Ontological distinction(24)

An ontological distinction separates multiple processes or states from a single being. Many such distinctions are combined into a schema or any broader ontology. There are also ordinary distinctions that affect neither a foundation ontology or any very large number of exercises in categorization - what makes a distinction 'ontological' is its claim to truth, to itself being sufficient to permit an ignorance or a confusion of category. An operational distinction is that required to guide action, which may or may not be related one to one to a given ontological distinction.

In programming or systems design, an ontological distinction is usually found in the constraints or domain analysis phase, while operational distinctions are left to last during programming itself (a series of yes/no switching and branching decisions, ultimately, when the program is compiled to object code). The "design phase" usually consists of ordinary distinctions, e.g. pseudo-code, mixed metaphors, weak analogies, that are not clearly or purely either ontological or operational in character, and do not bind directly to either the user's cognition nor the processor's machine code instruction set.

One well known ontological distinction is that of Rene Descartes, "cogito ergo sum", a statement of mind-body dualism. This had a very substantial influence on the 19th and 20th century scientific foundation ontology based first on "F=MA" and the periodic table, and later on "E=MC^2" and particle physics. In both cases, it was never questioned that Descartes' dualism applied - more recently the ontological distinctions involving the observing body, it's cognition, it's priorities and ethics of investigation, were seen to provide a serious challenge via the philosophy of action.

Another key ontological distinction was Alfred Korzybski's "law of non-identity, also called the law of individuality, which states that no two persons, or situations, or stages of processes are the same in all details. Korzybski noted that we have fewer words and ideas than experiences, and this tends to lead to the identification ("confusion") of two or more situations."

The existence or non-existence of God is another key ontological distinction, and perhaps the one that has generated the most debate in the Western world - from Anselm to Kurt Godel there have been several "ontological proofs of God", each relying on several other ontological distinctions that are amenable to challenge. However, anyone inspecting these proofs who is in accord with the ontological distinctions they make or fail to make, willing to confuse or ignore certain concepts in line with those distinctions, should according to those authors be willing to accept an ontological proof of God.

This demonstrates a key feature of an ontological as opposed to operational distinction - an ontological distinction is abstract and guides cognition and perception, it cannot guide action directly. Any operational distinction that is applied in practice, e.g. put hand on hot stove or not, carries with it an opportunity to learn or retract the distinction based on experience, i.e. to pull it back quickly and learn not to do it again. Although the act will not entirely be undone, it is not necessary to decide once that stoves in all states are safe to lay hands on, and then believe in that forevermore. While, an ontological distinction is generally harder to learn from or retract, since it affects the basic category confusion or ignorance of cognitive complexity itself - once one has decided to label two things as "the same", e.g. "two apples", or to ignore something, e.g. "rule of law", it becomes relatively difficult to distinguish subcategories or become aware of subtle and new distinctions below the level of one's ontological beliefs.

This phenomenon is often called "constructive ignorance" or "useful confusion" or (in object-oriented programming) "polymorphism" - a "higher" level process becomes wilfully ignorant of subtle differences between items or situations or actions "below", and confuses them freely. In psychology, it is observed to be related to cognitive distinction in the processes of language learning and inability to learn new sounds later in life. In social sciences it is studied in group dynamics as "groupthink".

See: groupthink, ignorance, foundation ontology, polymorphism in object-oriented programming, operational distinction, m:Governing Ontological distinctions of the wikipedia itself