How do you tell your right hand from your left?

This is about "Things in themselves" a concept which is easy to misunderstand. Let me see if I can do it justice.

A "Thing in itself" is 'reality'. It is "What is". What we do as people is observe light, air vibrations, etc, then piece together a coherent assessment of "That thing in itself" that we can process and make sense of. But if you think about it, the "Thing in itself" is not the light bouncing off. The falling tree does not make sound, the air from the crash does. As such, it is impossible to know what "A thing in itself" is. Its that upon which we represent with our definitions, beliefs, assumptions, and knowledge.

Generally, the debate is, "Can we know what a thing in itself is?" Can we know what reality is, apart from our interpretations of that reality? And the answer is "No". What we call "space" has no directionality, as directionality is related to our interpretation. It doesn't mean that space doesn't exist or that something like "up" doesn't exist 'in itself'. It just means that our interpretation of what is, that exists without contradiction, still isn't "what is".

And this makes sense right? If you can only interpret something, you can't know what the something is without interpretation. In a more relatable sense, you can't actually 'be' another consciousness than yourself. You can interpret another human being, make beliefs about them, assessments, etc., but you can never understand what it is like to be "That person in themselves". And to really make sure this is understood, it does not mean that "That person in themselves" does not exist. It just means you're ability to understand and know about it is limited by the aspects of information and interpretation.

So ok, lets see if we can make the above conversation make more sense then a late night edible conversation.

Quoting SEP on Leibniz

this basic argument in the 1768 essay is that Leibniz’s view does not enable one to distinguish between a left handed glove and a right handed glove, insofar as the relations of all the parts to one another are the same in both cases.

Ok, so the glove can fit a right hand or left hand. That's the thing in itself (which we shouldn't be able to know). We ascribe to that glove, "Its a right handed/left handed glove", but because there is nothing innate in the glove itself that would necessitate that its right or left handed, we can make a belief, but not a solid claim of "that's what it is in itself".

Quoting SEP on Leibniz

Yet if God had created just one glove, it would have been one or the other.

What he's doing here is noting that the glove was made with intention. So the design does not convey the intent of the glove, but the designer had an intent for the glove. This is pulling the idea that 'things in themselves' are of course intelligently designed. And if you understand the what I noted above, you get into some absurd logic. Essentially even though we interpret reality, God actually understands and knows reality as it is 'itself'. How? Magic. And continuing to create a reasonable argument with magic ends in nonsense.

Another way to look at it is that God is another stand in for 'conscious intelligent being'. And its Gods interpretation that the glove be used for right hands only, so therefore its a right handed glove. But God would still need the concept of right and left handed that does not exist in 'the thing in itself'. Generally when you pull God into a conversation, it gets weird. I'll try to leave that aspect out to make it more intelligible.

Quoting SEP on Leibniz

Right-handedness and left-handedness are not merely anthropic concepts since nature itself insists on handedness in twining plants and the shells of snails. But which direction is right and which is left can only be established by a conscious, embodied being. As he expresses it in the Prolegomena, “The difference between similar and equal things which are not congruent…cannot be made intelligible by any concept, but only by the relation to the right and left hands, which immediately refers to intuition”

In other words if there were no hands, we would not be able to ascribe that a glove was for a right or left hand. But since there are hands created by nature, we know there are right and left hands in themselves. Nature doesn't ascribe to it that, "This is the right hand", but it there are hands that exist on each side of the body. Our interpretation or 'intuition' is to know them as right and left hands. Nature doesn't know them as that, as nature does not ascribe to them anything more than they are. The mistake here is to think that there is another concept 'in itself', or as God would ascribe. A thing in itself has no concept, it just 'is'.

Quoting SEP on Leibniz

It is not clear whether this orientational analysis implies that wherever there is space there must also be sentient beings with pairs of incongruent parts, as well as top-bottom and back-front asymmetry.

So again, to know something is 'right or left' is a human concept based on relation. "Right" is what we call 'that horizontal direction' in relation to left which is 'the complete opposite direction' from a particular origin viewpoint. "Right" and "left" do not exist, according to the above, as 'things in themselves'. They are pure concepts based off of relations of our interpretations of things in themselves.

So that being the case, if right and left are conceptual relations, doesn't that mean that top, back, depth, height, and space in general is just a concept based on the relations that a cognizant being creates? Yes. But does that mean the things in themselves are not related to other things in themselves, as they are? No. Does putting God or Forms into the mix make it more confusing then it needs to be? Yes. :)

Ok, so now to finally answer your question!

Quoting frank

On what basis do you make this distinction? Is it a matter of experiencing the world through a human body? Or is there something objective about it?

The objective basis is 'the thing itself'. We have 'hands' in themselves. How we interpret them is up to us. We could call them "quack and bark" hands if we wanted. We could say that hands involve the forearm. We part and parcel our interpretation of reality as we wish. As long as our interpretation is not contradicted by the thing in itself's existence (I can cut my hands off and they will still work does NOT match reality) then we're good.

Quoting Philosophim

Ok, so now to finally answer your question!

On what basis do you make this distinction? Is it a matter of experiencing the world through a human body? Or is there something objective about it?
— frank

The objective basis is 'the thing itself'. We have 'hands' in themselves. How we interpret them is up to us. We could call them "quack and bark" hands if we wanted. We could say that hands involve the forearm. We part and parcel our interpretation of reality as we wish. As long as our interpretation is not contradicted by the thing in itself's existence (I can cut my hands off and they will still work does NOT match reality) then we're good.

Yes, the question is whether or not space has mind-independent directions. That question doesn't appear to be answered by noting that we have hands. I think you're agreeing that space does not have any innate directionality (in the same way there is no unmoving reference point out there). Adding more objects doesn't fix that. So there is no "up" in itself.

