philosophy

PHILOSOPHY: Objects should be useful, meaning that they are subjected to regular velocity and displacement. Objects that remain motionless—frozen in space—should be difficult to understand and cause the mind to move. Objects that meet neither of these criteria are deadening to the perceptual faculties, and useless, and should be hidden from sight, momentarily or otherwise.

THE SPARK: The past winter was cold. And dark. (Like most winters…) I prefer warmth. And light. (Like most people…) Something has got to give. Birds fly south to compensate; I’ve yet to enter migratory pattern. Until then, an artificial sun will do…

The past five years I’ve used a 250W incandescent heat bulb (photographed above), rather than a space heater, to keep myself (semi-)cozy while sitting at home in the Northeast as the temperature dips through March. I was turned onto this type of bulb by Dr. Raymond Peat who writes and talks of the red spectrum of light it emits. To encapsulate its reported importance, red light is conducive for life. It facilitates energy production. An extensive compendium of studies on the therapeutic effects of red light is in active compilation. The sun gives off red light. Etc. And I tend to feel “better” when I am getting strong incandescent light exposure during the dark months, numbers 9–3. When I go without it, (e.g., when I leave home for a few days), the light feels intense when I resume treatment. So I’m pretty convinced red light does at least something, likely net-positive. And even if the pro-metabolic effect I’m perceiving is merely psychological, I’m at least verifiably kept warm (the bulb itself gets hot to touch).

In short: The 250W incandescent bulbs throw heat and good light. Win, win—these are the two yens of winter. But the average light socket cannot handle 250W, so a typical lamp or ceiling light fixture will not accommodate the bulb, and really, the most practical option to enable household usage of this bulb is an appliance most contextually appropriate for use in a barn or garage: the brooder fixture.

FREEZE: Brooder fixtures come with a clamp. The clamp affixes the fixture (i.e., shield, socket, and cord) to a plane surface like a windowsill (shown above), table, or two-by-four. (The fixture is otherwise hung if not clamped.) To communicate this in the most concise way possible: The clamps suck. They afford little on-the-fly adjustability. The fixture can be rotated some through a wingnut-tightened, knurled, quasi-ball socket located opposite the clamp end, but it is finicky to set and thus frustrating to often manipulate. If I could get the lamp ever pointing vaguely in my direction without immediately drooping, I left it and was thankful.

This meant the fixture was essentially fixed (static, frozen) yet I am often moving around, and want light in different zones, nearer or farther from me, precisely aimed, etc., so it was practically (in practical terms) incongruous with how I dwell. I also wanted multiple lamps beaming during the winter (more bulbs equals more warmth), and I had no space near my desk to mount a second clamp lamp. This was a problem that demanded a solution. I needed to think.

MOVE, MEANT: After multiple mockups and a prototype or two, I arrived at this: the fully-adjustable, easily displaceable red-light (or whatever type of light) lamp. What is so great about this design is that it longs to be moved and adjusted, unlike the clamp lamp. It welcomes interaction. The feet can be nudged to tweak the horizontal beam angle. The arm slides up and down for height adjustment. And the tilt is easily fine-tuned too. It is mobile. It is concise. It is elastic. The lamp is an embodiment of the way of life.

Two stationed around my desk keep me warm during the winter. During the summer, one ten feet away allows me to see. When the days are shorter, the light shines longer. Whenever I read, it’s on.

