazi entomologist Willi Hennig's methodology to reconstruct relationships by meaning that it leads to paradox. It simply assumes that reality can be pinpointed in terms of states of entities, when fact is the other way around, that is, that reality can't be pinpointed in terms of states of entities. It thus assumes that an erroneous comprehension of reality is correct, and thus that a correct comprehension of reality is erroneous.

Vector spaces are dealt with by linear algebra. Biological systematists (especially cladists) thus need education in linear algebra.

Cladistics is not just ignorant, but also vain

Cladistics partitions states (of species) into "characters" and "character states". The question on this partition is what the difference is between "character" states and "character state" states? The fact that there isn't any difference between them is actually the reason why cladistics ends in Russell's paradox. The state of all states by cladistics presumedly possessed by the ultimate ancestor is namely the paradox itself, since it is the "character state" and the "character" of which it is the "character state" at the same time . This state is thus both identical to itself and different from itself at the same time.

The problem with cladistics is that it discusses combinations of states as if they are entities INSTEAD of entities (ie, strict typology). Such approach does, as Bertrand Russell demonstrated, end in paradox. Evolution is not a dichotomous splitting of types, but of random change directed by natural selection. It can be described with a dichotomously branching graph, but there are several just as true such descriptions per definition. A search for a single true such description, ie, cladistics, is thus not only ignorant, but also vain.

The sense of cladistics shines by its absence

Cladists are actually fossils from before we (humans) developed quantum mechanics (during the 21st century). They simply refuse to acknowledge the problems with classical physics, but instead "deny" quantum mechanics, and do thereby end up in the problems with classical physics (specifically Russell's paradox in the form of a "tree of life"). They obviously think that reality is just an issue of denying and acknowledging, although Bertrand Russell demonstrated already 1901 that this methodology leads to paradox. It is just as if cladists think they can defeat paradox by believing in it. The sense of the approach shines by its absence.     

Is cladistics or quantum physics correct?

If there indeed is a true tree of life, as cladistics claims, then quantum physics is not only wrong, but moreover stupid. Why construct something as complicated as quantum physics if quanta can be described unambiguously without it?

The question is thus if cladistics or quantum physics is correct, that is, which of them that is wrong (and which thus also is stupid). I, myself, bet all I have on that quantum physics is correct. Which do you bet on? 

On cladistics

The problem for any theory on an evolutionary history of biodiversity is that it is impossible to define a kind of entity that "evolves". The reason is that such a kind of entity is the opposite to fundamental entities (like organisms), and that such a kind of entity is paradoxically contradictory by combining the two aspects "process" and "pattern" of fundamental entities, a fact also Bertrand Russell demonstrated with Russell's paradox. A kind of evolving entity is thus a paradox per definition.

Darwin bypassed this problem by simply using the kind of entity Linné created in the framework of his biological systematics, that is, "species". This kind of entity is, however, defined in terms of the genera in Linné's systematics, which Darwin excludes in his theory. Such "species" thus lose their definition in the framework of Darwin's theory, instead being turned into the paradox that a kind of evolving entity is per definition.

This problem led biological systematics after Darwin into a long discussion about "what a species is". This question is, however, obviously posed the wrong way around (ie, backwards), comprehending "species" as a kind of entiy that exists but which we have difficulties to define, when kinds of entities actually are something we distinguish by definitions. Kinds are not something we find, but something we distinguish. The problem was (and is) thus actually not "what a species is", but instead that it is impossible to define any kind of evolving entity.

In the midst of this discussion, the German Nazi entomologist Willi Henning took one further step in this inconsistency by bypassing this backward problem by discussing species as if they already were defined, instead shifting focus to "the tree of life" for these "species". This step really messed up the fundamental problem that it is impossible to define any kind of evolving entity. The step is consistent in that if there is a kind of entities like species, then there is also a tree of life (given the the theory of a common origin of biodiversity is correct), but inconsistent in that there can't be any kind of evolving entities (like "species"). Hennig simply moved things ahead by pretending that the fundamental problem that it is impossible to define any kind of evolving entity was solved.

Hennig's move unleashed a pent-up desire among biological systematists to find a strictly evolutionary classification, ie, a tree of life, although the fundamental impossibility to define any kind of evolving entity wasn't solved, a move that was called "cladistics". So, what did cladists encounter on the other side of sense, ie, in nonsense? The answer is: Russell's paradox. Cladists in fact assume (actually claim) that Russell's paradox can be found, instead of understand that it is a paradox. Their belief in "species" (actually in classes in general) has thus led them to its unavoidable end point, that is, to acknowledging Russell's paradox as a reality, Cladists thus in fact believe (actually claim) that paradoxes can be found.