Quoting frank

Adding more objects doesn't fix that. So there is no "up" in itself.

There is a distance between a set point in itself, and another set point in itself. "Up" is an interpreted relation between our observation view point, and that relation. So yes, "Up" does not exist in itself, but the Earth, and the distance to space for example, does exist in itself.

Quoting Philosophim

There is a distance between a set point in itself, and another set point in itself. "Up" is an interpreted relation between our observation view point, and that relation. So yes, "Up" does not exist in itself, but the Earth, and the distance to space for example, does exist in itself.

Right. "Up" is observer dependent. That one's a little harder for me to grasp than left-right. :grin:

I distinctly remember struggling with this for at least weeks, maybe longer, as a 4-5 year old. Knowing there was a difference, looking at my hands, thinking they looked the same. How do I know which one's my left one? I can't tell. They look the same.

Those were weird times man, what a trip.

Reply to frank Left-right confusion is surprisingly common. I have known three otherwise smart adults who can't tell the difference and need constant prompting. According to Wiki 15% of people have LRC.

Quoting frank

On what basis do you make this distinction? Is it a matter of experiencing the world through a human body? Or is there something objective about it?

I think of myself as having two halves and I know the left is the side I don't write with. I think that's how I tell the difference. Is it objective? It's certainly an intersubjective agreement shared by culture - a tool we use to organise space. While there might be some who are confused as to which is which. Those who can tell will always agree as to which is which. Does that make it objective? Of course, further complicating this is that left or right change depending upon one's position or perspective - they are not like compass points.

Quoting Tom Storm

I think of myself as having two halves and I know the left is the side I don't write with. I think that's how I tell the difference. Is it objective? It's certainly an intersubjective agreement shared by culture - a tool we use to organise space. While there might be some who are confused as to which is which. Those who can tell will always agree as to which is which. Does that make it objective? Of course, further complicating this is that left or right change depending upon one's position or perspective - they are not like compass points.

I guess the point is that it's not mind-independent. We need a conscious entity (or two) in order for directionality to exist. All by itself, space doesn't have directions like left and right. That's kind of mind-blowing if you're used to thinking in terms of absolute space.

Quoting frank

All by itself, space doesn't have directions like left and right.

That seems intuitively true.

Quoting Tom Storm

That seems intuitively true.

So it would go back to the hand you write with, unless you're left handed? :grin:

I am left-handed. Many of those strengths appeared by what the right hand did better. I write on paper left-handed but many other tasks, like playing piano or cutting with scissors are better done with the other side. It seems to me there is a dynamic where the two sides are using the oppositional quality for a kinesthetic affect.

Reply to frank

Quoting SEP on Leibniz

But which direction is right and which is left can only be established by a conscious, embodied being.

Sure. But this is true of everything - everything expressible as a concept.

Quoting frank

Yes, the question is whether or not space has mind-independent directions. That question doesn't appear to be answered by noting that we have hands. I think you're agreeing that space does not have any innate directionality (in the same way there is no unmoving reference point out there). Adding more objects doesn't fix that.

I'm not sure how this fits into this discussion, but there is a physical property - chirality - the technical term for handedness.

Lord Kelvin:I call any geometrical figure, or group of points, 'chiral', and say that it has chirality if its image in a plane mirror, ideally realized, cannot be brought to coincide with itself.

Certain chemicals - primarily organic compounds - form chiral pairs. Generally, but not always, they behave the same chemically. Chirality is also a property of some subatomic particles, e.g. the spin of an electron.

That doesn't change the fact that deciding which direction you call right and which left is a matter of convention, but it's a convention that makes some sense. 90% of people are right-handed. Left-handed people were sometimes considered sinister, which means "left."

You can however tell that one glove is the chiral opposite of the other. If the gloves have palm and back, then you can certainly tell which is left and which is right. And if they don't, then it doesn't make any difference, since you can turn left into right by the simple expedient of turning the glove inside out.

The supposition is that somehow therefore consciousness is essential to telling left from right, but the case for this cannot, I think, be made. All that is needed is an arbitrary point from which to assess the chirality of the glove.

Quoting Philosophim

Ok, so the glove can fit a right hand or left hand

I'm not sure I follow. As Banno says:

Quoting Banno

If the gloves have palm and back, then you can certainly tell which is left and which is right.

Gloves look very different depending on which hand they are supposed to fit.

If the question is whether 'left' and 'right' exist independently of any specific spatial observation point, I can't imagine how they could. What would anything be 'left' or 'right' of? They are relational terms. But I sense I'm misunderstanding a deeper philosophical question.

As it happens, I am one of those unfortunate souls who often gets confused between left and right. But, of course, I never confuse 'up' with 'down' or 'backwards' with 'forwards'. (Not that I'm suggesting those directions are any more independent of an observer! Just an observation).

Quoting cherryorchard

Ok, so the glove can fit a right hand or left hand
— Philosophim

I'm not sure I follow. As Banno says:

If the gloves have palm and back, then you can certainly tell which is left and which is right.

Because the authors were not talking about gloves with palms and backs. They were specifically providing examples of gloves that had no distinct indicators that they were for left or right hands. Think of disposable plastic gloves that medical providers use if that helps.

Quoting cherryorchard

If the question is whether 'left' and 'right' exist independently of any specific spatial observation point, I can't imagine how they could.

This is the important part. But does that mean a right and left hand don't exist? No. The issue is in trying to describe 'things in themselves'. You really can't. Any descriptor or knowledge of a thing in itself is going to be a representation. So we can know there is reality, just not know what it is if we could not interpret and represent it in some way that relates to us.

Quoting Philosophim

Because the authors were not talking about gloves with palms and backs. They were specifically providing examples of gloves that had no distinct indicators that they were for left or right hands. Think of disposable plastic gloves that medical providers use if that helps.