PARTS LIST:

• Caps
• 3-Way
• Sling Tee (see: height adjustability)
• Union (allows the fixture to rotate 360° along an x-axis)
• Reducing Tee (or a standard tee, depending on the fixture)
• Shock Cord (for holding the fixture inside the tee) (paracord can be more suitable, depending on the model of fixture used)
• 10′ 1-1/2″ Sch. 40 PVC Pipe (JM Eagle brand from Home Depot is preferable) (bring sling tee to store to check fit before buying) (sand labels off w/ moist 220-grit sanding sponge, then clean w/ original Windex + old towel)
• Fixture (remove sticker residue w/ acetone + nylon-bristle toothbrush, then clean w/ original Windex + soft towel) (if this fixture is unavailable, any rated for 250W should suffice)
• Bulb
• Extension Cord (optional) (but recommended)

DIMENSIONS:

• Feet: 12-1/2–13″ (feet can be disproportionate in length if light is placed parallel against wall) (photo below)
• Leg: ~5′ with 10–20° angled top
• Sling Tee to Union: 1-15/16 to 2-1/4″ exposed distance (pipe length depends on insertion depth)
• Union to Reducing Tee: 1-1/8 to 1-1/2″ exposed distance (ditto)
• Shock Cord: ~13-1/2″ (secure through holes in base of fixture w/ overhand knots, then lace through and pull around tee)

(Cut pipe w/ miter saw for precision, or by hand w/ hacksaw.)

A note on stability:

This is essentially a tripod. The center of mass of the overhanding arm piece (which can be gauged by removing and balancing it on one finger) should drop midway between the three ground contact points of the base. Traditional tripods function the same way—center of mass equidistant from ground points—but with an equilateral foundation rather than the isosceles configuration used here.

YOUR TURN: See what you can make from this. Build it, and try to improve upon the design. Do not fret too much over precision: Start. Cutting. Pipe. And once completed: Email me! Send me your photos and ideas!

My objectives were to (1) use as little material as possible (to keep costs, weight, and volume down) while (2) maintaining a high level of adjustability. Meeting these criteria would help make a reality my intention for the lamp to incorporate movement. I went through a few iterations before hitting on this design. The sling tee was a part I was not originally aware existed (it’s not carried at Home Depot which is where I went initially to survey for available pipe fittings), and by chance the specific brand of sling tee I’d ordered online fit perfectly with the pipe I had on hand (this is not always the case, I’ve found out; the 1-1/2″ advertised diameter can vary a millimeter or more, which makes all the difference with regard to fit).

The lamp could use an on–off switch. Currently the plug controls the power: plug into outlet (power), unplug from outlet (no power). It’s not the most elegant mechanism. A remote control outlet is one alternative. It would probably offer a huge improvement in usability. (I haven’t bought one yet to try out for whatever reasons.) A foot switch extension cord is another idea I’ve entertained cursorily. Readers are invited to investigate further.

BONUS: Adapted for a red light device.

Having immersed myself in the WordPress publishing platform and its accompanying coding languages for intensive stretches while working on websites over the years, 2009–17, specifically, for posterity, (in case any of my fervid readers are wondering), I gained appreciation, disdain, and affinity for the various aspects of writing computer code and what it—computer code—can do and the extreme leverage it can provide. The programming languages used for writing code are similar to written languages (e.g., English, Mandarin, Tuvaluan, Crustacean) in that they serve as means of communication possessing inherent flexibility and thus can be deployed discretionally. Conversation between human and computer can proceed circuitously, linearly, verbosely, or concisely to the same end, much how an author can dispositionally lead a reader to feel, think, or behave a certain way. Here, amidst the 1s and 0s, the objective is to make the computer act a certain way.

To demonstrate the latitude a programming language can provide for achieving an end, below is CSS (cascading style sheets) code, which controls the appearance of an element on a webpage:

#sample-element {
border-top: 1px solid black;
border-right: 1px solid black;
border-bottom: 1px solid black;
border-left: 1px solid black;
}

This can be written instead, for the same effect, as:

#sample-element {
border: 1px solid black;
}

Lo! The four-liner condenses into a single property–value pairing.

