Ontology rests on the idea that reality is not perfectly uniform – that it has discontinuities. To develop a sense of these “contours”, hierarchy theory provides a crude and attractive account that makes for a good beginning.
This collection is about the scientific endeavor to find concise descriptions for how patterns in Nature are generated, and this is an endeavor that has taken twisted and unexpected turns
“Ontology” is sometimes described as “carving nature at its joints”, reflecting the idea that we are substructures of some evolving fabric – colorless, soundless, and flavorless – that has contours.
When a civil war erupted and prisons across his country were flooded with insurgents, a book reviewer at a small newspaper was forced by the government to leave his job and instead become a prison steganographer.
