Ontology #2: wish you were here

My articles about philosophy aren’t popular, but I think they’re needed in the tech industry. In the series so far, I broadly argue against the rejection of metaphysics — that is, a framework that reconciles the experience of being human with the scientific theory of the material world. Without it, many techies gravitate toward radical utilitarian views that can justify almost any harm.If you need to catch up on the series, I have it laid out in the recommended reading order:To take a break from proselytizing, let’s continue the discussion of ontology: a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of being. In the previous installment, we showed that it has thought-provoking ideas about time, with interesting tie-ins to cosmology and sci-fi. Today, let’s talk about things that could have been.That which isn’t realSimilarly to epistemology — the study of knowledge — ontology aims for a degree of rigor in how it talks about the world. It’s accepted that some concepts are too…

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