Relational Ontology

This blog entry on Relational Ontology really goes back to this post  where I discussed some ideas advanced by Jonathan Kopel in a pre-published paper which in published form was to be titled "A Note Regarding Relational Ontology in Chemistry". As I essentially agreed with the drift of Jonathan's thoughts, and after some discussion, he suggested that I might like to follow up his ideas with a paper of my own. I am currently giving this project some thought and below are some initial notes to this end; I hope eventually to flesh out these notes into a full paper. As Jonathan's take on RO majors on the subject of chemical bonds I thought his paper lent itself well to a quantum mechanical treatment of RO and that is my emphasis here. This subject also fits in well with my post entitled "Jottings on Reality, the Paranormal and Chaoskampf" where I advance the idea that the complexity of reality is irreducible in as much as reality makes little coherent sense without the existence of the complexities of sentience to perceive that reality.

Proposal for a paper on Relational Ontology

This paper will cover:

Hypostatic identity: I will be arguing against this vitalistic concept which locates identity in "substance". 

Identical particles: Quantum statistics treats particles as though they are bits in a binary string. Bits have no hypostatic identity; they exist by virtue of relatedness. 

Schrodinger equation: The multi-particle Schrodinger Equation treats multi-particle systems as if they are one object.  

Fields and particle bonding: The field term in a multi-particle Schrodinger equation is a function of all the positions of all the particles. 

Models and approximations: Real world examples of the Schrodinger equation are likely to be computationally irreducible and therefore treatable only via a cluster of metaphorical models and approximations. 

Conclusions: The analytical inseparability of the objects described by the Schrodinger equation and the likely computational irreduciblity of its solutions necessitates a relational ontological perspective. RO is a point of view which guides one’s thinking about ontology and enables one to come to terms with analytical difficulties brought about by the hard-core relatedness of the cosmos. Ultimate reality is not reducible to bits and pieces or a hidden hypostatic property of matter but is found in the relations within an assumed up and running complexity. Complexity, that is relatedness writ large, must be treated as an a priori feature of the cosmos. This complexity cannot be rationalised away as just an incidental and unnecessary epiphenomenon of an elemental hypostatic reality.