That makes perfect sense – sorry for misunderstanding. But in the case of those sorts of gloves, there are no ‘left’ or ‘right’ gloves, any more than there are ‘left’ or ‘right’ socks. I don’t see why we need to imagine the glove floating in an empty container. Nor would the addition of a human spectator answer the question of whether it is a left or right glove – it is neither.

Quoting Banno

The supposition is that somehow therefore consciousness is essential to telling left from right, but the case for this cannot, I think, be made. All that is needed is an arbitrary point from which to assess the chirality of the glove.

Being in a quadruped body is the basis for the distinction. Directionality is something we give to space. It doesn't have that on its own. Some responders to this thread have said that this is blatantly obvious, others like me, arrived at it intellectually, but it still seems weird, then there are people who reject it?

Quoting cherryorchard

I don’t see why we need to imagine the glove floating in an empty container. Nor would the addition of a human spectator answer the question of whether it is a left or right glove – it is neither.

Its a thought experiment used to convey an underlying idea. You're making an innocent mistake of focusing too much on the specifics of the thought experiment, and not what its trying to get at. The specifics of the thought experiment are irrelevant as long as you understand the main idea its trying to convey.

The point is that sometimes the existence of a thing does not innately imply things we ascribe to it. We ascribe direction based on points of origin, or use. But only a conscious being can construct a point of origin or use. Do left and right describe things in themselves, or are they purely constructs of an intelligent observer?

Quoting Philosophim

But only a conscious being can construct a point of origin or use.

:up: It's a kind of relativity.

This is interesting from stack exchange.

Quoting frank

Being in a quadruped body is the basis for the distinction.

Quadruped? That's my problem then. Not enough feet.

Quoting frank

Directionality is something we give to space. It doesn't have that on its own. Some responders to this thread have said that this is blatantly obvious, others like me, arrived at it intellectually...

You reached it as a conclusion to some argument? This?
Quoting SEP on Leibniz

Consider a container in which a single glove is floating. Is it a right-handed glove or a left-handed glove? We can insert various new items into this space-container, e.g., an anorak, a scarf, a shoe, but only the insertion of a human observer into the space will permit an answer.

It's wrong. If the glove has a palm and a back then we can tell its chirality. If it does not have a palm and back then inserting an "observer" does not help. The judgement will depend on which side the glove is seen from, not on the fact of there being an observer. It's not necessary to "insert an observer" to settle the issue; simply choosing a point on this or that side of the glove will suffice.

"Directionality" results from there being more than one point in a space. The minimum number of points sets the dimensionality - two points, one dimension, three points, two dimensions, four points, three dimensions. No observer is needed.

Quoting Philosophim

But only a conscious being can construct a point of origin or use.

This looks to be a play on "use". Only conscious beings construct. But that tells us nothing about space.

If the conclusion here is supposed to be that space cannot exist without conscious beings, and hence that some form of antirealism must be true, then it is very unconvincing. There's a notion hereabouts that our explanations are incomplete until consciousness is introduced, and an ensuing drive to bring consciousness in to all sorts of discussions, to somehow prove that consciousness is something special. As if the fact of one's own consciousness were not extraordinary enough! As if you somehow need to demonstrate your existence, as well as to live it! But of course you cannot doubt your own consciousness, so all such supposed demonstrations are besides the point. It's an example of a misplaced need for certainty, as if that the glove is left-handed were more evident than that you are conscious. I find such approaches extraordinarily muddled.

Quoting Banno

It's not necessary to "insert an observer" to settle the issue; simply choosing a point on this or that side of the glove will suffice.

How can you have choosing going on with nobody to choose?

Quoting Banno

Quadruped? That's my problem then. Not enough feet.

Tetrapod.

Quoting frank

How can you have choosing going on with nobody to choose?

Your observer is reduced to a point. That is all that is needed.

How could this discussion go on without you and I? If your purpose is to prove that there are observers, then it seems to me that your argument is superfluous. That there is a discussion is sufficient.

Quoting Banno

Your observer is reduced to a point. That is all that is needed.

So you have an observer.

Reply to frank No. We have a point.

Quoting Banno

We have a point.

Which point?

Reply to frank Any point.

Quoting Banno

Any point.

So you have a point. Now what?

Reply to frank Now you have chirality.

Quoting Banno

Now you have chirality.

I don't see what you're talking about. Where's the point?

Reply to frank Anywhere off the plane.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirality_(mathematics)

Reply to frank

I don't think points have chiral properties. Only some geometric shapes have chiral properties, and these are close to some of the things we consider to be real.

"Space" is an odd duck, conceptually. But I'm not sure handedness is the right avenue given that there are even mathematical descriptions of chirality -- the mathematical description would satisfy Kant, I think? Though https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23274573/

Reply to Banno Ahhh x-posted your link.

Quoting Banno

Anywhere off the plane.

Some points will make the glove right-handed. Some will make it left-handed? Correct?

The Wiki article is not so good. Try this:

https://match.pmf.kg.ac.rs/electronic_versions/Match61/n1/match61n1_5-10.pdf:Chiral objects and figures like hands exist, by definition of chirality, in two distinguishable forms that are mirror images of each other. But, being isometric, the two forms cannot be distinguished if we take only the metric into account. For the distinction of chiral objects we need more than just a metric, we need to introduce an orientation of the space in order to define reflections and mirror images, i.e. we need coordinates.

A coordinate system is not an observer.

Quoting Banno

A coordinate system is not an observer.

Are you saying space has a built in coordinate system?

Reply to frank No.

Reply to Banno
It's something we pick.

Reply to Moliere
How do you tell your left from your right?

Reply to frank I'd say it's convention. I was taught which was what.

I'm not sure that has ontological import though.

Quoting Moliere

I'd say it's convention. I was taught which was what.

I'm not sure that has ontological import though.

