Can you unpack that for us?

Okay, so flat ontology opposes what-- I mean, first I should say there are multiple conceptions of flat ontology in social thought.

The, the one, the concept I'm drawing on is opposed to what might be called a levels theory of reality, which is a very common sense picture that actually in its basics has been around for centuries in, in at least Western thinking, but not only.

And this pictures reality as made up of a series of levels with something physical like atoms.

Today we would sub-- might say subatomic particles at the bottom, and then molecules.

And of course, the order can vary quite a bit depending on who's constructing this.

But you have molecules, and then maybe you have, you know, the parts of an organism, and then you have to get mental phenomena in there, and then we might have people, then we might have societies, then we might have, you know, the, the Earth as an inhabited ecology, the solar system, and so forth.

Do you think of ontology as working in a similar sort of way?