Generally, when coding, the ideal is to have written less to achieve the end, whatever it may be, as demonstrated above—but for the sake of clarity for the human who might later be attempting to parse or revise the code, (which human may be and is often you), more lines, characters, and specification can be preferable. Another reason for the long-windedness: manipulation. In the first code block above, defining the top, right, bottom, and left borders separately allows more readily for the customization of each—that is to say, individually; during software development, it’s common to incessantly tweak attributes in the search of “just right.” Above, it’s totally plausible that (1) various border colors, types, and widths were fiddled with, (2) a rather unimaginative 1-pixel solid black border was deemed satisfactory for enclosing the element and (3) by the time the code was deployed to the production setting (i.e., live) the four discrete border attributes remained in the code, uncondensed into the superior one-liner.

This is ok. Yes, the shorthand definition is more elegant, but the form factor here matters little to the end-user (the person visiting the webpage where this style sheet is located). In the 90s or even 00s, the compactness of front-facing code like this was a bigger deal because (A) the internet was slow (think: download speeds under 56Kb/s) and (B) the front-facing code must be downloaded. (The attentive reader will have pieced together that the more compact the code, the faster it is downloaded.) But with download speeds averaging over 1000Kb/s globally now, in 2018, the penalty for an inflated style sheet is unnoticeable. Case in point: The main style sheet for this website at the time of writing is 10KB (kilobytes; 1KB = 8Kb) and I made no efforts to streamline its code. On a below average internet connection, this equates to a less than 0.1s download time. Comparatively, the “organ donor” photo of myself is 19KB, the thumbnail images on the homepage add up to somewhere around 200KB, the typefaces alone account for 325KB…and very quickly the 10KB style sheet is trending towards nothingness and a consequential state of nirvana. This file, the style sheet, also loads only once and is cached (stored for X period of time locally on the device) by most browsers. It is a drop in the digital ocean. So I do not enjoy writing CSS because the language tends to neither reward nor demand scrupulosity of me. Until internet connectivity is throttled to oblivion, which, who knows, may happen, and the size of a webpage becomes relevant again, I will continue to write lackadaisical, semi-bloated, -sloppy CSS.

Other languages that interact with databases (i.e., query them) I feel do reward the meticulous and attentive programmer for writing “better” code. For those unfamiliar with databases, they are essentially spreadsheets: rows and columns with cells full of data. Querying a database retrieves the data contained within these cells under specified parameters. To pull data from a database takes time. To process that data for display on a webpage also takes time. This runtime, or “wait time,” can actually be felt—verifiably perceived—by the end user in many instances, unlike the style sheet download mentioned above, because the querying process typically happens on the constrained server-side. It can only go so fast, and until it has completed, the end-user is left idling with a white screen in their face. Faster internet does nothing to mitigate the wait time. Until the webpage is generated, it cannot be loaded.

As a workaround, webpages are often served statically, which involves pre-generation, storage, and then retrieval of the pre-generated pages. This eliminates the runtime. In other cases, such as when logged into a website or app, the content will be served dynamically to tailor the display. This means the webpages will be generated on the fly and necessitate querying and data processing—wait time. The wait time hurts in two ways:

1. Websites become less functional the more slowly they serve content (humans don’t like waiting)
2. The slower the website, the higher the runtime (and thus web hosting costs)

Since querying and data processing are often what bottleneck the transmission of a webpage to the user, I think it’s especially important to optimize the two for any website that draws traffic or anticipates longevity. To illustrate conservatively: Suppose 0.1 seconds can be shaved off of a query and that query is executed 1,000 times per day. This equates to 100 seconds of runtime saved per day, which adds up to roughly 1 hour per month and 10 hours per year. (These are plausible figures for a low-traffic website.) I am absolutely content to emerge with a gain of this magnitude. And it’s often possible to reduce the runtime of a rogue query further than one tenth of a second. The savings can be dramatic. In the vacuum of a single runtime instance, the time-savings aren’t always noticeable, but the repeated occurrences add up. I won’t delve into the language of queries, like I did above for style sheets, but strategies for optimizing queries often involved eliminating queries (e.g., running them less often by storing results for a period of time) or tweaking comparison methods (e.g., resolving from the opposite angle). Shrewder processing of the data returned by queries increases efficiency as well.

