**Links to**: [[Difference]], [[Line]], [[Linearity]], [[How to orient oneself in research?]], [[Continuity]], [[Kant]], [[Reason]], [[Spatial reasoning]], [[Orientation]], [[Aim-oriented]], [[Gravity]], [[Grave]]. ### 𝒟𝒾𝓈 ### 𝑜𝓇𝒾𝑒𝓃𝓉 ### 𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃 _The text below is in draft form and most of it has been used to construct [[Presentation Schematism v2 May 2023]]_. ### [[Question]]: _What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?_ (_Was heisst: Sich im Denken orientiren?_) ### [[Postulate]]: Gravity is more prominent than left/right orientation(s). Reflecting on [[Kant]]’s “_Was heisst: Sich im Denken orientiren?_”, October 1786, _Berlinische Monatrschrift_ VIII, pp. 304-30. We orient ourselves by way of patterns (see: [[Pattern]], [[05 Prediction]]). A pattern most basic is our given symmetry, and the fact that we can turn left or right (think of this as abstractly as possible, see also: [[Line]]). Change, herein, is our condition ([[Choice]] herein is change). Orientation is the _embeddedness_ within this unavoidable change. Try as we may, it is very difficult to imagine oneself as lacking this very basic sense of orientation, though meditative and psychedelic states _can_ induce such directionless perspectives. The word _perspective_ itself, however _points_ us in a certain direction: from Latin _perspectus_ “clearly perceived,” past participle of _perspicere_ “inspect, look through, look closely at,” from per (through, PIE root ^_per_-: forward) + _specere_ “look at” (PIE root ^_spek_- to observe”).^[https://www.etymonline.com accessed February 2023.] >“However exalted the application of our concepts, and however far up from sensibility we may abstract them, still they will always be appended to _image_ representations {_bildiche Vorstellungen_}, whose proper function {_Bestimmung_} is to make these concepts, which are not otherwise derived from experience, serviceable for _experiential use_.” (8:133, p. 3). Kant asks us how we could possibly “procure sense and significance for our concepts” without an intuition, which, “ultimately must always be an example from some possible experience” (ibid.). _Some possible experience_, however, is a gaping (w)hole, one might think. The fact that *it* does not have an example, and that _it_ remains potentially impossible, in its speculative balancing act of _possibility_, tells us precisely what we need to know: some concepts _seem_ conceptually precise because they are not appended to representations of possible experiences. What of infinity, in that case? The suspension of _possibility_ is what allows for the concept to emerge.^[This is what is often treated with vexing contempt when comparing the function and usefulness of metaphors versus that of concepts: that they are open-ended (see: [[C Metaphor paper]] and [[Argument from Noise]]).] However, following Kant, insofar as all concepts stem from their metaphoric roots, both are always generatively open-ended patterns; possibilistic images of spatiotemporal thought. This generatively, open-ended, expectative condition of the understanding is what we are left with, according to Kant, if we remove the image of/from thought: as we trace through experience, we retain the purity of the understanding as that movement which “contains a rule for thinking in general.” (ibid.) However: there is a paradox here if we compare the schematic operation to the more contemporarily applied concept of ‘pattern.’ A pattern is what it is because we observe in it a basic repetition. Kant points to the problems—referring to the Jacobi / Mendelssohn pantheism controversy^[F. H. Jacobi and M. Mendelssohn and the supposed Spinozism of G. E. Lessing. Jacobi said Lessing confessed his Spinozism to him, which was publicly scandalous as Spinoza was regarded as an atheist and necessitarian. This meant the rationalist Enlightenment principles might be religiously subversive, but it could also mean that pantheism was a better alternative than rationalist orthodoxy. Jacobi and Mendelssohn communicated over the implications of the thought of the now dead Lessing. The question whether reason can be applied to moral and religious questions was the central debate: Mendelssohn defended religious orthodoxy based on reason, Jacobi held that rationalism implies pantheism and material necessitarianism, and that this philosophical reason impedes a moral and religious view of life, faith is the root for a healthy human existence.]—that attempting to *purify* the common concept of reason brings about: this rule of cognitive orientation, by being subject to itself, leads to certain contradictions. Therefore, we move to the “more precisely determined concept of _orienting oneself_” in order to draw out the maxims lurking behind the “cognition of supersensible objects” (that is: schemata, right?). We orient ourselves, he tells us, in order to establish a spatial relationship with the Sun. And in order to do so one needs to be able to observe change, or _difference_, in one’s own subject. Specifically: symmetrical difference; the _feeling_ {_Weltgegend_} of *left from right*. This feeling, Kant refers to as a “faculty implanted by nature but made habitual through frequent practice”, a geographical orientation which can be extended to mathematical orientation in general, and actually: to all cognitive orientation (8:135-136, pp. 5-6).