What does have ontological import?

Reply to frank The coordinate system gives an orientation. Neither of these require an "observer".

Quoting Banno

The coordinate system gives an orientation. Neither of these require an "observer".

I don't think Liebniz or Kant meant there has to be someone standing there gawking in order for directions to exist. It's just that directionality does not exist in the wild.

Reply to frank Fair question, though that's sort of the thing I puzzle through still. I don't have a direct answer. I might even bother to write that one down if I had a direct answer.

"Left" and "Right" seem very obviously conventional, just like "up" and "down" -- anything relative to a speaker. It's more like a name for a direction from yourself -- like an angle, but less precise -- than an ontological category.

Quoting Moliere

Left" and "Right" seem vary obviously conventional, just like "up" and "down" -- anything relative to a speaker. It's more like a name for a direction from yourself -- like an angle, but less precise -- than an ontological category.

Yes. It has to do with the fact that you're peering out of a body with ears that produce a sense of up and down. Left and right follow from that. Space doesn't come with a left and right.

Quoting frank

It's just that directionality does not exist in the wild.

What could that mean? That birds do not fly north for winter?

Frankly, whatever your conclusion is remains obscure.

You seem to be playing with the difference between "absolute" and "relative", and to have realised that "relative" requires that some frame be assumed. But then you jump to the conclusion that the frame requires an observer. That's the bit that is hard to follow.

And as argued above, concluding that minds are special as a result of some argument seems to be superfluous.

Reply to Banno
And so you've joined the ranks of those to whom it's obvious that space doesn't have a left and right. We give it directionality.

Quoting frank

Yes. It has to do with the fact that you're peering out of a body with ears that produce a sense of up and down. Left and right follow from that. Space doesn't come with a left and right.

I don't think that left and right follow from myself having a body with ears, though I know we have a sense of our own orientation from our somatic responses.

My "left" could be your "right", depending upon what my culture taught me as I grew up. It's not so much individual-body, but the social-body which these distinctions depend upon to my mind. (consider the case of feral children -- what "left" or "right" did they have? And doesn't chirality -- left and right handed objects -- still exist in their world without being able to utter it?)

Quoting Moliere

It's not so much individual-body, but the social-body

Or maybe it's empathy. You put yourself in other people's shoes, but the basis is innate.

Quoting Moliere

And doesn't chirality -- left and right handed objects -- still exist in their world without being able to utter it?)

Imagine a possible world in which there are no people. Are there directions there? Only from the point of view of someone outside that world who can establish a reference.

Quoting frank

Imagine a possible world in which there are no people. Are there directions there? Only from the point of view of someone outside that world who can establish a reference.

When I imagine a possible world without people with directions then there are directions in that imagined possible world, and when I imagine a possible world without people without directions then there are not directions in that imagined possible world.

Quoting frank

And so you've joined the ranks of those to whom it's obvious that space doesn't have a left and right.

That an object is left-handed or right-handed is relational. You want to claim that the relation must be to an observer. I've pointed out that this is not so.

"...space doesn't have a left and right" is a nonsense, since left and right require a relation in space.

Quoting Moliere

When I imagine a possible world without people with directions then there are directions in that imagined possible world, and when I imagine a possible world without people without directions then there are not directions in that imagined possible world.

:grin: If there are no people in a world, and it has directionality, that directionality is come from you.

Quoting Banno

You want to claim that the relation must be to an observer.

No, the relation is to a chosen reference. That requires an entity capable of choosing. Otherwise you just have points everywhere, some giving rise to a right handed glove, some to a left handed glove.

Quoting frank

If there are no people in a world, and it has directionality, that directionality is come from you.

Does it?

We're talking about a possible world here, not a world. We're imagining possibilities with some pretty abstract concepts.

How could I differentiate an actual world? What would make me believe that the actual world has properties attached to space because I'm the one that's in the world?

Quoting Moliere

We're talking about a possible world here, not a world. We're imagining possibilities with some pretty abstract concepts.

How could I differentiate an actual world?

A possible world is an abstract object. It's stipulated.

Quoting Moliere

What would make me believe that the actual world has properties attached to space because I'm the one that's in the world?

I don't know. :grin:

Quoting frank

A possible world is an abstract object. It's stipulated.

So is the question more about "How do I make an inference from possibilities to actualities"?

Quoting Moliere

So is the question more about "How do I make an inference from possibilities to actualities"?

There are a few kinds of possibility

1. Logical possibility, which is closely kin to metaphysical possibility. You're informed about this by your innate ability to recognize contradictions.

2. Physical possibility, which we learn about in physics class.

We learn about space by hypothesizing in both domains, but thought experiments are in the first category.

Reply to frank Mkay. I'm wrapping back around to this in my thoughts:

Since you don't know how to answer:

Quoting Moliere

What would make me believe that the actual world has properties attached to space because I'm the one that's in the world?

What made you believe that the actual world has properties attached to space because you're the one that's in it?

Mostly wanting to stay on point with the question about space having properties.

Quoting Moliere

What made you believe that the actual world has properties attached to space because you're the one that's in it?

I don't think I uniquely endow space with directionality. I think directions come from the fact that each person has a POV from a body that's easily divided into quadrants. My own journey to realizing this comes from time spent trying to explain to myself what "up" means. But I wouldn't recommend my own trail. If you have a trail, I hope you'll share it. Otherwise you can enjoy what Kant, Leibniz and Witt said. Witt's thoughts are in TLP 6.3111.

Quoting frank

No, the relation is to a chosen reference.

Ok. No, it isn't, but Ok.

Quoting Banno

But only a conscious being can construct a point of origin or use.
— Philosophim
This looks to be a play on "use". Only conscious beings construct. But that tells us nothing about space.

If the conclusion here is supposed to be that space cannot exist without conscious beings, and hence that some form of antirealism must be true, then it is very unconvincing.