So: I became particularly interested in page generation optimization after realizing the tangible utility of and return for deconstructing queries. A day spent remediating a slow query into a more lively one would translate into a net savings of hundreds or thousands of hours.

After burning out on my job and the internet in general last fall (see: “Drugged Out”), the physical, actual, verifiable (“Pinch me—ouch.”) environment around me materialized into view as I distanced myself from technology, and through the lens of query optimization I realized I could reduce the time and energy I spent on recurring tasks within this environment—the tangible one—much like how I felled inefficiencies within the digital realm. Actions or tasks are essentially the same as queries. What we are trying to reproduce—or, more analogously, “retrieve” (to borrow from the digital sense above)—are specific states with regularity and precision. Consumed during these real-life processes are resources too. For the sake of example: I boil water at least once per day. State retrieved: water @ 212°F. To refresh to this state from ambient water requires X time and Y energy, which variables hinge predominantly on the construction of the heating vessel (material, shape, capacity, etc.) and type of stove (gas, electric, conduction, etc.). By manipulating these factors (vessel and stove), water can be brought to a boil at varied rates—and why not attempt to raise the speed, (reduce the time), if possible, for a comparable amount of, or even less, energy? (“He’s right!”) Rather than modify my stove, I upgraded cookware. Implied with the acquisition of a new, more efficient pan is a moderate upfront cost, but if I am saving (1) time, because the water boils faster, and (2) energy, because less electricity or gas are spent, why not invest? The water only needs to come to a boil 30 seconds faster for the pan to save me 3 hours per year, and at that point, one year in, I’ve already seen a comfortable return on investment; the water does boil at least that much faster, and I value my time. To make this switch seems like a complete no-brainer to me in retrospect, and I wish I acted sooner. I would be remiss not to mention that there are other considerations inherent to any item besides how quickly it functions—read: you can’t microwave everything—but time is often the prevailing factor. Energy can be renewed; time cannot.

To express the idea of speed, or time-saving, in another format, listed below are generalized comparisons of common objects, concepts, and attributes. Each should be situationally scrutinized, selected, and discretionally employed:

• writing: click pens are faster than capped pens
• stationery: notepads are faster than journals
• laundry: hanging is faster than folding
• enclosures: the zipper is faster than the button
• footwear: slip-on is faster than tie-on
• containers: transparent and bare is faster than opaque and adorned
• objects in motion: lightweight is faster than heavy

The usual solution-seeking pattern is to deconstruct an action, identify its components, and reduce the friction precluding its end state. Forming a comparison base like this can help ramify creative channels. There is infinite possibility. In the case of boiling water, eliminating friction (or, more accurately, conserving energy) saves time. This strategy can also be used to form new, positive habits, rather than just reduce the time it takes to complete old ones. (Or, conversely, by increasing friction, bad habits can be broken.) To provide another example, which demonstrates habit forming and incorporates bullet points #1 and #2: I write down thoughts daily. (“Dear diary…”) Or I try to at least. I’ve found that if I don’t, I get stuck. Repeated thoughts will fester in my brain. I enter states of helplessness, inaction and delusion without regular extrication. It can get bad. I tend to perceive issues more clearly when they’re a foot or two away; left in my own head, I’m blind. And there’s something specifically therapeutic about transmuting these thoughts in my own handwriting, so I scribe with pen and paper rather than an electronic device. The pebble in my path is that I’m rather kind of unenthusiastic about recording these thoughts. It’s at times painful to confront reality or what I’ve initially perceived to be reality, and so I will avoid doing so. Unless I have paper sitting out in plain sight, within grasp, ready to be written on, and pen, too, I’m unlikely to write—so that’s precisely what I do: I leave an open-faced notepad with clean sheet on the top of my desk with engaged pen alongside ready to jot. Bound, covered journals require too much fuss; I can’t be bothered to flip open to my last spot. Serendipitously, the sheets of the notepad necessitate displacement once filled (i.e., tearing off), adding further distance to the thoughts. (“What’s in the past has passed.”) This may sound like psychobabble but in practice I’ve found the philosophy to be sound. Capped pens I am aware can be left uncapped; click pens have the edge in portability, which can matter, but this is largely a personal preference. To get to this point, where journal-keeping has become a sustainable habit, for me, I identified the high-friction aspects of the activity—(1) retrieval of paper and (2) engagement of pen—and attenuated them. There’s more to it than that, but this is enough to be illuminative.

