Chaos as Ontic Indeterminism: Epistemic Limits as Ontic Structure in Phenomenological Absolutism and Mutual Exclusivity

This paper challenges the prevailing consensus that chaotic systems are deterministic “in principle” despite practical unpredictability due to sensitivity to initial conditions—the butterfly effect. Drawing on the framework of Mutual Exclusivity and Phenomenological Absolutism as its core principle, we argue that the epistemic impossibility of specifying a complete set of initial conditions is not a mere human limitation but reflects the ontic structure of reality itself. Under austere physical realism—where epistemic and ontic structures collapse into localized, absolute, mutually exclusive “is-nesses”—there exists no persisting global substrate, phase space, or precise microstate capable of entailing future trajectories. Chaos therefore manifests genuine ontic indeterminism: each successive phenomenal configuration arises according to law-like phenomenological regularities (via attentive configurations and energetic entities) without being strictly determined by any prior complete state. Furthermore, we position Mutual Exclusivity as a self-reflexive meta-framework, securing its foundational immunity by identifying any epistemic critique or conceptual distinction as a localized ontic actualization in its own right. By demonstrating that trans-is-ness comparisons are not merely epistemically impossible but ontically inapplicable, we neutralize standard analytical objections. This framework preserves the full empirical and predictive success of physics and probability while dissolving longstanding paradoxes in the philosophy of science. It offers a leaner ontology than Everettian or block-universe alternatives and carries significant implications for agency, ethics, and the interpretation of quantum and relativistic phenomena. Ultimately, chaos is not “practically” indeterministic; when epistemic limits are taken as ontically constitutive, indeterminism is the character of physical reality under austere phenomenological absolutism.