No, that would be stupid. The point I've been making through the thread is the separation of representation vs 'things in themselves'. We need something 'in itself' to represent. The question is really about whether 'left' and 'right' as representations are things in themselves, or simply representations of direction through conscious origin. As I noted earlier, there not being a 'left' and 'right' in itself doesn't mean that there isn't the existence of two hands in particular points in space.

Quoting Philosophim

We need something 'in itself' to represent.

Why?

Quoting Banno

We need something 'in itself' to represent.
— Philosophim

Why?

How do you represent something unless that 'something' is there?

Quoting Philosophim

How do you represent something unless that 'something' is there?

Sure, we can represent a something. Why would it have to be a "Something in itself", whatever that might be.

Quoting Philosophim

Generally, the debate is, "Can we know what a thing in itself is?" Can we know what reality is, apart from our interpretations of that reality? And the answer is "No".

So there's that. We can't know what a "thing in itself" is. But presumably we can know what the thing is. So what purpose is there in this philosophical construct, this phantasm, this thing-in-itself? You can't say anything about it, so the story goes - and yet the pages hereabouts are full of it.

Why not drop the thing-in-itself in favour of the thing? At least then we can say something.

Quoting Banno

Why not drop the thing-in-itself in favour of the thing? At least then we can say something.

I agree that is the end take out of all of this. A "thing in itself" is a logical consequence that should not be considered anymore than its base logical necessity. As long as 'the thing in itself' does not contradict our representations (IE, cutting my hand off means it doesn't work anymore, no matter how I try to represent it otherwise) we can hold them.

Trying to figure anything more out about the thing in itself is pointless. You can't, you can only represent it.

Quoting Philosophim

Trying to figure anything more out about the thing in itself is pointless. You can't, you can only represent it.

And once you represent it, it is the thing...

I've never been able to see the point. It seems to me to conceal more than reveal.

Nor, while we are at it, is it clear how it applies to gloves. Is the supposition that a glove-in-itself, about which we can say nothing, is neither left nor right handed? But then we have said things about it - that it is a glove, and that it is neither left nor right. Very odd.

Quoting Banno

And once you represent it, it is the thing...

I've never been able to see the point. It seems to me to conceal more than reveal.

Its a logical footnote to prevent solipsism is all. There is something underneath our representations which we cannot fully understands that is real and affects us. There's nothing else to really explore with it, so that's really where it lies.

Quoting Banno

Nor, while we are at it, is it clear how it applies to gloves. Is the supposition that a glove-in-itself, about which we can say nothing, is neither left nor right handed?

This is old philosophy we're dissecting. From an era before WWI, computers, and Netflix. Its a historical study about a thought experiment that was used as nothing more as a medium to bounce the idea around that there are some things that we can ascribe to reality, and arguably some things we can't. Best not to overanalyze it or elevate it to have any deeper meaning then that.

Quoting Philosophim

Its a logical footnote to prevent solipsism is all.

I don't understand how.

Quoting Philosophim

Best not to overanalyze it or elevate it to have any deeper meaning then that.

Didn't you want to use it in order to explain something about gloves?

Quoting Banno

Best not to overanalyze it or elevate it to have any deeper meaning then that.
— Philosophim
Didn't you want to use it in order to explain something about gloves?

No. The gloves are simply a thought experiment they used to explain the idea. The idea is what is being explained, the gloves are just a starting point to make the idea less abstract.

Quoting Banno

Its a logical footnote to prevent solipsism is all.
— Philosophim
I don't understand how.

If everything is constructed by the mind, and there is no 'thing in itself' that we are interpreting, then all of reality would be in our mind. A thing in itself is a logical note that there is a reality that exists even if we aren't around to interpret it.

Quoting frank

Witt's thoughts are in TLP 6.3111.

I'm looking at the TLP and don't see that sentence.


[quote]
6.3 Logical research means the investigation of all regularity. And
outside logic all is accident.
6.31 The so-called law of induction cannot in any case be a logical
law, for it is obviously a signicant proposition.And therefore
it cannot be a law a priori either.
6.32 The law of causality is not a law but the form of a law.*
6.321 Law of Causality is a class name. And as in mechanics there
are, for instance, minimum-laws, such as that of least action, so
in physics there are causal laws, laws of the causality form.
6.3211 Men had indeed an idea that there must be a law of least action, before they knew exactly how it ran. (Here, as always,
the a priori certain proves to be something purely logical.)

Quoting frank

I don't think I uniquely endow space with directionality. I think directions come from the fact that each person has a POV from a body that's easily divided into quadrants.

If directions come from the self, or cogito, then I don't think we can rely upon things like "quadrants" -- before Descartes there was no such concept, so the cogito is relevant to note -- mostly these are thoughts that are the result of analysis. Descartes broke the world down into bits to figure out relationships between the bits, and so arrived at I think, therefore I am as the one and only certainty -- from which, to his credit, he built back up to the familiar world from this certainty.

I'd say directions come about because it's useful to be able to know where to go and tell others' the same. "Left" and "right" probably don't even correspond to chirality, exactly, but chirality is the feature of the world that I wanted to point out as both a mathematical and empirical phenomenon which can account for the original question: not that everyone does it this way, but because we can do it this way I gravitate towards it and would prefer the point which seems harder to prove be shown -- the idea that directionality is somehow inhering in us alone, and when we die it all goes away.

Conceptually I think there's something there, but linking the concept to reality is... well, something I think about.

Quoting Moliere

but chirality is the feature of the world that I wanted to point out as both a mathematical and empirical phenomenon which can account for the original question

The question was not whether or not there is chirality. It was: how do you tell your left from your right? I don't believe that answer is found in any math, but if you think it is, could you explain how?