The consistent conclusion is, of course, the other way around, that is, that it is impossible to find a non-contradictory (ie, unambiguous) tree of life, because such a thing is a paradox per definition. Cladistics has thus got everything totally and perfectly up-side-down.  

Cladistics - the science of infinite recursion

An infinite recursion (also known as an infinite loop, endless loop or unproductive loop) is a sequence of operations which loops endlessly, either due to the loop having no terminating condition, having one that can never be met, or having one that causes the loop to start over.

One example of an infinite recursion is the notion that commonly is called "the tree of life". This infinite recursion is of the kind that have a terminating condition that can never be met. The problem with the notion is thus not whether it is true or not, but that it lacks a consistent solution. This statement points at two different issues to be addressed:

1. the question whether a statement about history can be true at all, and

2. why the notion lacks a consistent solution.

These two issues do, however, meet in that the answer to the former explains the latter. The fundamental problem is that a statement about history can't be true at all, since all statements about history requires an aspect, and that there is no aspect of aspects. This lack of an aspect of aspects does, in turn, explain why there isn't any consistent solution of the notion: there simply isn't any aspect of aspects. It means that we can search forever for an aspect of aspects, because the only thing we will find are different aspects which all are inconsistent.

The approach in biological systematics called "cladistics" has, however, turned this fact up-side-down by instead claiming that there indeed is an aspect of aspects that we can find, ie, the notion of a "the tree of life", which, thus, actually is an infinite recursion. This claim cannot, of course, change the fact that the notion is an infinite recursion, but only our understanding of that we can't find an infinite recursion into a belief that we can find an infinite recursion. It cannot change the fact that the notion is an infinite recursion, but only distort our heads into believing that we can find an infinite recursion.

In the course that this approach (cladistics) has gained more influence and power in biological systematics, it has excluded biological systematists that understand the issue from positions in the academy in favor for cladists, and has thereby kidnapped biological systematics. Today, cladists not only claim that an infinite recursion like the notion of a "tree of life" can be found, but also that biological systematics equals cladistics. It aims at eradicating everything except its inconsistent belief in biological systematics.

Cladistics has thus turned facts into fiction and fiction into facts, thereby giving the impression that an infinite recursion, ie, the notion of a "tree of life", can be found, when the truth is that a search for it is endless per definition. This has helped cladists to academic careers (see for example Steve Farris, Kåre Bremer and Per Sundberg), for which the judgement remains. It seems suspiciously like fraud. We at least ought to ask them if they indeed think that a "tree of life" can be found. If they answer yes, then they are definitely wrong, but to be be held responsible for their actions, we have to prove that they understand that they are wrong, which is more difficult. However, they ought at least be detached from their positions.  

When will biological systematists understand what they do?

Biological systematics is the battlefield between nominalism and realism, and never will the two meet, because Russell's paradox stands between them. It started with realism (ie, Parmenides), passed into nominalism via Aristotle and Linné, and then returned to realism via Hennig. The natural continuation is to pass another lap in the same circle, shorter this time, before it commences yet another lap in the same circle, all the time trying to reach the carrot in front of the donkey's nose, ie, the true classification, or the "true tree of life".

When will biological systematists understand that what they look for is Russell's paradox? When will they understand what they do? 

Conceptualization and the contrary, ie, cladistics

We (humans) conceptualize the reality we perceive using a tool composed of three components: objects (aka entities), infinite classes (aka imaginary types) and finite classes (aka categories). We perform conceptualization by distinguishing objects and allocating them to finite classes using infinite classes. In this process, infinite classes functions as a catalyst for allocation of objects into categories. The only requirement of conceptualization is that we keep objects, infinite classes and finite classes consistently apart, because if we don't, then we confuse conceptualization itself by conflating them.

However, there is an inconsistency internally in conceptualization in the concept of "the finite class of all finite classes" (ie, the category of all categories) residing in the definitional fact that finite classes (ie, categories) are not single objects, but several objects, whereas the notion of "the finite class of all finite classes" is a single object consisting of several finite classes and thus both (ie, paradoxically contradictory between) an object and a finite class, that is, a single object and several objects. This notion is thus empty per definition by being both an object and a class at the same time, that is, a paradox (ie, Russell's paradox).

