Johan Gamper

Two opposing uses of the term ‘Scientific Ontology’ reflect attitudes towards the relation between science and philosophical ontology. On the one side we can try to understand the broader picture by looking at the empirical details. On the other side we can try to find overarching principles that explain our observations. I am deeply aware of the history of this subject but—as we all know—history repeats itself. Perhaps it is time now for, actually, deduction to take more place in science. Perhaps—which of course is my own belief—we have reached the end of the road of so much depending on empirical observations. The natural sciences have reached beyond what is possible to empirically detect. My own research is an attempt to redefine our ontological starting point and to really test if the world only is physical. In this Reply I put Tambassi’s reply in the explicit context of my definition of scientific ontology. The outcome is that scientific ontology cannot settle the debate in the geographical sciences as to whether the geographical world is mind-dependent or not, but that the geographical universe, in that case, as a universe, belongs to the domain of scientific ontology.

As physical things have mathematical properties we in this paper let mental things have biological properties. The work is based on recent metaphysical findings that shows that there could be interfaces between separate ontological domains. According to this view there could be mathematical objects, physical objects, and also mental objects. The aim of this study is to establish a view of the biological object that allows it to possibly generate the experiencing subject. Based on the notion that energy per se is related to the ability of a system to do some work, biological energy is defined as a biological object’s ability to recover from the load it is exposed to. Introducing the concept of the experiencing subject, the experiencing subject would be the agent experiencing the biological object’s need of recovery from the load it is exposed to. Once established, the experiencing subject may develop non-biological needs. On this basis experiencing subjects have biological properties without being biological in exactly the same manner as physical things have mathematical properties without being mathematical.

The modal properties of the principle of the causal closure of the physical have traditionally been said to prevent anything outside the physical world from affecting the physical universe and vice versa. This idea has been shown to be relative to the definition of the principle. A traditional definition prevents the one universe from affecting any other universe, but with a modified definition, e.g., the causal closure of the physical can be consistent with the possibility of one universe affecting the other universe. Gamper proved this modal property by implementing interfaces between universes. Interfaces are thus possible, but are they realistic? To answer this question, I propose a two-step process where the second step is scientific research. The first step, however, is to fill the gap between the principles or basic assumptions and science with a consistent theoretical framework that accommodates the modal properties of an ontology that matches the basic assumptions.

On the recently suggested loophole view of causal closure, nothing in a universe has its cause coming from another universe. It is allowed, though, that something, especially a first thing, can have its cause situated in an interface between universes. However, the possibility of such an interface does not mean that there is any actual interface. In fact, there are several major obstacles to be managed before an interface should be hoped for. One such obstacle, the need for an account of how objects in one universe relate to objects in another universe, is addressed in this paper. The outcome is positive and suggests that objects of different ontological status relate as the kind ‘object’. Some positive and negative properties of such higher-order objects are noted.

The vagueness objection seems to block any moderate answer to the Special Composition Question leaving us with the two extreme alternatives that there either is no composite object or that any set of things compose an object. In this technical paper I introduce the notion of causal objects and a definition of a predicate that permits the set of all parts to be divided into equivalence classes. On this view we can use equivalence classes of parts to define the notion of composite objects why vagueness is blocked. The block works in a hypothetical domain where all parts have a cause so the aim is not to suggest empirically detectable parts and composites, nor to claim any kind of existence of the things being defined, but to present a consistent account of a possible moderate answer to the Special Composition Question that avoids the vagueness objection. The underlying idea is that an object, as such, is not caused whereas its parts are. For example, if we have three caused parts A, B and C constituting the composite D, we have three things that are caused whereas the composite D has no cause over and above the three causes of A, B and C.

Standard definitions of causal closure focus on where the causes in question are. In this paper, the focus is changed to where they are not. Causal closure is linked to the principle that no cause of another universe causes an event in a particular universe. This view permits the one universe to be affected by the other via an interface. An interface between universes can be seen as a domain that violates the suggested account of causal closure, suggesting a view in which universes are causally closed whereas interfaces are not. On this basis, universes are not affected by other universes directly but rather indirectly.