Quoting Moliere

If directions come from the self, or cogito

I don't think directionality comes from the cogito. I don't think anyone has ever believed that.

Quoting Moliere

I gravitate towards it and would prefer the point which seems harder to prove be shown -- the idea that directionality is somehow inhering in us alone, and when we die it all goes away.

You said this earlier, did you change your mind?

Quoting Moliere

"Left" and "Right" seem very obviously conventional, just like "up" and "down" -- anything relative to a speaker.

Quoting frank

It was: how do you tell your left from your right? I don't believe that answer is found in any math, but if you think it is, could you explain how?

For Kant, at least, that there is a mathematical description -- much like Euclid or Pythagoras -- then you have a priori synthetic knowledge. The form of the intuition is structured by that; chirality gives a straightforward example from math which explains how we're able to differentiate left from right.

This isn't a bodily thing, though the question of how our body is able is interesting; I'm fairly certain that my left and right are habituated for the purpose of communicating. So no I don't think I changed my mind. When I say I gravitate towards "it" I mean this pragmatic theory of directionality, and want more arguments for why it should be thought of disappearing when we all die.

Quoting Moliere

I'm looking at the TLP and don't see that sentence

"6.36111 The Kantian problem of the right and left hand which cannot be made to cover one another already exists in the plane, and even in one-dimensional space; where the two congruent figures a and b cannot be made to cover one another without moving them out of this space. The right and left hand are in fact completely congruent. And the fact that they cannot be made to cover one another has nothing to do with it.

"A right-hand glove could be put on a left hand if it could be turned round in four-dimensional space.". TLP

Quoting Moliere

chirality gives a straightforward example from math which explains how we're able to differentiate left from right

Could you lay that out in broad strokes? I don't think a description of chirality will distinguish right from left for you. For that, you need a reference. All reference points are chosen by us for our purposes.

Quoting Moliere

I mean this pragmatic theory of directionality, and want more arguments for why it should be thought of disappearing when we all die.

I think you'll find that once you explore the math you mentioned a little further.

Quoting frank

Could you lay that out in broad strokes? I don't think a description of chirality will distinguish right from left for you. For that, you need a reference. All reference points are chosen by us for our purposes.

Quoting frank

I think you'll find that once you explore the math you mentioned a little further.

I don't think you need a reference as much as a habituation -- "reference frame" is easily handled in mathematics through transformations -- that's the basis of Einstein's paper on special relativity.

The points are chosen, yes -- we can describe space with polar or cartesian coordinates -- and they're tooled to our purposes. I agree with all that.

I don't understand how this relates to left/right-handedness. I think it's only habituation, and nothing else -- nothing about space at all.

Quoting Moliere

I don't understand how this relates to left/right-handedness. I think it's only habituation, and nothing else -- nothing about space at all.

Ok. Drop the issue of space. I only mentioned Kant and Leibniz because otherwise someone would have moved the thread to the lounge, failing to notice that this is a time honored philosophical question.

How does habituation work if a person doesn't have any innate sense of leftness vs rightness? I'm asking.

Reply to frank

Quoting frank

How does habituation work if a person doesn't have any innate sense of leftness vs rightness? I'm asking.

It wouldn’t be an innate sense so much as one that arises through coordination among different sense modalities and their relation to our actions with our surrounds. We construct a body image and perceptual map out of schemes of action. Out of these coordinations, a relatively stable marker would have to emerge that would allow us to consistently distinguish left from right. For instance, perhaps that marker is tied to an asymmetry of kinesthetic feedback between one side of the body and the other. Also, most are either exclusively left or right-handed. The memory of which hand one uses to play the guitar or throw a ball can be used to distinguish left from right. I think this issue can be compared with that of the development of perfect pitch and other such accomplishments of coordination of perceptual input. One thing I can say definitely is that it has nothing to do with the Euclidean geometry of space.

Reply to Joshs
For Leibniz, innateness includes abilities that are only in potential at birth, but developed through engagement with the world. Like birds can't fly at birth, but flight is still innate?

Woe, I just discovered that I can write piñon with the squiggly. Awesome.

Quoting frank

How does habituation work if a person doesn't have any innate sense of leftness vs rightness?

Diligent Hokey Pokey practice?

Reply to wonderer1
That would work

Quoting Joshs

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230112-why-some-people-cant-tell-left-from-right#

Interesting article. I had never really thought much about this. To me it seemed an odd subject to start a thread about, but after reading that article I can see how my strengths in visuo-spatial cognition likely make it easier for me, than it is for others.

Quoting frank

"A right-hand glove could be put on a left hand if it could be turned round in four-dimensional space.".

Extra dimensions are not needed. A right-handed glove can be put on a left hand if it is turned inside out.

Which seems to me to show something of the character of this issue. There is a presumption that a glove must be either left handed, or it is right handed. But any glove can be either. There is no absolute answer to "is the glove left-handed or is it right-handed?", only relative answers.

And that relation is just orientation. It is not consciousness.

Quoting Banno

Extra dimensions are not needed. A right-handed glove can be put on a left hand if it is turned inside out.

Right. Forget about hands, you can fold a line over on itself and through that journey left has become right.

Quoting Banno

And that relation is just orientation. It is not consciousness.

If you prefer. Imagine a stone and a boulder on a far away planet. Is the stone to the left or to the right of the boulder?

Quoting frank

Imagine a stone and a boulder on a far away planet. Is the stone to the left or to the right of the boulder?

Well, yes - that answers your OP, doesn't it?

You don't need anything so remote.
Quoting Banno

You and I sit opposite each other at a table. On my right is a knife, on my left, a fork. The fork is on your right. Does that mean there is no objective truth as to the location of the fork?

Reply to Banno
You love that story, huh? Whoever initiated it did you a favor.

Reply to frank Well, it shows the lie of the reduction to relativism and subjectivity – a theme in this thread as well as many others. Folk see space as not absolute, and conclude that therefore it is only subjective...