The German Nazi entomologist Willi Hennig did, however, turn this fact up-side-down by comprehending the finite class of all finite classes as "the only natural group". The problem with this comprehension is thus that it is inconsistent (ie, paradoxically contradictory). He (and others) may thus comprehend this "group" as "the only natural group", but neither he nor others can ever pinpoint this "group" without contradiction, because it is paradoxically contradictory per definition. If it hadn't been, then it could also have had an ancestor.

Willi Hennig and his followers (ie, cladists) obviously think that finite classes are real instead of objects, which leads them to conflation of "finite class" with "infinite class", and thus to conflation of conceptualization itself. Instead of conceptualizing reality, they, obviously, search for "the true" conceptualized reality, which in practice is their own conceptualization of reality, whichever it is, but paradoxically contradictory per definition.

This spin around the internal inconsistency of conceptualization can only be halted by considering what we talk about (ie, objects, like humans, or classes, like human).

Cladistics is a mass psychosis

Cladistics is a mass psychosis. There isn't any single true tree of life per definition, since it requires that what an entity is equals what an entity does, which excludes change. It would have been fantastic if cladistics would have been consistent, but unfortunately it is just consistently inconsistent, ie, paradoxically contradictory.

Can cladists back off from their claim with their honor intact?

Bertrand Russell demonstrated in 1901 that naive set theory leads to paradox.

This demonstration made Ernst Zermelo (1908) propose an axiomatization of set theory that avoids this paradox by replacing arbitrary set comprehension with weaker existence axioms, such as his axiom of separation (Aussonderung). Later modifications to this axiomatization proposed in the 1920s by Abraham Fraenkel, Thoralf Skolem, and by Zermelo himself resulted in the axiomatic set theory called ZFC. This theory was initially controversial, but became widely accepted once Zermelo's axiom of choice ceased to be controversial, and has since then remained the canonical axiomatic set theory down to the present day.

The German Nazi entomologist Willi Hennig did, however, ignore both Russell's demonstration, Zemelo et al's avoidance of this paradox  and ZFC, when he in 1955 instead simply claimed that "only monophyletic groups [in effect Russell's paradox] appear to be natural groups". Hennig thus didn't consider the scientific discussion about Russell's paradox, which also confused biological systematists at the time since Darwin had presentated his theory "on the origin of species", but simply claimed that only this paradox appears to be natural groups. In spite of this Hennig's omission, his claim gave rise to the approach in biological systematics that today is called "cladistics", and which also today is searching for this paradox. This approach has thus totally missed the fact that naive set theory leads to paradox (as well as the scientific discussion about this fact).

The question now is thus: who in the world can explain to cladists that Hennig was ignorant about the discussion about monophyly (ie, Russell's paradox) when he made his claim that "only monophyletic groups [ie, Russell's paradox] appear to be natural groups". And, can cladists withdraw their claim at all (which is more of a belief than a claim)? Can cladists back off with their honor intact?

Closer than the Linnean system can classification not come to reality

Classification can only be either ambiguous or paradoxically contradictory. It is ambiguous if we use an orthogonal system like Linnean systematics, and paradoxically contradictory if not. The reason for this fact is that classification ultimately is paradoxically contradictory, which Bertrand Russell demonstrated with Russell's paradox in 1901. It means that classification can't reach unambiguity at all. It doesn't matter what we do, never will it reach unambiguity.

This fact has cladistics, ie, Willi Hennig, turned up-side-down into a notion that classification indeed can reach unambiguity in the form of a single true tree of life. This notion is thus wrong. It can't. Classification can't reach unambiguity.Instead, this notion is just an empty belief like the belief in Creation. The two are just as empty, although believing in different contradictions. Linné's system is actually the ambiguous belance between all such contradictory beliefs. Closer than it can classification not come to reality.

On two impossible scientific endeavours: Higg's particle-ism and cladism

There are two scientific endeavours that are vain per definition:

1. to find the smallest particle and
2. to find species,

which Bertrand Russell demonstrated about a hundred years ago.

These two endeavours do, however, share one property: being considered as self-evidently within reach by many physicists (Higg's particle-ists) and biologists (cladists), respectively.

The belief of these physicists and biologists is so strong that the former claim that they have found it with a certain probability and the latter simply turns matters up-side-down by considering it as found.

