On the difference between the cladistic classification (i.e., cladification) and a scientific classification (e.g. the Linnean system)

The difference between the cladistic classification (i.e., cladification) and a scientific classification (e.g. the Linnean system) is first and foremost that adherents of cladification (i.e., cladists) do not consider cladification to be a classification at all, but do instead comprehend clades as “natural groups” (instead of a class of objects).

The reason for this difference is that cladists have adopted the axiom that kinds exist (instead of that objects exist) to turn a misconception of an inconsistency in Darwin’s illustration of the origin of species consistent. The problem they try to solve is that Darwin’s illustration of a dichotomously branching origin of a kind (i.e., biological species) is inconsistent if the internal lines (i.e., the lines between the nodes) are interpreted as single things, since it makes them both descendants and ancestors at the same time, whereas the first and the last lines only are an ancestor respectively descendants (at the same time). This problem is consistently solved by interpreting the internal lines as two objects in a row (i.e., a descendant and an ancestor), but cladists do instead solve it by inconsistently interpreting also them as single objects, thus confusing object with kind (over time). Cladists thus confuse object with kind in an attempt to disambiguate an ambiguity in Darwin’s model. The correct disambiguation of this ambiguity is thus to interpret the internal lines as two objects in a row.

Cladification is theoretically possible, since finite classes are possible, but the practical problem with it is that classification of reality is ambiguous, although cladification gives the impression that it isn’t by hiding this ambiguity under the mat (by pretending that we can observe a dichotomous origin of a class, and in the coding of characters and character states), and that it thus heightens a practically vain search to define the indefinable. What it actually tries to find is a definition of definition of definition. Definition can be (and has been) defined, but not definition of definition. The reason that definition of definition can’t be defined is that it is a singularity, and that singularities can’t be defined.

A scientific classification, like the Linnean system, starts with objects and defines them as classes, then consider these classes as objects and defines them as classes, and so on.  It traverses the conceptual multidimensional space (most importantly even and odd levels) consistently by keeping concepts consistently apart on every level. Cladists react against that the classification is ambiguous in accepting “paraphyletic groups”, but this is only a necessary consession to the ambiguity that resides in that every classification is a simplification. This ambiguity also applies on cladification, with the only difference that it here is hidden under the mat pretending that it doesn’t exist.  

The difference between cladism’s classification (i.e., cladification) and a scientific classification (e.g. the Linnean system) is thus first and foremost that cladification hides an unavoidable classificatory ambiguity under the mat, whereas a scientific classification acknowledges and incorporates it. In practice, it means that cladification is impossible. This fact may be understood right now, or awaiting understanding for hundreds, thousands or millions of years. The donkey may stop chasing the carrot today, or continue chasing it forever. It is we that choose which, because we are (is) the donkey.