Quoting Banno

Well, it shows the lie of the reduction to relativism and subjectivity – a theme in this thread as well as many others. Folk see space as not absolute, and conclude that therefore it is only subjective...

If you say so.

Quoting frank

How does habituation work if a person doesn't have any innate sense of leftness vs rightness? I'm asking.

We have to be careful about what we claim to have an innate sense of, I think.

Scientifically speaking we'd be making a claim about what we bring to the table -- but it's not like we're born with beliefs about left/right. Rather, we are rewarded within a social environment when we complete tasks, such as identifying left/right in accord with the social world, because we're a social species who needs to be able to communicate in order to continue our biological cycle.

But "Habituation" need not be biological; it seems psychological but need not be that either. We are creatures of habit in that we repeat actions and through that repetition we learn more. I'd say that I know my left from my right because once upon a time someone told me which was what -- now I have a name for different sides of my body -- than anything else.

Reply to Moliere Interesting perspective. :up:

Reply to Moliere You could not learn your left from your right if there were no difference between left and right.

So it's not just something you learn.

Reply to Banno

It may not be just something I learn, and I suspect that's so. There's a difference that makes a difference.

I wouldn't be surprised, though, if other fellow humans might have developed other ways to talk in this manner -- it's not like space suddenly got divided into quadrants after Descartes; rather, that's an idea for thinking about space (else, how did pre-Cartesians have a notion of space?)

Reply to Moliere There is supposedly a language, Guugu Ymithirr, that could only phrase things in terms of absolute directions. So "raise your right hand" might be "raise your north hand". The culture placed great emphasis on knowing which way one was facing.

Reply to Banno I think I'm tempted to put that in the same category -- unless someone showed me which was my north hand when then... absolute or relative, I would not have known it without that showing.

Reply to Banno Though, upon reflection, that indicates that when I learn I learn about something.

I'm not skeptical about realism: only still thinking it through, and mostly tempted by absurdism.

If I were raised by wolves, or not raised at all -- feral children come to mind for me -- then I think my beliefs about directionality would be different, even though I believe there's a non-imaginative, realist metaphysic that I don't know how to articulate.

Quoting frank

…..people have difficulty detecting philosophical problems….

….which presupposes there is one. Well, shucks, Mr. Bill, seeing as we’re all human, of course there is one. But which one is at issue here? It certainly can’t be as simple as telling one’s left from his right hand. Left is over here, right is over there and n’er the twain shall meet. What’s the big deal?

“….his (Kant’s) basic argument in the 1768 essay is that Leibniz’s view does not enable one to distinguish between a left handed glove and a right handed glove….”

That’s the basic philosophical problem, circa1768, and I’ll wager people have difficulty detecting it, because they haven’t a clue as to what the ground of the basic philosophical problem actually was, insofar as it requires knowing what Leibniz’s view was.

Leibniz 1679 and Wolff 1716 maintained similarity and equality as necessary and sufficient conditions for the congruency of things, re: enclosable in the same limits. Pre-Critical Kant maintained similarity and equality may be necessary but are not in themselves sufficient, in that orientation is also required to entail congruent counterparts. It follows that incongruent counterparts are those entailing similarity and equality of constituent structure but of dissimilar orientation.

Dissimilar orientation: left is over here, right is over there. That’s how I tell one from the other. Which is quite an empty consolation, altogether haphazard, which highlights the REAL philosophical problem: how to get from the absolute space implied by the equality/similarity conditions for the congruency of things, to the apprehension of spatial relations in and of themselves, irrespective of things in spaces, yet serves to “prove” the implications of “Leibniz's theorem” wrong?

Anyway….Kant’s 1768 proof was itself falsified by the Möbius strip and the Klein bottle, even though he himself had given up on it by 1770’s PhD dissertation and his Critical-era 1786 Metaphysics of Natural Science, in which was deconstructed the Newtonian notion of absolute space, and with it, by extension, the Leibniz/Wolff conditions.

As my ol’ buddy Paul Harvey used to say, now you know the rrresssssst of the story.

Quoting Mww

Dissimilar orientation: left is over here, right is over there. That’s how I tell one from the other.

Are you laying something like an x-y axis over your visual field?

Apparently, Kant had long been interested in incongruous counterparts. Prior to his "critical turn," Kant had used a similar argument to support the Newtonian view of "absolute space" against Leibniz view of space as essentially relational.

Understanding Leibniz' view is helpful for understanding where Kant is coming from here. Given Section 12 of the Prolegomena, Kant seems to be thinking of geometry in these rationalist terms, at least in terms of the "pure understanding." Chriality, "handedness," does not seem to show up in these terms, which look only at the points and their distance from one another. Hence, chirality must have to do with how the mind "represents" things rather than how things are.

Personally, I am not convinced by this argument. I have either misunderstood it, or perhaps it makes more sense in the context of how people though about mathematics at the time. The fact that the letter "q" can be rigidly rotated to become congruous with a "b" (at least in simple fonts) is a property of that shape itself. Kant seems to agree with this because he doesn't put forth rotational asymmetry as an example here, which would be a far more simple example, but instead points to chirality in particular.

However, the fact that you can flip a "q" or "b" over a mirror line (i.e. reflection) and that the resulting shape will not be congruent with the original shapes through rigid rotation also seems to be a property of that shape. That is, just from the shape, taken alone, you can tell if it has chiral asymmetry, just as you can tell just from a shape alone if it has rotational symmetry or not (e.g. a circle looks the same regardless of how rotate it, and this a property of that shape). I am not sure if Kant thinks relations involving reflection are different from those involving rotation, such that reflection does not relate to the "in-itself" of shapes?