Don't accept their claims! Fact is that neither Higg's particle-ists nor cladists ever will find their respective dream, because it simply isn't to be found, as Bertrand Russell demonstrated. They need money and have to produce results, but their respective strives are actually vain. We can understand how reality functions, in several different ways, but not find out what it is. That's the fact of life we have to accept and live with.

What can a species possibly be?

Ever since the dawn of Biological systematics, it has discussed what a "species" is. This fundamental problem appears to concern how we shall specify a consistent and unambiguous kind of group of organsisms, but does actually concern how we shall overcome the fact that such a kind of group is a definitional contradiction. Such a kind of group consists of both single species and single organisms at the same time, and is thus consistent only if species equal organisms, which are not groups, but single organisms. The problem is thus not how we shall specify a consistent and unambiguous kind of group of organsisms, but that we can't.

Rather than asking the question what a species is, we thus ought to ask the question why we can't specify what a "species" is, which is answered by the conclusion above. This answer does not, however, suffice to those biological systematists that ask the question what a species is. It does not even qualify as an alternative among the possible answers to their question. "Nothing" is not an acceptable answer to them.

Carl von Linné  partly overcame this problem by constructing an orthogonal system of classification wherein species is consistent in relation to genera, and genera is consistent in relation to species. This system did not solve the fundamental problem that reality is distinct from our conceptualization of it, ie, that the relation between the two can't be unambiguous, but only the problem of consistency.

A later approach in biological systematics called Cladistics instead "solved" this problem by simply asuming as an axiom that we indeed can specify what species are, in the form of a single true tree of life. This solution did not, however, actually solve the problem, but merely transfered it into finding the single true tree of life, which, thus, is a definitional impossibility. Such thing is simply impossible per definition. Another approach in biological systematics called Evolutionary taxonomy adopted Linné's system and was thus at least consistent, although ambiguous.

However, in a fundamental battle in biological systematics in the 1980-ies, biological systematists downvoted Evolutionary systematics in favor for Cladistics. The outcome of this battle tilted biological systematics up-side-down from being a scientific discipline into being a belief in a single true tree of life. It simply expelled scientific thinking from biological systematics. (This was the time I entered biological systematics (in the beginning of the 90-ies). Unfortunately, I was thus expelled from biological systematics in the moment I paid for entering it. I didn't get in before I was out. Not yielding for a belief in a single true tree of life effectively excluded me from getting any position at any academy. This belief was the ticket of entrance to positions. Since then, I have been referred to expressing my protests against this belief to media that is not governed by cladists, also excluding Wikipedia (which is governed by cladists)). Today, biological systematics is thus dominated by Cladistics, although Cladistics is paradoxically contradictory. You can thus get a position at any academy if you search for a paradox, but not if you say that Cladistics is a search for a paradox. Paranoia is acceptable, but not stating that it is a paranoia.

Ultimately, cladistics is doomed to eternal splitting (like the species it believes in are), on the contrary to Linnean systematics, because a house can only stand firmly on a consistent ground, like Linnean systematics. Belief in eternal splitting does, of course, lead to eternal splitting.



   

On the difference between phylogenetics and cladistics, and the error of cladistics

The error of cladistics is not that it assumes that species have orginated by a dichotomously branching process, but that it assumes that species (and thus also the species of species) are real, since this assumption is a paradox (which Bertrand Russell also demonstrated already in 1901, that is, before the origin of cladistics). This assumption does not phylogenetics do.

The scientific question concerning evolution is not how species have originated, as cladists appear to think, but how biological organisms have originated and diversified, as phylogeneticists think. Species are not concrete entities, as cladists appear to think, but an abstraction that phylogenetics uses together with the abstraction "genus" as an orthogonal conceptual tool to discuss the biological diversity. Cladists take the scientific phylogenetic discussion too literally, leading them into a typological perspective on reality which can be called inverse science, because it superficially looks like science but follows an orthogonally opposite line of logical reasoning, ie, resting on the axiom that abstract classes (like species) instead of concrete objects (like organisms) are real. This inverse science is also responsible for the disgusting race biology of the early 20th century.

Kladistik är endast en självmotsägande paranoia

Vi människor begreppsbildar den verklighet vi ser genom att allokera (hänföra) enheter, t ex organismer, till kategorier (dvs ändliga klasser), såsom t ex "arter", via de typologiska idéer vi har i våra huvuden om likheter och olikheter mellan enheterna, i en allmän mening kallade "klasser", men specifikt kallade oändliga klasser (även "typer"). Våra typologiska idéer om likheter och olikheter mellan enheter vi ser (ie, de oändliga klasserna, eller typerna) fungerar alltså som katalysatorer för vår allokering av enheterna till kategorier (ie, ändliga klasser).