In short, I am far more likely to establish a desired habit when the end state is nearer (e.g., with faster cookware, I am more likely to cook; with faster stationery, I am more likely to write) and it is easier to get started (think comparably of the activation energy required for a chemical reaction to proceed). The ability to establish and sustain new habits leads to personal growth—increased awareness and heightened potential.

To bookend with an extrapolation on the role of efficiency: As blatant hold-ups in action are addressed, previously imperceptible bottlenecks surface. These subsequent hold-ups warrant remediation, induce new ones, and so on. (Picture a metaphysical game of whack-a-mole.) As this sequencing progresses, and perceptual mastery is borne, habitual attentions begin to shift. Words like “routine” and “menial” give way to “variable” and “meaningful.” The less time and energy required for an individual to sustain an existence, the more favorable the conditions for them to flourish.

Strategies for identifying routine actions involve distancing oneself from them. Distancing inherently involves velocity (see: time) (see: space) and displacement. Traveling helps disrupt routines or forces the performance routines in new situations, which can highlight or make more obvious what is limiting about them. If traveling isn’t possible, time and space can still also be manipulated by varying the order, frequency and direction in which tasks are performed in their home environment. Writing, talking with a friend, and speaking into a voice recorder are other methods for distancing oneself from a situation and interpreting it in a new form.

The aforementioned “programming languages” are accompanied by mostly static manuals detailing the limited number functions and components the language possesses, which, when sequenced together strictly, can draw or manipulate query results; the real world is in flux, undefined, infinitely detailed, and incomprehensibly complex. But just as the database query and its corresponding functions may stifle the request for a webpage,—making it inefficient, less functional, and less likely to be used,—so do the minutiae of routine tasks preclude end states, and both are worth scrutiny.

By way of this process of translocating digital ideals to the physical plane, I’ve come to realize: Everything is kind of the same and reflects back what we see in it,—“If the doors of perception were cleansed…,”—and with each experience the apertures shrink or grow.

I was purposely ambiguous with this tweet about a week ago, to allow my pornbots followers to interpret it as they will, but want to elaborate because I think it makes for interesting discussion.

At face value, I am generally happier the less I know about the world. I purposely avoid as much news and media as I can because I often find myself distracted and dragged down by much of what goes down on planet earth these days.

When I’m able to tune out the white noise and instead hone in on what has the most meaning to me, I feel significantly more upbeat about life.

But another and more profound way to interpet my statement is this:

The less I think about what I know, the happier I am.

So this isn’t to say I don’t enjoy knowing or learning or trying new things. I do. I’m not a complete hermit.

But what it comes down to is putting myself in favorable positions to hit the ever so sweet state of flow.

In essence, I’m looking for opportunities to be so immersed in what I’m doing, that the activity and my actions become one. There becomes a lack of conscious thought during high level tasks, and it’s quite a blissful feeling.

For example, I like to ride my bicycle. Down really steep hills. Really fast. No hands.

This isn’t exactly a simple activity… a lot could go wrong. Maybe a rogue squirrel decides to camp out in my path. Maybe a car honks and spooks me. Maybe a gnat meets its untimely demise in my eye, temporarily impeding my vision.

