It was a great conversation. Indeed, I am increasingly obsessed with the general domain.

 

My basic thesis is that we are lacking a coherent naturalistic scientific ontology, but that we can get one with the ToK/UTOK frame.

 

Here is what we do have in terms of a scientific ontology:

 

This maps onto the idea that the universe starts with a Bang and that the material dimension of energy-matter-space-time emerges approximately 13.8 billion years ago.

 

The base of behavioral complexity is mapped by quantum mechanics.

 

The overall picture of the mass-spacetime relations is mapped by general relativity and the rest of the physical-chemical sciences map the complex behavior patterns in the Matter dimension of “normal sized” objects.

 

In biology, we have the combination of cell theory, evolution by natural selection, and genetics that allow for a “paradigmatic frame” for biological science.

 

As such, this maps a standard conception of our current naturalistic scientific ontology.

 

I would argue that this is the model given by E O Wilson’s Consilience, David Christian’s Big History, Sean Caroll’s Big Picture and many others. I am currently reading and enjoying David Deutsch’s The Beginning of Infinity. It explicitly embraces “good explanations” as foundational to knowledge and thus is anti-reductionistic in a powerful way. As such, it explicitly embraces the distinction between the left (reality) and right (our scientific explanations of it), which, of course, ARE two different things.

 

I want to be clear that our epistemological frame here is science. That is, it is a scientific/objectivist map of reality that is the context for these assertions.

 

I am going to stop here and see if any one disagrees or has questions about the argument.

 

If there is consensus, then we can build from here.

 

Best,

Gregg

 

 

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