Ontologies

My discussions over the years have left me totally frustrated at how twisted and confused the language is - most of the important words are literally back-to-front and people are thinking about the world in an inside-out manner. It's no wonder that the world is a mess... And it's very difficult to use a twisted language to disentangle a twisted language.

I've decided to try a different approach - I'm giving up sentences and essays entirely for a little while and building ontologies. I'm always trying to find ways to more effectively express simple but uncommon truths and the technology of ontologies has advanced considerably in recent years.

By simply writing essays or ebooks it only gets through to those who are already open to the ideas and meanwhile the mass delusion continues to grow rapidly and drive the entire civilisation toward annihilation. Most of the communications within mass culture are the psycho-babble of the collective ego and any words of wisdom are just a vague gnawing conscience way back in the collective mind that is mostly just ignored. That conscience needs to find some way of making its wisdom heard even in the midst of mass collective insanity.

I'm exploring one likely method - it involves a recent synthesis of computer science, the internet and philosophy. It's related to the "semantic web" and its essence is the construction of ontologies - philosophical structures that define "that which exists" and the relations between the things that are believed to exist. Very advanced computerised methods are being developed to determine implied ontologies and to use ontologies to structure information.

Every belief that is held or every utterance that is made relies upon an implicit ontology that gives it meaning. The ontology is just the lowest level of beliefs that structure every other belief that is built upon them. Beliefs are only recognisable as true or false in relation to their ontological foundation so if the foundation is false all later beliefs are false but they will seem to be true. The materialist ontology relies on a series of assertions of belief that are actually proven to be false - and only so long as people don't notice this fact and continue to operate upon that foundation they will continue to believe in fantasies that seem to be true. Meanwhile there are other ontologies that don't rely on spurious assertions but on well verified facts from information theory, system theory, quantum physics and direct personal experience - but most people are too attached to their false beliefs to be able to seriously consider these more rational alternatives.

As an example of how ontologies and beliefs interact, take the phrase by the Buddha "with our thoughts we make the world" most materialists cannot comprehend this because they believe that "the world" is an "external material context" and that we are just material objects within it so our thoughts cannot "make the world". But if one uses a more accurate ontology where "the world" is just a subjective impression formed by our minds and which by naive realism we assume to be an "external material context" then it is obvious that with our thoughts we make the world. It is also obvious that to think of ourselves as objective material objects in and objective material universe is not a rational position - it may or may not be true but on the current evidence it is purely an irrational belief. What we know for a fact is our mind made worlds - beyond that we should avoid irrational belief systems and approach the situation rationally.

A shift in your ontology changes the meanings of everything and changes the very world that you believe yourself to exist in and what you believe yourself to be. It is with our ontologies that we structure our worlds and give them meaning so a false ontology means living in a delusion and a shift toward a more accurate ontology can be profoundly transformative - it is world changing.

Over the last six years there has been enormous effort within corporations and governments to develop and utilise ontologies to structure the vast amounts of data that they handle. Ontologies are a very effective mechanism for classifying and handling data so agencies such as intelligence agencies have been very involved in developing it. Also the whole of the internet is gradually being restructured in this way so that rather than just searching for keywords people will be able to search for things based on their general meaning regardless of what keywords may have been used.

At present all the ontologies are totally materialistic and egoic - they use ontologies that describe only maya or samsara (the naive world illusion). This is obvious because that is the world that the corporate and governmental minions believe themselves to exist in.

But the point is that all these organisations are becoming reliant on the use of ontologies and there are automated methods for verification of ontologies (digital logic analysers) so any beliefs or utterances that are inconsistent with the conceptual foundations are immediately shown to be inconsistent. With a materialist ontology only materialist utterances are shown to be consistent and with a realistic ontology only realistic utterances would be shown to be consistent.

Much of what mystics try to do is to explain their ontology (i.e. the ego is just a thought construct in the mind, the objects "in the world" are just objects of sense perception and so on) and by expressing it to people who are open to it those people may eventually realise that their prior beliefs are inconsistent. This can lead to a massive shift thereby changing the 'world' and the 'self' that is experienced. Mystics also offer various techniques to help loosen up people's minds to facilitate the shift but the shift in consciousness is the goal. However people who are not open or are too attached to their current beliefs or too confused and/or agitated may still glimpse the inconsistency but they use all kinds of denial tactics to just avoid recognising it and taking it seriously.

Using computerised ontologies this consistency checking is automatic and fully verifiable - it is very hard to just deny. Also given that the confused ontology that the world currently operates on is being mapped out in detail and relied upon throughout the world - what I am working towards is to map out the mystic or transcendent ontology in detail (which is a system theoretic ontology) and to insert it underneath the materialist ontology and thereby show which aspects of materialism are consistent and which are not.

This builds upon incontrovertible facts of information and system theory and can plainly prove that the materialist world is a confusion of the constructs of the mind with the actual reality. It will also show that actions based upon egoic principles are inconsistent and those based upon awareness and compassion are consistent. It will also show that strategies based on authoritarianism and brutality are not only inconsistent and irrational but they are inherently destructive and not at all effective whereas strategies based on understanding and cooperation are not only consistent but they are highly effective.

That is what I'm involved in right now - learning to construct ontologies using software tools - learning to analyse and prove ontological structures - and constructing a detailed mapping of the core principles of a holistic/rational ontology and connecting it with the materialist ontology.

It's all very technical stuff but once the ontologies are developed they could be very useful. Rather than just continue writing essays that people continue to misunderstand or ignore I can encode everything that I know into the ontology and other people can encode what they know and countless ontologies can be connected across the internet and build a global mystic/systemic/holistic knowledge base that can clearly guide us toward that which is coherent and away from that which is incoherent. Not only can it be used to verify or test other ontologies but it can easily be translated into interconnected websites or wiki-sites and form vast interconnected knowledge spaces that are meaningful and easy to explore and extend.

I feel that not only is this an important tool for navigating the coming transition between civilisations but it will also be useful for constructing and maintaining the future civilisation based upon sane holistic principles. Wish me luck! And if anyone has any advice or offers of help they'd be much appreciated...

I'll still pop in here occasionally and leave a few sentences here - but my main focus has shifted away from trying to talk to people - after years of trying I have got hardly anywhere - time is running out and I can't keep pushing against a wall of denial. If we don't collectively wake up we'll blindly wander into oblivion.

Best wishes : )
John Ringland