If anything causes me to lose balance, I could fall and suffer some serious road rash (or worse injury). So this activity does require a certain knowledge about riding 2-wheeled vehicles down a steep incline.

The thing is I can’t really be thinking about balance and coordination as gravity is pulling me down the hill. If I were to be actively gauging my speed, angle, and trajectory, I’d be more likely to crash.

It’s almost a requirement for my conscious brain to shut off in order to perform this activity. It’s an experience more than anything.

And that’s the point I’m trying to make here. When I’m able to hit that sweet spot between challenge and skill, and I’m able to stop thinking so much, that’s when I feel the best.

Want to know the secret behind MJ’s skills? Clapton’s “slowhand”? Picaso’s brush?

If you think any of those individuals was born with a gift…you’re dead wrong.

Experts say that it takes 10,000 hours of dedicated practice until you can acquire mastery in one area of your life.

You can bet your ass those guys put in that much time (and then some).

10,000 hours equals nearly full 417 days… I think you better get started.

It’s easy to keep yourself busy… your mind focused on something… but knowing the right things to focus on is what separates those who succeed from those who fail.

For example, today I spent probably 2 or 3 hours making minor visual adjustments to this site. Is that really going to make a difference whether or not this site is a success?

Probably not.

Instead I could have spent those few hours writing posts… content is king, right?

I watched a video Eben Pagan gave about how he runs his business a few months back. He said to divvy up your time to the different areas of your business according to how important they are to bringing you money.

Here was his time breakdown:

40% Customer: Getting traffic, building relationships with your clients and other related business owners (basically bringing in new leads and interacting with them)

20% Conversion: In short, turn visitors into customers.

10% Content: Creating new materials for your people.

30% Management: This has to deal with time, people, and business management.

I guess I really should have been trying to get traffic to the site instead of writing posts or working on the design.

Getting traffic is probably the most difficult and tedious out of all those tasks for me to accomplish, but it should be my prime focus.

So while I did get work done on this site today… my time was disproportionately dispersed.

Focus can be applied to all areas of your life though, this website is just an example for you to see first hand.

If you want to get in shape, maybe you should focus more on your diet rather than just exercising…

…If you are in debt, don’t just focus on how to make more money, but how to spend less…

…If you are stressed, figure out how to prevent the stress from occurring in the first place rather than indulging to numb the feeling.

I think we naturally focus in on the wrong things because they much more superficial and easier to deal with than the actual causes of our problems. Realizing the right things to focus on and then actually follow through working on them is what leads the brave few to glory.

This is a paper I wrote for my philosophy class. The topic was “Where certainty is concerned, X is beyond human comprehension.” I chose perfection… please don’t try to start any philosophical debates with me because I know I’ll lose. :(

I. Introduction

The word perfection is thrown around quite often, but what exactly does perfection mean and is it humanly possible to fathom such an idea? The New Oxford American Dictionary defines perfection as “the condition, state, or quality of being free or as free as possible from all flaws or defects.” This interpretation in my opinion dances around the meaning of the word, as it defines it in terms of what is lacks, rather than what it encompasses. Other dictionaries define perfection similarly, declaring that it is a state of flawlessness. This in itself hints that perhaps perfection is unknowable if a tangible definition is unable to be construed. How is one to know whether or not something is free from all faults? Who is the authority on such matters?

In subjective terms, the individual can make claims to experiencing or knowing perfection, but these assertions can in no case be made with complete assurance. There are no objective examples of perfection, thus the individual has no basis for making claims of perfection; there are simply no known ideal objects or concepts for comparison. Without any concrete notion of perfection, it is impossible to know such an idea. It may be possible to understand representations or derivations of perfection, but where certainty is concerned, it is beyond human comprehension.