Den inriktning inom biologisk systematik som kallas "kladistik" gör dock tvärtom. "Tvärtom" i detta sammanhang innebär att den sammanblandar (förvirrar) kategorier med klasser (dvs ändliga klasser med oändliga klasser), och genom detta också sammanblandar (förvirrar) båda dessa med enheter, dvs kör begreppsbildningen baklänges för att istället förvirra (sammanblanda) begreppen. Traditionellt kallas denna sammanblandning (förvirring) för en sammanblandning av sort och sak. Kladistiken är alltså en konsekvent sammanblandning av sort och sak i avsikt att sammanblanda begrepp och enheter, dvs begreppsförvirring.

Anledningen till kladistik är att kladister tror att den kan leda oss till det "sanna ursprunget" för begreppen, vilka de tror att vi inte hittar på själva utan istället är reella, dvs existerande, enheter, trots att begreppsförvirring motsäger begreppsbildning per definition, såsom en förvirring motsäger den uppdelning den förvirrar per definition, och således endast kan resultera i alla andra begreppsbildningar förutom den som den förvirrar, dvs den som kladistiken kallar "kodning av egenskaper i karaktärer och karaktärstillstånd", utan självmotsägelse. Själva förvirringen ligger i att kladistikens "analys" omvänder de egenskaper den har kodat såsom samtidiga begrepp i den initiala begreppsbildningen till på varandra följande begrepp i den resulterande begreppsbildningen, och motsäger därmed den intiala begreppsbildningen med den resulterande begreppsbildningen. Denna "analys" är alltså i praktiken en grundläggande självmotsägelse, dvs förvirring. Varje enskild sådan begreppsförvirring är alltså självmotsägande; något av den initiala eller den resulterande begreppsbildningen är fel per definition. De kan aldrig överensstämma. Kladisterna tror alltså att denna paranoida "analys" kan leda dem till det "sanna ursprunget" för begreppen, när det enda den INTE kan leda dem till är just det. Orsaken till denna (kanske överraskande) omöjlighet ligger dock inte i hur en sådan "analys" utförs, utan istället i att begreppen helt enkelt inte är reella, dvs inte är existerande enheter, utan något vi själva hittar på, därför att sådana påhittade enheter har ett tvetydigt ursprung per definition (ie, ett verkligt och ett imaginärt), då enheterna är imaginära per definition.

Kladister sammanblandar (förvirrar) alltså begrepp med enhet (ie, sort med sak), och tror då felaktigt att begreppen är reella enheter, vilket leder dem till tron att Willi Hennig's "analys" kan hitta ursprunget för begreppen. Problemet för dem är att begreppen inte kan vara reella enheter, vilket man själv kan räkna ut och Betrand Russell också demonstrerade med Russell's paradox 1901.

On the concept "clade" and the belief "cladistics"

The now popular concept "clade" in biological systematics is actually an infinitely recursive concept, like "the list of all lists", by including itself as a member of itself. A belief that this concept indeed can break even, today called "Cladistics", and its corollary search for what it calls "the true tree of life", is actually in practice a belief that every clade is what cladistics calls a "sister-group" to itself and that the most inclusive clade also is a sister-group to the least inclusive clade. It is thus an absurd belief by believing in the obviously absurd.

Linnean systematics and Evolutionary taxonomy avoid this sink hole by arranging concepts orthogonally as categories of classes (of organisms).

The question whether there is such a "single true tree of life" or not thus has a negative answer - there isn't. Instead, there are actually several equally true graph illustrations of a hypothesized evolutionary origin of biological organisms. Large scale change (ie, evolution) actually can't be unambiguous if small scale change is, because only entities are unambiguous and they are physically nested as INDEPENDENT entities in other entities. Unambiguity in change at different scales at the same time actually requires total dependency between entities on different scales, which, in turn, makes change impossible. The cladistic belief in a single true tree of life does thus contradict its own assumption of the underlying process (ie, evolution) itself. Cladistics does thus believe in something it at the same time denies.

Giddy, this siding in biological systematics, isn't it?

