We tend to consider reality in terms of FIXED OBJECTS, ENTITIES,

E.g. dog, tree, you, me, Scotsman, Russia, etc.

 

This of course runs into multiple problems,

Entity you assume to be fixed — often eludes fixed boundaries,

Which poisons your reasoning with category errors,

E.g. judging entire race by the behaviour of some of its members,

or maybe judging individual members of a race by the behaviour of that race group collectively

 

…this is still better than NOT even attempting to define fixed objects,

What many do is they use language, concepts, ideas extremely flexibly

The same thing can mean two things or 10 things, depending on what the fuck you want to say

It is thus still better to define something too restrictively, and this way distort it — than it is to define nothing, and essentially make logic and coherence your bitch, rather than your master

 

A better way to approach things is to define objects in terms of their RELATIONS

As such — no object is ever more fixed than it’s relations

And relations, of course, reveal how it relates to the rest of the world

It is thus a FUNCTIONAL definition, rather than merely philosophical, ideological

And as relations evolve — the object evolves — while still maintaining connection to what it was, in either still sharing many of the previous relations, or refining them in a specific way

 

This, of course, is STILL insufficient

Any model, any abstraction, any map — is NOT the thing itself, NOT the territory

That’s a given

But different aspects of the thing, the territory, may require a different map

And those maps may NOT be compatible, ontologically

 

Not least in physics we are striving to unify gravity and quantum mechanics,

Neither is wrong, and both agree to the extent to which they agree

But some aspects of the reality which either of them maps — is not mapped by the other

 

So of course you want to juggle maps too

 

Think in terms of different maps, different systems

Different, but NOT vague

Each system should have defined objects…

…except preferably those objects should be defined in terms of their relations to other objects — not in terms of how you’d like to neatly define them,

And then relations themselves can be well defined and categorised, AND related

You retain maximum flexibility and possibility — WITHOUT ceding epistemic control and rigour, without devolving to vagueness and incoherence