II. Analysis

I feel the philosopher John Locke would contend that certainty of perfection is well within the reaches of human comprehension. He argues that we come to know things through perception, reason and inference, memory, and testimony. While he does concede that each of these attributes are flawed, he states that when used in tandem they can yield certainty. Locke ranks perception as the most important of these factors leading to knowledge, followed by reason and memory which carry equal importance, and finally testimony. He conveniently chooses perception to be the foremost factor in this process as his theories are predominantly based upon empiricism.

Locke believes that the mind is a tabula rasa which organizes raw sense data by a “simple operation of the mind.” The aforementioned raw sense data is information derived from the senses. This organization of perceptions leads to ideas, which are in a sense written onto the tabula rasa and are available for access by one’s memory. Locke strengthens his claim to empiricism by denouncing Socrates’ idea of innatism, the idea that all knowledge has been with us since birth, through the examples of universal assent, children and idiots, and noble savages. In short, he asserts that what we know must be environmental; knowledge is a spatial experience.

With those principles in mind, I believe Locke would approach the idea of perfection in the following manner: certainty of perfection can be achieved through the application of the four ways in which we come to know things. To demonstrate Locke’s method, let’s take for example the perfect pizza. First and foremost, Locke would pose the questions “How do you perceive this pizza?” and “What are your senses telling you?” The subject would first look at the pizza and declare that in their mind, the pizza looks perfect; it is without any flaws. The subject would then take a bite of the pizza and feel as if the pizza could not possibly taste any better than it does. The crust is just the right texture, the cheese is cooked to a golden finish, and the sauce is spiced exquisitely; this is truly the food of the Gods.

With perception of perfection fulfilled, the subject would then be asked to use reason and inference to test their thoughts. The individual may then be exposed to another pizza that is not as appetizing. Maybe this pizza is too cold and the crust is burnt. With this lesser pizza available for comparison, the subject would then be able to infer that if the second pizza is not perfect, then the first pizza has the potential to be perfect. The individual could then strengthen their claim to knowledge by thinking back to past experiences. They may try to think if there has been a time when they were exposed to a better pizza. If they cannot, then their claim to perfection is warranted. The final way to solidify their claim would be to ask for outside testimony. They may offer a slice of their perfect pizza to a passer-by. If that person also agrees that the pizza is perfect, then the individual has a solid claim for certainty of perfection.

Immanuel Kant on the other hand I believe would be not as apt to allow for claims of certainty in regards to perfection. Kant is an advocate of the ding-an-sich, or the thing in itself. It is the idea that any object or idea is unknowable; only representations of it can be known. This philosophy is borrowed in part from Plato who coined the notions of the realms of being and of becoming, which Kant refers to as the noumenal and phenomenal realms. The phenomenal realm refers to that which is knowable and contains all that is perceivable by human senses, namely subjective representations of truth. The noumenal realm on the other hand is far more objective and is inclusive of ideals and certainty beyond human comprehension. Kant’s ding-an-sich resides in the noumenal realm, which is beyond human experience.

Kant philosophizes that these noumenal ideas vary in degrees of perfection and that the categories of understanding are what allow us to obtain knowledge about the world around us; to apprehend some semblance of the thing in itself. Knowledge of the world begins with the senses, but reason is what allows us to gain a fuller understanding of things than other people. The categories of understanding which allow for reasoning include quantity, quality, relation, and modality. These a priori aspects of knowledge can then be used to make a posteriori judgments, and thus form some order of representations.

Kant also acknowledges another way in which one can further their understanding of reality and that is through aesthetic experience. He says that by way of mediums such as art, good food, and music, that the individual is able to transcend empirical experience and gain an even further understanding of reality. It is a state of knowledge acquisition which is difficult to explain, as the individual uses an instrument above senses and reason to secure understanding. However, even with the combination of aesthetic experience and the categories of understanding, Kant claims that one can never know the ding-an-sich.