On conceptualization, and Linnean systematics versus cladistics

If we conceptualize reality using single entities as starting points, then there is just one statement that can't be true: that classes are real, because conceptualization allocates single entities into abstract categories (ie, finite classes) via classes (ie, infinite classes, or types), and if it could, then single entities would instead be abstract, ie, it would tilt reality and conceptualization up-side-down.

This fact, ie, that this statement can't be true, is shown by that any such claim is either ambiguous between classes and categories, like the Linnean system is, or paradoxically contradictory between different classes, like cladistics is.

We can thus produce a compromise between reality and conceptualization, like Linnean systematics, or tilt reality and conceptualization up-side-down, like cladistics, but we can't fuse reality and conceptualization unambiguously, ie, truthfully. We can't, for example, describe a process unambiguously, ie, truthfully, but can just represent it in different aspects. The Unambiguous Aspect is simply lacking.

This is a fact we just have to accept. If a bucket is empty, then it is empty. We can't fill it with words. There is thus no such thing as a "true tree of life" (or Higg's boson for that sake). It would have been perfect if there had been one (or a category of Higg's bosons), but, unfortunately, there isn't. Entities are real, but neither a true tree of life, Higg's bosons, nor any other kind of entities, sorry to say, but only entities. These entities can't, sorry to say, be unambiguously allocated into any kind(s) of entities. Ultimately we are unambiguously left with just entities. We can discuss them, but we can't nail them. A single entity, like me and you, will never be unambiguously nailed to any category. This is a pain in the ass for typologists like race biologists, but it is a blessing for the rest of us.

On the fundamental battle in biological systematics between Linnean systematics (Evolutionary taxonomy) and cladistics

Biological systematics has been struggling with the issue whether kinds are real or not since the dawn of Man. The fundamental problem with this issue is that it confronts kinds and relationship groups (including single entities) concerning which of them that comes first (aka is real). This problem is actually insoluble, since kinds can't be real without single entities, and relationship groups can't be real without kinds. This fact means that kinds must be both real and not real at the same time, which, in turn, is explained by that reality has two aspects: pattern (ie, kinds) and process (ie, relationship groups) at the same time. None of them thus comes first, but both of them are, instead, simultaneous.

However, logical reasoning requires something that comes first, that is, a presumption, or axiom. It means that there are two diametrically opposite (ie, orthogonal) lines of logical reasonings, which thus are completely contradictory in not sharing a single common point. These are thus not contradictory in opinion, but in subject. They simply don't handle the same subject. Whereas one discusses kinds and derives relationship groups, the other discusses relationship groups and derives kinds. These two orthogonal lines of reasoning meet each other in biological systematics in discussing the same subject, ie, biological systematics, but not the same subject, ie, kinds and relationship groups, respectively, at the same time. They thus think they talk about the same thing, but do actually not share a single common point (ie, meaning of a concept). Instead, they dance an orthogonal dance around the insolubility that "kinds can't be real without single entities, and relationship groups can't be real without kinds". Both of them think that there is a solution to be found, which actually is the only shared point between them, and also the point that drags them into this orthogonal dance.

The orthogonal dance between the two possible lines of logical reasoning does thus not have any single solution -.neither kinds nor relationship groups comes before the other, ie, is more real. However, this lack of solution means that one of them has to end in ambiguity and the other in paradoxical contradiction, since these are the only possibilities except unambiguity. Concerning this issue, Betrand Russell demonstrated in 1901 that assuming as an axiom that kinds comes before relationship groups, ie, that kinds are real, which cladistics assumes, is paradoxically contradictory. This fact leaves the axiom that relationship groups, fundamentally single entities, comes first, ie, is real as the consistent (although ambiguous) alternative. It means that assuming that relationship groups comes first, ie, are real, as Linnean systematics does, is the consistent alternative, although it may appear illogical to cladists.

A thorough consideration of the contradiction between Linnean systematics (Evolutionary taxonomy) and cladistics in biological systematics does thus result in Linnean systematics (Evolutionary taxonomy) as the winner, although it was invented before Darwin's theory of evolution. This fact is something biological systematists have to try to understand for the coming millenias of years (they obviously can't today) to escape the eternal othogonal dance around a lacking single "correct" solution.

On distinction of species

We can only partition biological organisms into species by distinguishing (ie, defining) the class (ie, the concept) species. Now, distinguishing classes, like species, do we, however, perform by distinguishing both some similarity between the entities in the class and some difference between this class and other classes of such entities at the same time. By this, we contrast the new class against its opposite class as being both dissimilar and different.