^[In its ‘purest’ determination, orientation can certainly be thought of a matter of left-right decisions, given we take gravity for granted. But for the sake of exploding the determination: nothing is as pure as one might expect, so it is important to stand-by and remark at least two things here. Firstly, Hegel referred to movement as a rather contradictory situation in which "movement" itself, is by definition neither here nor there: a literal _dis_-orientation of experience. One also could ask, when moving in order to orient oneself: which has more prominence; left or right? There is a reason (also implanted by nature) why people differ in dexterity, for example. The pure sensing of difference between the two might be prone to one more than the other; which might lead to 'corrupt' actions of orientation, such as when a car with a slightly smaller front-left wheel slowly veers in that direction. Secondly: left and right symmetries are indeed implanted by nature, but one cannot be so sure that through frequent practice they will become stable points of reference. But, _stability_, the sense of being pulled downward, is perhaps more prominent than the more abstract left-right orientation we’re talking about here. If evidence of this is needed: how many people do you know who often confuse the left/right and turn the wrong way? I, for one, know many, and happen to be one of them from time to time. Not to mention that it is additionally paradoxical to speak of left and right as the common denominator, naturally-given condition of orientation, when attempting a determination at its purest level, free from experience. I cannot imagine someone being unsure whether they are upside down or not. See also: [[Symmetry]], [[Broken symmetry]].] In knowing _how to judge_ ([[Metalearning]], that is) we can extend reason beyond the bounds of mere intuition into a generative space for putting intuition under its own constraints, where its judgments will be subject to a previously determined subjective differentiation (of left versus right). For Kant, this means that once reason has a grip on itself—by means of naturally-given, habituated orientation—it cannot be subject to error, as reason knows what it is capable of being ignorant and not ignorant of. Within this necessarily subjective context: ignorance is the cause of cognitive *limits*, but not the cause of cognitive *errors*, errors should not be possible if reason’s own maxims of orientation are followed in due course.^[This certainly resonates with the Wittgensteinian maxim of “... one must remain silent.” ] Kant asserts then: if there exists a condition in which one is inclined to judge, but where one lacks sufficient knowledge that would—subjectively—determine the maxims _necessary_ for judgment. Thus, we observe a situation in which we have access to _known unknowns_. In his pursuit of the stability or purity of maxims, he contends that if nothing can be ‘sensed’ directly—as sensing is constituted by conceptual thinking and vice versa—then all one can do is check whether this balancing act itself is free of contradiction. In which case, one can _at least_ compare the one sensed thing to the generality of the judgment of sensing. Though still not accessing the ‘purely sensible,’ at least it is pertinent to the _continuity_ of reason; because this is the judgment one has _distilled_ from sensing to begin with. “{W}ithout this caution we would be unable to make any use at all of such concepts; instead of thinking we would indulge in enthusiasm.” (8:137, p. 7). Yet, through conception alone “nothing is settled in respect of the existence of this object and its actual connection with the world (the sum total of all objects of possible experience)” (ibid.). Possibilistic thinking, says Kant, is larger than actuality: more things can be thought of than things that are the case.^[We disagree, as it world is necessarily larger than the model, but ok (see: [[World model]]).] And reason is able to determinately find its way around these, without falling into pure possibilistic enthusiasm, because it finds itself primed by the things it observes. Presupposing, e.g., higher order supernatural beings as authorities determining the logic of reason would violate reason’s limitation to orient itself only by the habit of orientation. The reliability of judgment is its realizability in reason, and reason alone. If reason is not that which grants itself its own laws, the consequence is a lawless thinking that ultimately ends in its own unfreedom: “freedom in thinking finally destroys itself if it tries to proceed in independence of the laws of reason” (8:146, p. 18). But if the orientation of reason comes down to a self-given law of direction which rests on a naturally-given, habitually-built symmetry between left and right, and this is ultimately a condition which cannot be questioned, how are we to awaken from our slumber? If (possibilistic) objectivity is synthesized by our cognitive faculties, novelty can only arise from open-ended symmetry-breaking. Otherwise, we are just [[Language models]]. Are we (not)? Deleuze + [[Whatever next, Andy Clark]] notes. And [[Argument from illusion]] notes. #todo ### [[Faith]] / [[God]] / [[Authority]] >“A pure rational faith is therefore the signpost or compass by means of which the speculative thinker orients himself in his rational excursions into the field of supersensible objects; but a human being who has common but (morally) healthy reason can mark out his path, in both a theoretical and a practical respect, in a way which is fully in accord with the whole end of his vocation; and it is this rational faith which must also be taken as the ground of every other faith, and even of every revelation. > >The _concept_ of God and even the conviction of his _existence_ can be met with only in reason, and it cannot first come to us either through inspiration or through tidings communicated to us, however great the authority behind them.” (8:142, p. 11). ### [[Intuition]], [[Sense]], [[Reason]] >“Reason does not feel; it has insight into its lack and through the drive for cognition it effects the feeling of a need. It is the same way with moral feeling, which does not cause any moral law, for this arises wholly from reason; rather, it is caused or effected by moral laws, hence by reason, because the active yet free will needs determinate grounds.” (8:140, p. 9, footnote). ### [[Interest]] >“He {Mendelssohn} called reason in its latter use “common human reason”; for this always has its own interest before its eyes, whereas one must have left the course of nature behind if one is to forget this interest and look around idly among concepts from an objective viewpoint, merely so as to extend one’s knowledge, whether or not it is necessary.” #todo finish commenting on these notes and add missing Kant citation in last quote. ### Footnotes