There certainly is a sense in which a mind must be present to determine which shape (or spin) will be considered "left" or "right," but it seems to me that the asymmetry is already always there, implied by the relations between the points that make up the shape themselves.

Anyhow, this little example has spawned a lot of literature, some of which gets very into the weeds (e.g. discussing how a disembodied hand must be made of subatomic particles, which themselves have chiral asymmetry), and is a pretty interesting topic. You can also imagine a very similar argument based on rotational asymmetry. For example, we can't imagine a "t" that isn't right-side up, upside-down, or on its side. It's orientation cannot be determined from the points that make it up alone. However, this seems to reduce to the triviality that nothing is observable without an observed, not that chirality must be a sui generis product of the mind.

Also, the insight that a mind is needed to actualize space and time doesn't require a view like Kant's. For a t to be oriented up or down, or on either side, requires some observation points/observe. But this is consistent with something like saying Aristotle's view:

It has to come as a surprise to the new student of Aristotle to learn that time and space for Aristotle exist in nature only fundamentally. Formally and actually time and space exist as the action of thought completes nature by creating in memory a series or network of relations which constitute the experience of time and space. Thus the “continuum of space and time” belongs neither to the order of being as it exists independently of the human mind nor to the order of what exists only as a consequence of human thinking, but exists rather objectively as one of the most intimate comminglings of mind and nature in the constitution of experience.

Let us begin with time, that ever mysterious “entity” in which we live out our lives. What is time? How does time exist? According to Aristotle, apart from any finite mind, there is in nature only motion and change and the finite endurance of individuals sustained by their various interactions, as we shortly consider in more detail.

Enter mind or consciousness. Now some object changes its position or “moves in space”, and the mind remembers where the local motion began, sees the course of the movement, and notes where it terminates: the rabbit, for example, came out of that hole and ran behind that tree, where it is “now” hidden. The motion was not a “thing”; the rabbit is the “thing”. The motion exists nowhere apart from the rabbit’s actions – nowhere, that is, except in the memory of the perceiver which preserves as a continuous whole the transitory movement of the rabbit from its hole (the “before”) to the tree (the “after”).

John Deely - Four Ages of Understanding

The problem I see is that the conclusion Kant draws from this example is completely unwarranted. Chirality is a property of shapes. So is rotational symmetry. This is true even on the Leibnizian view of geometry. The role of the mind vis-á-vis perspective doesn't entail that space and time do not exist fundamentally in nature qua nature. Indeed, if nature is "mobile being," time must exist in it fundamentally as the dimension across which change occurs.

Reply to Count Timothy von Icarus

Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus

The problem I see is that the conclusion Kant draws from this example is completely unwarranted. Chirality is a property of shapes. So is rotational symmetry. This is true even on the Leibnizian view of geometry. The role of the mind vis-á-vis perspective doesn't entail that space and time do not exist fundamentally in nature qua nature. Indeed, if nature is "mobile being," time must exist in it fundamentally as the dimension across which change occurs

Where do we get the idea that there can be a difference in degree that is not accompanied by a change in kind? Do we get this idea from nature or do we impose it on nature? This is key , because the concept of time as motion depends on the concept of changes in degree of spatial displacement of a quality that remains constant in its sense over the course of the movement. If this only appears to be the case as the result of an an abstractive act on the part of the mind, this doesn’t necessarily mean that a mind is necessary for the actualization of space and time. It means that agency is necessary, and that material configurations function to ‘subjectively’ orient time and space in relation to a point of view, much the same as minds do. Agency doesn’t mean material configuration is sentient, it means it situates time and space according to changing configurations of relevance.

Time has a history. Hence it doesn't make sense to construe time as a succession of evenly spaced moments or as an external parameter that tracks the motion of matter in some preexisting space. Intra-actions are temporal not in the sense that the values of particular properties change in time; rather, which property comes to matter is re(con)figured in the very making/marking of time. Similarly, space is not a collection of preexisting points set out in a fixed geometry, a container, as it were, for matter to inhabit. (Karen Barad)

Quoting frank

Dissimilar orientation: left is over here, right is over there. That’s how I tell one from the other.
— Mww

Are you laying something like an x-y axis over your visual field?

From a non-philosophical perspective, I suppose something like that suffices. For any plurality of things, there is a necessary spatial relation inhering in all of them amongst themselves (the x-y axis notion), which is irrelevant with respect to a single thing, even though all quantitative conditions whatsoever, including singulars, necessarily relate to that which observes them (the visual field notion).

But you’re asking how do we tell left from right, in conjunction with an overlooked philosophical problem. That problem has nothing to do with reference frames represented by x-y coordinates in visual fields, which is merely a constructed explanatory device to enable us to tell left from right, but says nothing at all about what Kant 1768 calls “the inner ground”, re: the presupposition that
apprehension of relative spatial distinctions is given as intrinsic to human intelligence and is necessarily antecedent to the conceptual representation used to distinguish congruent or incongruent things.

But it is pretty clear this sort of philosophical problem doesn’t have much bearing on life in general, especially nowadays, when all the aforementioned philosophical proofs/claims/argumnts are laid waste.

If you’re interested, see https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rogerio-Severo/publication/229153077_Three_Remarks_on_the_Interpretation_of_Kant_on_Incongruent_Counterparts/links/0912f5100284fc9f99000000/Three-Remarks-on-the-Interpretation-of-Kant-on-Incongruent-Counterparts.pdf

Quoting Mww

But you’re asking how do we tell left from right, in conjunction with an overlooked philosophical problem

Actually, I was looking for a discussion in which people explored the question for themselves. I first came across the issue in a book about jewelry design of all things. That led me to ponder it on my own. I take it the issue bores you.

Quoting frank

I take it the issue bores you.

How I tell left from right kinda does, but looking into the philosophical problem of what it means to be left or right, or the origin of the conceptions themselves, is interesting enough.