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Wittgenstein’s Core Ideas for Debate:

Meaning as Use:
Wittgenstein’s Claim: The meaning of a word is not inherent but is determined by its use within a given language game. There is no universal meaning outside these contextual practices.

Language Games:
Wittgenstein’s Claim: Language operates through diverse “games,” each with its own rules and logic. Philosophical problems often arise when we take words or concepts out of their language games and treat them as having universal meaning.

Critique of Metaphysical Universals:
Wittgenstein’s Claim: Philosophical systems that claim universality are rooted in misunderstandings of how language works. They project fixed meanings onto fluid, context-dependent language practices.
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## The Argument (Formalized as Ontology DAGs):
All philosophical systems can be represented as ontology DAGs:

- A Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) represents relationships between concepts as nodes and edges, where no cycles exist (no circular definitions).
- Philosophical systems are essentially structured frameworks of relationships, making them reducible to such a representation.

All ontology DAGs require fundamental relationship definitions (upper ontologies):

- At the top of the graph is the upper ontology, which defines the most general relationships (e.g., "is_a," "part_of") that underpin the entire structure.
- Without these foundational definitions, the entire system collapses, as lower-level relationships depend on the coherence of the upper ontology.

Mistakes in upper ontology:

- If the upper ontology includes inappropriate or overly restrictive classes as universal properties, it risks failing to represent the full diversity of relationships accurately.
- For example, claiming "all entities must have physical form" would exclude abstract entities like numbers or relationships.

Universality arises when relationships bootstrap to create all others:

- A truly universal upper ontology enables the relational bootstrapping of all possible relationships in the system.
- If the upper ontology’s relationships are sufficient to generate the entire DAG through relational bootstrapping, it is universal because it accounts for all emergent and contextual variations.

## Applying This to Wittgenstein:

Meaning as Use:

- Wittgenstein claims that meaning is contextual and dependent on the "use" within language games.
- However, from the ontology DAG perspective, language games themselves are relational structures that rely on bootstrapping from a set of fundamental relational definitions.
- Wittgenstein’s "use" corresponds to lower-level relationships within a DAG, but the existence of these relationships presupposes an upper ontology.

Language Games as Relational DAGs:

- Each language game can be seen as a subgraph within the larger ontology DAG.
- While the rules and meanings of each game are context-specific, they all depend on upper-ontology relationships like "is_a," "has_property," or "part_of" to make sense.

Wittgenstein’s Critique of Universals:

- Wittgenstein critiques universals because he assumes they impose fixed meanings on inherently fluid, contextual language.
- However, if the upper ontology generates all lower-level relationships dynamically through bootstrapping, it doesn’t impose fixed meanings—it merely provides the foundational relational structure that makes all contextual variations possible.

## IJEGU’s Response to Wittgenstein:
Philosophical Universality Through Relational Bootstrapping:

- Wittgenstein denies universal frameworks, but IJEGU shows that universality arises naturally when upper ontologies successfully bootstrap relational structures that account for all possible variations and contexts.
- Meaning-as-use (language games) is a manifestation of relational optimization, not a refutation of universality.

Reinterpretation of Language Games:

- Wittgenstein’s language games are subgraphs of a larger relational ontology DAG. The diversity of language games demonstrates the flexibility of relational bootstrapping, not the absence of universal structures.
- IJEGU embraces this diversity as evidence of emergent good (EG), showing how universal patterns optimize to fit specific contexts.

IJEGU as the Upper Ontology Wittgenstein Lacks:

- Wittgenstein critiques universals but provides no formal framework for how meaning and relationships emerge. IJEGU fills this gap by formalizing relational bootstrapping, making the upper ontology explicit and demonstrating how lower-level contextual variations arise.

Conclusion:
By representing philosophical systems as ontology DAGs, IJEGU demonstrates that universality is not about imposing fixed meanings but about providing relational structures that allow all contextual and emergent relationships to bootstrap. Wittgenstein’s critique of universals is absorbed and transcended by showing that:

- Language games are relational subgraphs within a broader ontology.
- Meaning-as-use relies on an implicit upper ontology that Wittgenstein doesn’t articulate but that IJEGU formalizes.
- Universality emerges when the upper ontology optimizes relational bootstrapping to account for all variations.

In this sense, Wittgenstein’s philosophy not only aligns with IJEGU’s relational framework but is subsumed by it, as IJEGU provides the universal relational structure Wittgenstein’s work presupposes but doesn’t explicitly acknowledge.