The problem concerning the class species is what the opposite class possibly can be? Which class can we contrast species against? The answer is that we can only contrast it against the class entity, meaning that one of them excludes the other per definition, ie, that we can't acknowledge both of them at the same time, because they are not just dissimilar, but moreover different. The class species is thus consistent only if the class entity isn't, and vice versa.

This fact explains our extreme problems to define the class species. These classificatory (ie, conceptual) problems may we confuse with the (then apparently factual) problem that reality consists of a vast variety of life forms, but these two kinds of problems (ie, conceptual and real) are actually just two facets of one and the same problem, that is, that not both species and entity can be consistent at the same time. Solution of these problems does thus not hinge on whether they are abstract or real; we can't distinguish both species and entity consistently at the same time independently of which.

The distinction of species is thus doomed to fail by being inconsistent per definition. The problem of distinguishing species, which cladistics thinks it has overcomed, thus still remains. Cladistics thus still lacks the fundament it needs to turn rational to irrational, and vice versa.The concept species still lacks a consistent definition.

Cladistics is the belief in a single true tree of life

Cladistics is a belief, like Christianity and Islam, - the belief in a single true tree of life. Similar to all other beliefs it is also contradictory. Cladists may think that their belief is scientific, but this belief about the belief remains to be turned into science by finding this imaginary single true tree of life.

Similar to Higg's particle-ists, cladists may claim that they have found the single true tree with a certain probability, but at which probability can they (we) conclude that they (we) have found a particular kind of entity (ie, Higg's particle or biological species), when the probability actually can never reach 1, since there are always at least two different but just as probable kinds of entities? When can they (we) claim that they (we) have closed the gap that distinguishes reality from our comprehension of it, when there will always remain a contradiction? When can they (we) claim to have taken this final step; when they (we) actually can't take it?

I think that both Higg's particle-ists and cladists are ridiculous. They strive so tremendously hard to prove (positively) that they are correct, although many philosophers have demonstrated that positive proof of correctness is impossible. Haven't they read anything of what have been written in this issue or have they forgot it? Are they ignorant or stupid?

A long time has passed since since Simpson and Ashlock had intelligent discussions about evolution. Today the discussion in this issue is just cladist-confused. What in hell is the "paraphyletic groups" that cladists hate, the goats of Jesus?, and, what are the holophyletic groups they call "clade": the Father in Heaven? The dream? Why should we chase this impossible dream at all, when it can't be reached? Are we stupid?
     

On the fundamental error of cladistics

Those biological systematists that are called cladists conflate entity (or object) with class. It means that they also conflate monophyletic groups of entities with monophyletic groups of classes.

This conflation makes cladists erroneously believe that monophyletic groups of entities can be consistently distinguished as monophyletic groups of classes with what they call "apomorphies", and picks up that thread in a practical search for such groups.

Their conflated kind of monophyletic group is, however, what biological systematists searched for for about 2,000 years before Linné, and failed. The problem with such groups is that entities consist of classes in that every entity belongs to several classes, and that the relation between entities and classes thus is not 1-1, but 1-many, and that the relation between classes and entities thus is many-1, The latter part of this relation, ie, many-1, between classes and entities, means that there are several classes that fit one entity, and thus that there also are several monophyletic groups of classes that fit one monophyletic group of entities. There simply isn't a 1-1 relation between monophyletic groups of entities and monophyletic groups of classes which cladists erroneously believe there is.

This fundamental error of cladists´means that they search for something that isn't to be found (ie, the true tree of life). Their conflation of entity (or object) with class has lured them into the belief that there is a 1-1 relation between monophyletic groups of entities and monophyletic groups of classes, which simply is wrong. Instead, their search for this singularity is in practice an infinite recursion. It is, actually, the same search for an infinite recursion as it was before Linné. This reinvented (cladistic) approach is thus just as vain as it was before Linné, but adherents of it appears to have difficulties abandoning it. Demonstration that it is inconsistent does obviously not suffice to make them abandon it.

This fundamental error of cladistics is thus obviously larger than facts. It appears to be what we tend to believe in contradiction to facts. In the case of cladistics, it has led some of us (ie, cladists) into a vain search for something that isn't to be found, but which they believe in, ie, the true tree of life. Not even the fact that there isn't any such thing to be found suffices to make them stop searching it. Somewhere here something is fundamentally stupid.