Once again using the example of the perfect pizza, I feel as though Kant may argue that the idea of pizza itself is an entity of perfection which resides in the noumenal realm. He seems to think that all ideas and objects that one perceives are merely representations of the idealness which an item posses. We may perceive a pizza to possess the quality of perfection, but because we can never know the ding-an-sich of a perfect pizza, this means we will never be certain in making such an assumption. What we consider to be a perfect pizza may actually be bad pizza in comparison to the idea of pizza that resides in the noumenal realm. Unfortunately, the thing in itself can never be known, therefore we will never know how close we are to experiencing perfection.

Aesthetic experience can give rise to an even greater understanding of perfection in the case of pizza, however. Food, along with art and music, is one of the few means which allow for a higher comprehension of reality. Beyond the use of categories of understanding for making judgments on what one may think to be the perfect pizza, the aesthetic event of consuming the pie yields knowledge surpassing that which could have been construed through senses and reason. This combination of apparatuses of the mind still falls short according to Kant, in reaching any certainty about idea of perfection; the most perfect form of an idea, the ding-an-sich, is unknowable.

III. Critique

I believe that perfection is an idea beyond human comprehension. My view is that without any objective notion of perfection, no claims of the concept can be undeniably withheld. As far as I know, there is no idea, concept, or object that is universally agreed upon as being perfect. Without any basis with which to make claims of perfection, any assertions of perfection are made with uncertainty. I acknowledge subjective claims of perfection to simply be derivations from the idea.

For example, in baseball when a pitcher throws a complete game without giving up a hit or walk, it is considered a perfect game. I feel that there are different levels of perfection that can be construed from this scenario. Let’s say three different pitchers all throw a perfect game; pitcher one throws the most strikeouts, pitcher two throws the least total pitches, and pitcher three receives a generous call from the umpire that preserves his perfect game. Even though by definition all three pitchers achieved the same perfection, the question could then be asked “did one player pitch a more perfect game than another?” The argument could be made that because pitcher three received a gratuitous call that his perfect game was not as perfect as pitcher one’s or two’s. There could also be debate or whether is it a more difficult task to throw more strikeouts or less total pitches in a game, which would question whether pitcher one or pitcher two pitched a more perfect game. There is no clear model to base perfection off of; there is only evidence that these pitchers reached some degree of perfection, as in relation to the normal pitching outing, they performed exceptionally well.

In this sense I am in agreement with the philosophy of Kant. I believe that we can only know representations of ideals. The ding-an-sich is something that can never quite be apparent to us, though we can get close to knowing it. We may be able to state that we eaten an incredibly good pizza, but we can never claim with certainty that we have eaten the perfect pizza; objects and ideas can only approach perfection. I also agree with him in that we use our senses for the basis of knowledge, but that reason plays a major part in giving credulity to what we constitute as fact, maybe even more-so than the senses. Without reason, we succumb to the fallacies associated with the senses. Because of how easily we can be deceived by the senses, I disagree with Locke on most of him assertions.

Locke bases his philosophy predominantly on something that is subjective and varies within each of us from time to time. If our senses could adequately be used to justify certainty, then there would be no need for math, science, or any type of research. I know Locke states that reason, memory, and testimony need to be used in conjunction with perception in order to obtain certainty, but he places much of his emphasis on the empirical portion of his postulate. Just because you may perceive of something as being perfect, that does not constitute validity.

I am also bothered by the fact that he considers perception to be a completely spatial experience and fails to acknowledge the aspect of time. Ideas of perfection undoubtedly change over time. If you were to declare a pizza perfect using Locke’s four criteria, but then try a different pizza a week later that surpasses the previous pizza in every way possible, what label do you now give each pizza? According the Locke, the original pizza would still be considered perfect; if it was once perfect, it is always perfect. If the second pizza is even better however, would it not also be considered perfect? You are now left with two perfect pizzas, one of which is superior to the other. This is an illogical dilemma that Locke’s philosophy fails to prevent. In conclusion, the objective and undefinable nature of the idea of perfection is what prevents it from being known with certainty.